Animation for certain Items (holding items etc.)

Hey,

so I got a few questions about animation and the character holding items in his hands. First of all the concept is the following, imagine a True FPS character. When you look down you see his hands, body, feet etc. all of that. The thing is I dont want him to show his hands like a usual FPS.

Now the thing is, imagine the character can hold the following items (random things) a spear, a gun (that is two handed) and finally just as an example a cup of coffee.

This question now is fairly general since I am still new to game development all in all.

Do you create animations for each item. So like an Idle animation for the Spear, a walking animation for when holding the Spear, then throwing the spear etc. ?
The same question for the other 2 items. Do you create an idle animation, walking, and so on?

For throwing and shooting things of course you need different animations. But when I already have a walking animation and basically now I want to hold the spear while walking, do I really create a complete new animation with the spear, or are there others systems like (just from my mind in theory) there are two points on the spear that via blueprint connect to two points withing the hand so it just goes with the animation?

This might sound very weird but its just a generell question I have about animations and different types of items when holding them. I hope some of you can give me some advice or tips on how to handle this type of animation.

Thanks a lot everyone!
Kind Regards
Cribbel

//EDIT: One more question maybe someone can answer on the go, what Frames per second do you recommend for normal animations? Nothing like slow motion (cause example Killing Floor 2 uses 200 Frames per second animations because of slow motion effects they use so it looks flawless) but for a normal game with mostly real time what Frames Per Second do you guys recommend in an animation. Thanks again! :slight_smile:

Hey Cribbel,

Usually when you want to attach an object to a character, you simply stick them to a joint (or a custom socket) inside the engine, rather than creating a separate animation for it. However, a walk cycle while holding a spear is obviously different than walking with empty hands. So you would still need a custom spear-walk-animation for your character that fits the specific weapon, but no additional animation for the weapon itself.

The workflow I like to use is to add attachment joints to both hands of my character rig in Maya. That way I can parent objects to them and they’ll stick to the hands, but I can still animate them independently if the held object needs an offset (for example to throw a spear).

As for the frame rate, in my experience most people stick to animating with 30 FPS, since few games run at 60 FPS anyway. And even if they do, the difference between an animation done with 30 FPS and one done with 60 FPS is barely visible to the untrained eye.

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Hey
alright thanks :slight_smile: That was exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks again! :slight_smile: