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Please take note! For mod developers working with Unreal Tournament 2003, this documentation is meant to be a starting point for your own explorations into UT2003, not a definitive guide. There will be differences between the documentation here and the product in your hands, and you may have to figure out quite a bit for yourself. Check out the Unreal Tournament 2003 page in the Unreal Powered area for links to community sites if you're having problems. UDN is a licensee support site, and cannot provide technical support or game-specific assistance to end users.
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AnimNotifies |
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Last updated by Vito Miliano (UdnStaff) for splitting into public and licensee documents. Original author was Nathaniel Brown (KungFuTheatreTeam).
Animation notifies are one of the most useful abilities of the Unreal Engine's animation system. Especially post-829, since their functionality has been expanded a great deal. They allow you to insert callbacks into an animation at a given frame in the sequence, which can perform a variety of tasks. Some examples are, but not limited to the following, AnimNotify_Script (calls a uscript function), AnimNotify_Sound (plays a sound), and AnimNotify_Effect (spawns an effect, with options for attaching it to a bone).
In this article I'll try to go over how they work, how to use them, what the different types do, and how to add new ones. Also I'll provide an example class, which should ease you into how to create new types.
Note: This article should be useful for both artists, and programmers.
The animation code (UnSkeletalMesh.cpp) checks for a notify in each frame for each sequence (in case of skeletal blended animation). If you want to disable a notify, a native function is provided; EnableChannelNotify() (this is pretty useful for instances of blended animation where you may not want the notify to be called). Each AnimNotify_* object has a Notify() function, this is where the magic is done. Each type just overrides this to add its unique functionality.
This is a relatively painless process; just go into the AnimationBrowser and select your mesh, and then the sequence you want to add a notify to. You'll see a box appear on the right panel of the browser window. It should say Animation. LOD, Mesh, Redigest, and Skin. Above that is a list of tabs, click on Notify. The item list should now just say Notify. If you click add and then new (not the button, just the text) you should be able to drop down a list of notify types you want to insert. You may have to adjust the box's size to fully see this. Once you have added your new notify type, then you need to type in the frame it should occur one (Note:. This is now displayed in frame numbers instead of time).
Below is a list of the various default notify types and what they do.
This notify generates an effect at the specified point in the animation, which can be either attached to a bone, spawned at a bone location, or spawned at the actors location, all of which can be offset by location and rotation.
| Variable | Description | DataType |
|---|
| EffectClass | Effect class type to spawn | Class (Actor) |
| Bone | Name of the bone to attach to, or spawn at (if any) | Name |
| OffsetLocation | Offset from the actor's location (or bone) | Vector |
| OffsetRotation | Offset from the actor's rotation (or bone) | Rotator |
| Attach | Whether or not to attach to the bone | Bool |
| Tag | Tag to use on the effect (for later destroying) | Name |
| DrawScale | Scale of the effect | Float |
| DrawScale3D | Axis scale of the effect | Vector |
DestroyEffect kills an effect created by AnimNotify_Effect. If an emitter is used you can opt to tell it to wait till all of the particles have died before being destroyed via bExpireParticles.
| Variable | Description | DataType |
|---|
| DestroyTag | Tag of the effect to destroy (set by AnimNotify_Effect) | Name |
| bExpireParticles | If effect is an emitter let all particle die before destroying | Bool |
A simple notify that plays a sound at the specified frame.
| Variable | Description | DataType |
|---|
| Sound | Name of the sound to be played | Sound |
| Volume | Volume of the sound | Float |
| Radius | Radius of the sound | Int |
The classic AnimNotify, this calls an UnrealScript function at the specified frame.
| Variable | Description | DataType |
|---|
| NotifyName | Name of the script function to call | Name |
This useful notify is for easy creation of new notifies that don't require c++ code.
It has an Unrealscript event that gets fired at the appropriate frame, this allows for easy extensions. AnimNotify_Trigger is a good example of this.
| Variable | Description | DataType |
|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
MatSubAction allows you to add a matinee subaction at a specific point in an animation. This could be extremely useful for triggering camera positions by gestures, or adding specific CameraEffects such as motion blur at a key point.
| Variable | Description | DataType |
|---|
| SubAction | Matinee subaction to perform | MatSubAction (editinline) |
This notify simply calls the Trigger() method of an actor whose Tag matches EventName.
| Variable | Description | DataType |
|---|
| EventName | Name of the actor's tag that you wish to trigger | Name |
Found in MakingNewAnimNotifies, for licensees only!
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