/godot-animation-player

Root motion, sequences, RESET

Root motion (physics sync)

Problem: Walk cycles move bones/skeleton but CharacterBody3D stays put — world collision does not follow.

Scene: CharacterBody3D → MeshInstance3D → Skeleton3D + AnimationPlayer

@onready var anim_player: AnimationPlayer = $AnimationPlayer

func _ready() -> void:
    anim_player.root_motion_track = NodePath("MeshInstance3D/Skeleton3D:root")
    anim_player.play("walk")

func _physics_process(delta: float) -> void:
    var root_motion_pos := anim_player.get_root_motion_position()
    var root_motion_rot := anim_player.get_root_motion_rotation()

    var transform := Transform3D(
        basis.rotated(basis.y, root_motion_rot.y),
        root_motion_pos
    )
    global_transform *= transform
    velocity = root_motion_pos / delta
    move_and_slide()

Full recipe: root_motion_physics_sync.gd.

WHY: Root motion belongs on the physics tick. speed_scale drifts over long sessions — for rhythm/multiplayer sync use seek() against a shared clock.

Sequences and blend times

# Await chain
anim.play("attack_1")
await anim.animation_finished
anim.play("attack_2")

# Or queue (no await)
anim.play("attack_1")
anim.queue("attack_2")
anim.queue("idle")

# Blend: play(name, custom_blend=-1, custom_speed=1.0, custom_fade=0.5)
anim.play("run", -1, 1.0, 0.5)
anim.set_default_blend_time(0.3)

Branching combos: animation_sequencer.gd.

RESET track

Without RESET, animated properties stick when scenes reload or libraries swap.

var reset_anim := Animation.new()
reset_anim.length = 0.01

var track := reset_anim.add_track(Animation.TYPE_VALUE)
reset_anim.track_set_path(track, "Sprite2D:position")
reset_anim.track_insert_key(track, 0.0, Vector2.ZERO)

anim_player.add_animation("RESET", reset_anim)
# Enable "Reset on Save" on AnimationPlayer in editor

Orchestration across many tracks: reset_track_orchestrator.gd.

Procedural generation

Runtime bounce / juice without baking FBX: programmatic_anim.gd, procedural_track_modifier.gd.

Shared libraries

Inject once, play library_name/clip_name:

anim_player.add_animation_library(&"shared_human", shared_library)
anim_player.play(&"shared_human/walk")

See runtime_anim_lib_swapper.gd. Never mutate a library while that library's clip is playing — stop first.

Budget / culling

Off-screen visual-only players: set active = false or manual advance() — active_animation_culler.gd.