Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill UDK Animation with Kismet and Matinee Visual Scripting

Previously We know some of the basics of level creation: –BSP and CSG –Placing static mesh actors –Lighting –Sound –Several miscellaneous other things So far everything is static –Lets do simple animations Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Kismet High order animation editor Anything you can do with this you can also do with Unrealscript –In the same way that C++ is higher than Assembly –Anything you can do in C++ you could also do in Assembly If you can do it with Kismet it will be easier than UnrealScript Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Classification The Unreal engine classifies actors A static mesh is unmovable –That makes it easier to render What we want now is to convert a static mesh into a Mover –A Mover can be moved by the animator All that is needed is to reclassify the item We do this with a right click Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Pictures In the next screen shots I have inserted a base and half of a blast door I will select the base Right click and convert to Mover Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Base and Door Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Base Selected Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Right Click Menu Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Collision Type We now set the collision type Select the base –If not already Use function F4 or Right Click and show the properties Open up Collision properties Select COLLIDE_BlockAll from Collision Type drop down This prevents player from walking through the mover Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Block_All Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Kismet Select the item in question, the base Kismet may be started with: –The K button on the toolbar –View menu and Kismet submenu Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

The K Button Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Kismet Has Started Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

A new event Right click in the blank Kismet editor Choose the new event with the Mover actor that was selected This gives the following two screens Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Choosing a New Event Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Resulting Graph Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Graph Explained This is a visual way to describe events and their actions A pawn is the player or other active agent To attach in this case is to stand upon This triggers the play action –Denoted by the arrow When this is done the Reverse action is triggered Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

What Do We Want? We want two animations: elevator moves up and elevator moves down This should be activated when the player stands on the platform This should be dependent on where the elevator is when we start Since the motion is straight line we only need to show the beginning and ending locations Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Next We open Matinee and setup two key frames We double click on the Matinee icon in the graph We should get this: Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Matinee Opens With Kismet Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Display is Time The main display is the time the animation will take You can drag this display left and right and see more or less of the times Notice the red triangles on the bottom Drag the right one to change animation length The black bar is the time for the current keyframe Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Time Bounds Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Selecting KeyFrame With Matinee in focus you hit enter This refers Matinee to the current state of the perspective window You should set (in Red) the name of the keyframe –Numbered from zero –It should also show a time On the first keyframe your perspective frame should be fine Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Next KeyFrame Move the black bar to the last keyframe and again hit enter Then return to the perspective view Move the actor to its new location Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Second KeyFrame Raised Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Commentary The yellow line in the previous picture is the path that the Mover will take We can now play our animation First hit the stop button and then the play Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Playing Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Triggers Under the Actor Class tab of the content browser and common are triggers A trigger can initiate an animation as well Triggers may be: –Hidden – they coincide with a static mesh –Not hidden – they appear as a switch One trigger may activate multiple animations Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Process Drag the trigger onto the level Set the properties, including sizing and positioning With the trigger selected start Kismet Select the trigger and then touch See next two slides Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Trigger On Mesh Sphere Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Creating an Event Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

This time Matinee does not automatically appear as it did before What you see is just the trigger Right click to make Matinee appear Drag the event to the Matinee play Matinee proceeds as normal Multiple matinees are allowed to animate multiple things The trigger and the animation do not need to be close Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Two Matinee Events Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Finally on Triggers Like before the meshes must be converted to movers They should have appropriate positions Many things will already have the collision type properly set Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Problems I could not this to animate on my Win 7 machine (AMD processor) –The metal base did not need a jump to get on, so it may have been a position problem –Or something completely different Worked fine on this one Could see no differences Hope the demo goes well Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill

Finally You are now ready to do a complete level Lets do the demo Copyright © 2015 Curt Hill