Dynamic Asset Selection

You can use a combination of Proxy, Proxy Table and Chooser Table assets to build dynamic asset selection logic, to drive animations based on variables in your project. For example, you can use Proxy and Proxy Table assets to select what kind of animation set should be loaded and used for your character, such as different weapon sets. Alternatively, you can use Chooser Tables to dynamically select individual animation assets, such as different hit reactions based on the location your character is hit, using contextual variables from your project.

You can use the following document to learn more about setting up a dynamic animation selection system in Unreal Engine.

Though this documentation focusses on using Choosers and Proxy Tables to select animation related assets such as Animation Sequences, Montages, or AnimInstance classes, the system itself is generic and can be used to select any type of Asset, Object, or Class.

Prerequisites

• Enable the Chooser plugin. Navigate in the Menu Bar to Edit > Plugins and locate Chooser in the Animation section, or use the Search Bar. Enable the plugin and restart the editor.

• Your project contains a set of animations you wish to dynamically select based on contextual situation at runtime. This could be unique cosmetic animation sets, relevant gameplay animations such as contextual animation sineros, or animation sets relevant to equipable items like weapons.

• Your project contains a functional Animation Blueprint, that you can build dynamic Animation selection logic in.

Set Up an Animation Selection System

Here you can read about how to set up an animation chooser system in your project to dynamically select hit reaction animation playback based on context in your project at runtime.

Create a Proxy Asset

A Proxy Asset is used to store the contextual information of which Proxy Table asset is active, and other relevant variables.

To create a Proxy Asset, use (+) Add in the Content Browser and navigate to Miscellaneous > Proxy Asset.

Create a Proxy Asset for each animation set you wish to dynamically select animations from to drive the character, such as an idle, walk, or run set.

After creating the Proxy Assets, open each to access their settings.

For each Proxy Asset, set the Type property to the animation asset type you are using, in this case AnimSequenceBase.

Set the Context Data property to the Animation Blueprint option by adding a new Index array using (+) Add, selecting Context Object Type Class option.

Expand the Index array's settings and set the Class property to use your Animation Blueprint, in this case ABP_Manny. Then ensure the Direction property is set to Read.

Animation Blueprint Set Up

After setting up your Proxy Asset, you must create a variable in your character's animation blueprint in order to store the active proxy table during runtime. To create this variable, open your characters Animation Blueprint and create a new Variable in the My Blueprint panel using (+) Add. Then set the Variable type to a Proxy Table Object Reference. After creating the variable, save and compile your Animation Blueprint.

The Proxy Table variable will be used in your animation graph by an Evaluate Proxy node, to determine the active Proxy Table at runtime.

Create Proxy Table Assets

A Proxy Table asset is used to store the animation assets sets, that can be dynamically selected at runtime. For example, one Proxy Table may store a character's Idle animations while another may store its Walking or Running animation set.

To create a Proxy Table asset, use (+) Add in the Content Browser and navigate to Miscellaneous > Proxy Table.

Create a Proxy Table asset for every contextual situation that a different animation set would be needed, such as locomotion animation sets for unarmed characters and characters holding a pistol or rifle.

After creating a Proxy Table asset, open the asset to access the Proxy Table's values.

In the ProxyTable, add an entry for each Proxy Asset using (+) Add Row and selecting asset. You can then assign the associated animation asset from the set using the Value Column.

In the following workflow example, a ProxyTable_Unarmed asset is assigned an Unarmed_Idle and an Unarmed_Walk animations to the respective ProxyAsset_Idle and ProxyAsset_Walk rows. Then in a ProxyTable_Pistol asset, the same Proxy Asset rows are assigned with a Pistol_Idle and Pistol_Walk animations respectively.

The Value column can also contain a Class reference, a Chooser Asset, or a Lookup Proxy for more dynamic animation selection systems.

Using Proxy Tables at Runtime

You can use Proxy Table assets at runtime using an Animation Node function on a Sequence Player node. To create a new function to select a Proxy Table asset, select the Sequence Player node, and add a new Function at the On Update binding.

Add an Evaluate Proxy node from the On Update node.

Then select the node and select the Proxy Asset in the Proxy property using the drop down.

Then promote the result to a Variable, and connect the output to the Sequence Player node.

You can then set the active Proxy Table asset on the Evaluate Proxy node using a variety of methods, such as a Chooser Table, to dynamically change the animation set driving the character.

Create a Chooser Table Asset

A chooser asset is used to store animation data sets that comprise of an animations various iterations, that can be selected and played back based on the context. For example, a chooser table may contain a set of hit reaction animations, with each entry being an animation that reacts based on a different part of the body being hit (arms, legs, chest, head), that can then be selected based on a contextual variable, such as the location of the hit.

To create a Chooser Table asset, use (+) Add in the Content Browser and navigate to Miscellaneous > Chooser Table.

After creating a Chooser Table, you can open the asset to access its properties.

Create a new Array element in the Context Data property using (+) Add and set the property to the Context Object Type Class option. Then expand the Index array, and set the Class property to your character's animation blueprint and ensure the Direction property is set to Read. You can then set the Output Object Type to the animation asset you are using. This workflow example is using Animation Sequences, so the AnimSequenceBase class option was selected.

In the Chooser Table panel, you can begin to add Columns, in order to set the Variables from the animation blueprint you wish to influence the selection process using the (+) Add Column button. After creating a Column, you can define which Variable from your Animation Blueprint can influence the selection, and the values or states of the variable that must be reached in order to select the Animation Sequence asset within each row.

In this workflow example, the boolean variable IsCrouching will select the MM_HangingIdle animation when the value is false, and will select the MM_Rifle_Walk_Left when the value is true. The MoveemntAngle Variable will select the MM_HangingIdle when the value is between -100 and 100, while the MM_Rilfe_Walk_Left animation will only be selected when the value is 0.0.

In order to drive the characters animations using this selection process, you must set your Proxy Table Entry to Evaluate Chooser and assign the Chooser Table asset.

Now the selected animation will change based both on the active Proxy Table asset and the selection made by the Chooser Table.

You can also use ChooserTables without ProxyTables using an Evaluate Chooser node in your animation blueprint graph or state machine.