Does anyone know how to make turning animations for a third person control?

Question

I’m planning to work on a first person shooter but, I also want to ensure that their is an optional third person feature. I already have access tutorials that can teach me how to make a third person controller and some of these tutorials deal with the issue of animations for the most part.
That said, I haven’t seen any tutorials on how to animate a character that is turning around while otherwise standing in one spot. I know it’s possible as I’ve seen it games like KillSwitch and some of the Serious Sam games. Does anyone know where I can find such a resource? It would be greatly appreciated.

Anarchy

Answer 1

You can use AnimationTree to do animation blending of just the upper body parts.

For example,
-One loop animation of aiming a gun forward while walking. (animation of legs and upper body bones)
-One single frame of aiming a gun to the left. (animate upper body bones)
-In AnimationTree you can blend that single to the loop animation by selecting upper body bones only. Your legs would still be in walking loop while upper body would be aiming to the left.

I made a quick guide here (Godot4beta1)
https://mcmap.net/q/2027/godot-gd4-using-animationtree-to-blend-animations

Criticaster

Answer 2

I do plan to use the animationtree but, the problem I have has to do with a character turning on the spot as oppose to a character that is turning while moving. In a lot of old action games, having a character that turns on the spot makes them look like they're sliding in a circle almost like a spinning top; I want to find away to avoid that with animations.

Anarchy

Answer 3

I want to find away to avoid that with animations.

If I understood the question correctly, it can be done by selecting animations. First, the character turns his head (looking in the direction where he is going to turn), then the turn itself begins — he turns the upper part of the body (shoulder girdle), continuing to move in the same direction, and finally he turns the lower part (pelvis and hips). And it is desirable to take inertia into account. If the character is moving fast (running), then everything happens faster than when walking and the inertia is greater. That is, you need a lot of different animations for different situations and the right choice. A lot of work. For this reason, realistic turns are quite rare in games.

Angloirish

Answer 4

True; the biggest challenge I'm concerned about is the animations for the legs, when the character turn around on the spot. When I try to study the why I turn around on the spot,I don't know to what extend I'll have to use code or animation to solve this problem with a third person controller. I'm going to go and play some games to see if they do what I'm talking about and then I'll bring them up later.

Edit:
Wow...it seems I don't have any game available that have the feature I'm taking about right now. I thought games like Killswitch had it but, I don't have that game on me. There is gameplay footage of that game but, it would be difficult to spot that feature.

Anarchy

Answer 5

True; the biggest challenge I'm concerned about is the animations for the legs, when the character turn around on the spot.

Yep, it's a big problem to stitch animations smoothly. When you have to combine the rotation animation with the actual rotation of the model.

I thought games like Killswitch

I watched the gameplay video and my impression is that they didn't bother much with the leg turning animation. But there really are separate turns and control of the upper torso (mouse look) and the pelvis-legs (direction of movement). It's a relatively cheap way to be acceptable in most implementations.

Angloirish