Groove Animator is a custom keyframe player that works much like Roblox’s Animator class. It is totally virtual, so no instances are required for it to run, and it can be manually stepped, giving you full power over your animation playback. There’s also no CDN required to play the animations!
Keyframe Flexibility: Supports custom sequences and binary storage for fast loading.
Custom Easing: Extendable easing styles for tailored animation curves.
Roblox-Friendly: Integrates naturally with Roblox rigs and workflows.
Example Usage:
local GrooveAnimator = require(game.ReplicatedStorage.GrooveAnimator)
-- Source rig
local rig = script.Parent.Rig
-- Create and play a track from an existing KeyframeSequence
local grooveTrack = GrooveAnimator.newTrack(GrooveAnimator:ImportKeyframeSequence(rig.AnimSaves["Bounce"]))
grooveTrack:Play()
-- Set up a controller
local grooveController = GrooveAnimator.newController()
grooveController:AddTrack(grooveTrack)
-- Attach the rig for automatic updates
local grooveRig = grooveController:AttachRig(rig)
-- Step animations each frame
game:GetService("RunService").Heartbeat:Connect(function(deltaTime)
grooveController:Step(deltaTime)
end)
Performance:
Stepping the poses of an R6 character (7 poses per keyframe) takes just over 0.02 ms:
Using the rig utility to visualize the animation doubles the computation time required, coming in at just under 0.04 ms:
Get it here:
Hey thanks for the feedback! I can certainly get some performance stats. LOD’s is beyond the scope of this, at least for right now. In its current state, this animator is designed to be generic such that it must be manually stepped.
In the examples provided, it is stepping on Heartbeat and automatically updating the attached Rigs every frame. For my personal project though, I am using this to update a virtual rig, that is then composited with a Rig managed by a Roblox AnimationController. Things like these make an automatic LOD system a bit hard to create–every game may want to LOD differently.
would be awesome if this could be used in game. playing animations from keyframe sequences would be amazing, no more transferring animations from group to group
I’m curious why does it require to be run in studio without having a character? Some technical limitation?
The example project requires you play with Run mode (F8) because it requires the module from server scripts. If you want to play the keyframe sequences on the client, then just simply do it with a local script or Client context script.
If the model which a client is animating has physics which are owned by that client, it should replicate like it does with standard Roblox animations, since it’s just transforming the Motors/bones.
Added some updates:
1.0.1 - Fixed some issues with calling :Stop() and :Play() on tracks back-to-back, preventing the track from correctly stopping/starting
1.0.2 - Added a simple buffer encoder/decoder so that animations can be stored as a string and stored in inside modules.
I have issues using it in client context too, despite lots of WaitForChild. I’m using it in a Client runcontext script in workspace, and unless I add a wait it simply doesn’t play upon launching and I am not sure why. Is there some sort of loaded event I should be waiting on?
Additionally, is it possible to set the time position and get the world space CFrame of a posed limb easily? I’m looking to use this script because it’s not very easy with default animations, and I want to preload effect positions before I play the animation.
This script is really invaluable with netcode work!
Care to share your project? Without being able to see it, I wouldn’t know.
There is not currently a nice way to get world space CFrame transforms. Since Groove Animator is pretty virtual, it only cares about the minimum objects required to playback Roblox keyframe sequences. Bone length is not something that is stored, so computing a world space position for a given pose requires knowing about the rig.
I thought of some API enhancements that work well for this task:
groove_controller:ComputeAncestorPoses(pose_name) -- Returns a list of GroovePose objects that ancestor the given pose. Given in ascending order of relative closeness
groove_rig:ComputeWorldPoseTransform(pose_name) -- Returns the world-space transform of the given pose relative to its bound Rig.
