Animation Clip Editor Update: Better Authoring & Playback!

[NeoShr3dder]

Hello Creators,

We’re excited to announce an update to the Animation Clip Editor (ACE) that directly addresses a long-standing issue: the discrepancy between how animations appear in Studio and how they play in-game. Thank you to the creators who reported this issue; your feedback helped us prioritize this change.

The Problem This Solves

For a while now, many of you have reported inconsistencies between the animations you author in the ACE and how they appear at runtime. This has caused frustration and extra work, especially with complex rotations and character scaling.

Why did this happen? The editor and the engine were using two different systems for evaluating keyframes and curves. This led to subtle but noticeable differences, like the jarring “bounce” from Auto Tangent keyframes, and inconsistent 180-degree rotations between in-game evaluation and what creators saw in the ACE.

What’s Changing

In Studio, we will enable the ACE to use the same keyframe and curve evaluation method as the engine. This means what you see in the editor is now an accurate representation of what will happen in your game.

• Consistent Animation Playback: No more surprises! Animations will play back identically in the ACE and in-game, creating a more reliable workflow.

Accurate Curve Interpolation: We have corrected the behavior of cubic interpolation. Previously, the ACE and the engine handled Ease In and Ease Out differently, sometimes inverting the intended behavior at runtime. This update aligns both the editor and the engine to use consistent interpolation, ensuring what you author is what you get.

Showing the problem and the fix:

We’ve resolved an issue where the Animation Clip Editor (ACE) showed a different rotation than the game engine for 180-degree keyframes.

• The Old Behavior: Previously, when you created a rotation from 0 to 180 degrees, the ACE would visually display it as a 0 to -180 degree rotation. This created confusion and required workarounds to ensure the animation played as intended in-game.
• The New Behavior: With this update, the visual rotation in the ACE now correctly matches the in-game behavior. While the Rotation.Z UI box may still display -180, the actual rotation will be consistent, ranging from 0 to 180 degrees, in both the editor and your live game.

Before: What the animation looks like before the ACE uses the engine animator, where the rotation is going from 0 to -180 in the ACE.

After: What the animation looks like after the ACE uses the engine animator, where the keyframe rotation is going from 0 to 180 (matches in-game) in the ACE.

In-Game (no change): What the animation looks like in-game, where the keyframe rotation is going from 0 to 180 degrees.

Potential Side Effects

While this is a major improvement, there are a couple of things to be aware of. Here’s what was happening before and what’s happening now:

• Before the Update: If you selected Ease In in the ACE, it would play as an Ease Out in-game. Conversely, selecting Ease Out in the editor would play as Ease In in-game. Many of you had to use this workaround to get the desired result.
• After the Update: The editor and engine now behave identically. This provides a single, consistent, and correct behavior across the board. However, if you have a legacy asset that is using the older Cubic V1 interpolation mode:
  • For legacy assets using Cubic V1: If you selected Ease In , it will now play as Ease Out both in the ACE and in-game. We made this decision to keep your existing animations untouched.
  • For new animations using Cubic V2: Selecting Ease In will play as Ease In in both the ACE and in-game, and Ease Out will play as Ease Out.
• Scaled Avatars: If you load a previously created animation on a scaled avatar (e.g., a character with a 0% Body Type), it may appear to shift. This is the new, correct behavior. You may need to adjust the rig in the ACE to fix this.

FAQ

1. Does this change affect my existing in-game animations? No, this update only affects the authoring experience in Studio. All of your existing animations will continue to work exactly as they do today.
2. Will this fix all animation discrepancies? This update solves the core inconsistency between the editor and the engine’s animation systems. We believe it will resolve many of the reported issues related to playback differences, including the problems with body types, 180-degree rotations, and Auto Tangent.
3. What should I do if my animations look different now? If you notice a change, it’s likely due to the corrected interpolation behavior or scaled avatar issue. You’ll need to make a small adjustment in the editor to align the animation with the new, correct behavior.

This update will make your animation workflows smoother and more predictable. We look forward to your feedback and can’t wait to see what you create!

[airilauz (AlexLikesTrains)]

Looks great Animation Fans! Looking forward to see you make animations!

[drewbluewasabi (Drew)]

Will this fix the discrepancy with the ‘constant’ easing style?

[Reditect]

More animation updates please!

The playhead can be finicky and I’m sure there’s a whole bunch people want to see. I’ve personally found it difficult to find someone who works on animation stuff, specifically the editor (or I guess it’s called ACE), so maybe this gets the ball rolling.

Lots of feature requests and bug reports.

[Voidage]

glad to see this update. would be cool if next you could fix the problem where after using the editor for a while, when clicking a limb to rotate/move, the draggers will just not show up, requiring you to restart the editor

[EuphorianDash]

holy ####, I can finally achieve inner peace

[perf6_gamez (perf6)]

Yes. Just yes. All i can say is yes.

[GunsForGuns34]

Now all we are missing is more interpolation modes like sine (please add sine)

[PysephDEV (Pyseph)]

Will this allow for more easing styles to be added? Currently, animation editors such as Moon Animator add support for more easing styles by spamming Constant keyframes each frame, which completely eats up at memory. Adding more easing styles would greatly optimize memory usage!

[JoshuaWG21 (HisenBear)]

Please more animation editor updates, its one of the most buggy things in studio and needs more attention.

[CheezBoy27 (CheezBoy)]

YAY! Now when a cutscene character touches an object in studio it will line up!

Are there plans to performantly animate static studio parts and meshes without needing an animation controller or humanoid instance?

[crusherfire]

So, this update fixed the issues with auto-tangent keyframes that were shared in this post?

Auto Tangent not behaving properly in-game (Curve Editor breaks animation in-game)

Update: the issue seems to be that the Auto Tangent doesn’t work properly in-game. The curve the Auto Tangent generates in the editor is not saved, and is therefore a different curve when playing the animation in-game. Original Post: Hello, I’ve made an animation using the Roblox Curve Editor. Unfortunately, it seems that when played in-game, the animations completely break. No, there aren’t any overlapping animations, the animation priority has been set to Action4 (and no other animations h…

[nebulimity]

Yes, it actually does. Tbh I thought this would never get fixed

[crusherfire]

Now this is epic. Thanks for confirming

[Mauio64 (Mauio)]

This doesn’t appear to be fixed. My curve anim is still wildly different ingame vs. in Studio:

Look at how the arms just snap into place ingame. Giant waste of time realizing that this is a curve animation issue.

[crusherfire]

I don’t see any issues in your video. I watched playback at 0.5x speed, and the animations look identical.

[CheezBoy27 (CheezBoy)]

He clips into the floor faster in the first one. You’ll notice in the second he has time to fold his arms up before he goes down.