Animation Blending, Anim Slots, and Animation Montages

Animation blending is the process of transitioning between multiple animations on a skeletal mesh as seamlessly as possible. You are already familiar with the techniques of animation blending because you created a Blend Spaces asset for the player character in Chapter 11, Blend Spaces 1D, Key Bindings, and State Machines. In this Blend Space, the character smoothly blends between the Idle, Walking, and Running animations. You will now extend this knowledge by exploring and implementing new additive techniques to combine the movement animations of the character with a throwing animation. Through the use of an Anim Slot, you will send the throwing animation to a set of upper body bones, and its children's bones, to allow movement and throwing animations to apply at the same time without negatively impacting the other. But first, let's talk more about Animation Montages.

Animation Montages are a very powerful asset that...