Example I came up with:
local GrooveAnimator = require(game.ReplicatedStorage:WaitForChild("GrooveAnimator"))
local Gizmos = require(game.ReplicatedStorage.Gizmos)
-- Import sequence
local sequence = GrooveAnimator:ImportKeyframeSequence(workspace.TestModel.AnimSaves.TestSequence)
-- Create new animator
local groove_animator = GrooveAnimator.newController()
-- Prepare track
local groove_track = GrooveAnimator.newTrack(sequence)
groove_animator:AddTrack(groove_track)
groove_track:Play()
-- Attach rig
local rig = groove_animator:AttachRig(workspace.TestModel)
rig.Animatable = false
-- Step animations
local output_map: {[string]: CFrame} = {}
game:GetService("RunService").Heartbeat:Connect(function(dt)
groove_animator:Step(dt, output_map)
-- Draw a point at the poses world transform
local animated_offset = rig:ComputeWorldPoseTransform("Ball3")
Gizmos:DrawPoint(animated_offset.Position, 1)
end)
This example looks like:
If you wish to adapt this to be used without a GrooveRig, I would suggest forking this function and putting it in your own utility:
ComputeWorldPoseTransform = function(self: GrooveRig, pose_name: string)
local scale = rig:GetScale()
local poses = controller:ComputeAncestorPoses(pose_name)
local function getTransform(bone_name: string)
local parent_transform = transform_scale(lastTransforms[bone_name] or CFrame.identity, scale)
local motor = part_name_to_motor_map[bone_name] :: Motor6D
if ( not motor ) then
return CFrame.identity
end
local motor_transform = motor.C0
return motor_transform * parent_transform
end
local transform = CFrame.identity
for _,v in poses do
transform = getTransform(v.Name) * transform
end
transform = transform * getTransform(pose_name)
return rig:GetPivot() * transform
end
EDIT. I also added an “Animatable” property to GrooveRig (default true), where if set to false it will no longer automatically update the motors upon animation step. (Updated above example)
That’s great! I’ll be sure to test that new feature out when I can. It’ll be handy to have a frame perfect world position to position smears correctly.
Here’s a little demo place to explain the aformentioned issue. It doesn’t use any code you haven’t written! groove test.rbxl (114.8 KB)
Because you are accessing a server-sided instance from the client, when you are attaching a rig to it, not all the instances are yet streamed in.
For my usage, all my character models are client sided. This is more work upfront, but I find that splitting your game up with a loose MVC pattern, is the best in the long run. In this context, the server is responsible for the data and controller of the data, the client receives updates about the data, and can “view” the data. i.e. I create character models on the client to represent character data stored on the server.
If you wish to use server-sided characters, and wait for them to be fully streamed to the client, you can either:
Ensure your rig is fully loaded before you attach a groove animator instance to it
or
Toggle ModelStreamingMode to Atomic. This will ensure that the model is not parented in to workspace until all of its descendants are ready to be loaded in.
Ah- of course! There’s always a hidden caveat somewhere with streaming! I hadn’t planned on server sided characters, but thanks for taking a look anyway.
Is there a reason functions like :ImportKeyframeSequence take GrooveAnimator as an argument? Isn’t it a static method?
Additionally, Groove doesn’t seem to play nicely with constant/none tween bones. I’ll attach a demo file to demonstrate. groove anim test 2.rbxl (101.7 KB)
ReplicatedStorage has the client script. The animations work fine in the built in animation editor, with or without the extra effect part bones. No issue with Moon, which I animated it in either. Works completely fine if I load it as an Animation and step it manually with TimePosition. On the actual model, only “idle” works without issue, punchlight1 looks very strange. It seems to be tweening things I deliberately chose not to tween.
My final question is if it’s possible to step to an exact time e.g. step to exactly 0.5 TimePosition? With a regular track, I’d just do .TimePosition (and that is how I am animating currently). Would that be just a matter of just finding the position we are stepped to, then stepping either plus or minus to the right spot?
Thank you for the direction! I’ll have to try that and make sure my demo didn’t have issues. This slots well in my code too.
As a reply to 1, I don’t mean to sound unappreciative but it’s against most style guidelines and honestly led me to code mistakes trying to call it without the colon syntax. Iny my opinion, it is better to stick to colon syntax where self is a necessary argument, or you’re passing extra args you don’t need.
Really great to see this project filling in for Roblox deficiencies.
