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Version: 1.0.0

Using Interact Animation

Create Interact Animation​

To create an Interact Animation ability, right-click in the Content Browser and select TwistedBytes | Abilities | Interact Animation 1 as shown in the image below.

Create Interact Animation Ability

Setup Player Character​

Open the ThirdPersonCharacter Blueprint and select 1 TBIA Interaction Component in the Components tab. In the Details tab, add your Interact Animation ability to the Granted Abilities property 2 as shown in the image below.

Grant Animation Ability

Setup Montage​

Open a montage you want to play during an interaction. We now want to add three montage sections which will be used by our Interact Animation ability.

  1. Create a new montage section, name it Pre-Interact, and set it to the beginning of the montage 1.
  2. Create second new montage section, name it Interact, and set it to the frame that you want to start the looped animation on 2.
  3. Create third new montage section, name it Post-Interact. This section marks the end of the looped animation 3. It will jumped to when an interaction loop ends. Make sure to set the looping montage section to loop 4 as shown in the image below.

Montage Sections

Open Interact Animation ability. Here you are able to specify the section names that should be used for each animation event.

  • The start section 1 when an interaction starts.
  • The looping section the animation montage will jump from 2.
  • The last section 3 the animation montage will jump to when the loop ends.

In our example we used the default section name value on purpose to make it easy to follow but, of course, you are totally free to choose you own section names. Just make sure that the montage section names match in both your montages and Interact Animation ability.

Also make sure that Replicate Primary Montage is enabled 4.

Animation Settings

Interactable Actor​

Duplicate GasActorBase to showcase the new Interaction type and customize it to differentiate it from the other actor, Go to Get Interaction Context set the new montage 1 to the Primary Mesh Montage check 2 Wait For Input Trigger to true, set Interaction duration 3 to 3.0 seconds and the Animation Loop Duration 4 to 2.8 seconds.

Interaction Context

Place the new GasActorBase in the world 1 and press Play in the Unreal Editor. Then, interact with the new actor. You should now see the new montage is playing as long as you are holding down the interaction key for 3 seconds while it is also looping in the section that you specified.

Play