A directable
character is a character
with an adobe arrow
that you can direct
to perform actions in your scene,
much like directing an actor on a set.
These directable characters have been trained
using hundreds of hours of mocap data,
along with machine learning algorithms,
so they can perform and move
in a natural and believable way.
Handling much of the animation
magic under the hood.
That means we do not need
individual animation assets
or precise movesets.
Traditionally,
if we wanted this character
to simply move over here,
we need to create
a handful of animations.
We need to create a looping, idle,
a transition to the walk,
a walking loop that covers
the exact distance.
We needed this character
to move
and a transition, back
out of walk into idle.
Creating those animations
the traditional way.
Although fun
can be a long and tedious process,
but with directable characters,
we do not need to do any of that.
We can just come down here
to Behavior Builder
and say, on start
we want to trigger a move to action and
let's create a pin to walk to
and I'll
move this pin
to where I needed her to walk.
And now
the character turns
and walks over to the pin.
Without creating any custom animations.
And that is pretty awesome stuff.
I could even have her run
by changing the speed
to three down here in the speed.
And lets preview it again.
And now she runs.
Now directable characters
can also use the play animation action.
You can see all the animations
they can play here in the animation
clip dropdown.
These are little one off
animations created
to help us tell our AR stories.
Directable characters
can also use the follow action.
This action can be used to have
the character follow
an object in the scene
or even follow the device the viewer
is looking through.
And lastly, the directable character
can use the path
move on Aero mobile,
allowing you to trace out a path
using the device
and the character will follow that path.
This is a super powerful way
to create animations for locomotion.
So let's put all this together
and build a quick AR experience.
Open a new scene
and name it whenever you like.
I'm going to name mine
driectable characters.
In the starter assets.
Navigate
to the directable characters folder.
Select Marion and wait for her to load.
Once loaded, select our character
and let's make sure she's at 000
by coming
over here and entering zero in the X,
zero in the
Y and zero in the z coordinates.
Now let's pull
in another directable character.
We'll use Clay this time.
Select Clay and move them to
x 26 y 0 and z 30.
Select Marion
and come down to the behavior builder
and we will add a tap trigger
by pressing the plus trigger button
and selecting tap.
Make sure we have Marion as the subject.
Press the plus action icon
and let's add a move to action.
In the subject
make sure Marion is selected.
Next to the location dropdown
press the plus icon and
add a pin.
With pin one selected type
in the following positions.
x 0 y 0 z 30.
Now let's add another action by pressing
the plus action button to the right here
and select play animation again.
Let's make sure the subject is Marion
and under the play
animation clip dropdown
select Point left 02.
Now come back in the behavior builder
and let's
add an animation for Clay
by pressing the plus icon here.
Select play animation. Under the subject
let's make sure we have Clay selected.
And in the animation clip dropdown
select Dance 01.
Since these animations are stacked,
we need to make sure we add a little delay
to Clay,
so Marion has time to point
before he starts his dance.
Let's add a 3 second delay here
by typing 3.
Now lets preview the scene.
Both characters are already looping
and when I tap Marion,
she walks up, points to Clay,
and he starts his dance. Super fun stuff.
Now, that is a quick overview
of a simple yet
powerful, directable characters
inside Aero.