Animations need more than 4 levels of priority

As Roblox games grow in complexity, animations become more and more essential to try to cross that uncanny valley to try to become realistic. One big problem developers run into when trying to create complex characters are animations. Animations have a massive impact and Roblox’s animation system has remained mostly unchanged since they first were introduced, and we’re starting to reach the limit of what they currently can do. Right now, you have 4 animation priorities: Core, Idle, Movement and Action.

Often 4 levels of animation priority can be enough, but default animations are using Idle and Movement priority, which leaves developers only with the Action priority over movement. If a developer wants multiple layers of animation, like for example a soldier using default walking animation but holding a gun. Changing character states like ADS while reloading etc would mess up because you would need to play two animations at the same time, where one needs to take priority over the other, and not be cancelled by the other (here, Reloading needs to continue even if the gun-holding animation changes).

A lot of developers make their own animation systems so they can handle smooth animations and transitions themselves, but as according to zeuxcg himself, they are not recommended:

More features to the animations in general would be nice, and more priorities to work with would be a nice place as I keep running into animation priority issues where I have to come up with hacky compromises that have unwanted biproducts like awkward animation transitions. Having more priority levels would allow me to make more in-depth and complex characters that can handle multiple states at the same time much better than they currently can.

17 Likes

A post was merged into an existing topic: Roblox should allow more than 4 priorities for animations