Not sure how to combine 3 possible animations in a character

Essentially my goal here is to have a character who can:

  • Run around (from a Stand/Walk/Run blendspace)
  • Swing a sword
  • Raise his shield
  • Do any combination of the previous 3

So lets say he’s running and I press Shift and he raises his shield, while still running. Then, if I also LMB click he will stab around his shield (which is still being held / shift is still pressed).

If I import an animation of just one arm raising a shield, another animation of just the other arm making a stabbing motion, and then a final one of his waist + legs running will that be enough?

I guess the meat of the question is what type of Persona blueprint can handle combining them better; do I set up a state machine with a state for each possible combination, or do I set up a blend based on some variables that feed into the anim BP? (Sort of like “ShieldIsRaised = True” then it would blend that arm animation into the final)

I would love to get some insight into this before I spend X amount of time to realize I did it in an inefficient way and start kicking myself.

Hi

personally I consider Stand/walk/Run as the main motion which is always running that can be done by a simple blend space.

and every other animations which are fired via input keys are as animation montages.

you can blend an animation montage with the main motion using layer blend per bone which enables your character’s legs to move independent of the other animations related to its upper body bones .

finally you will have a character who can move and swing a sword all in the same time and smoothly.