Play character animations

Playing character animations is an important part of what makes avatars and non-playable characters (NPCs) expressive, realistic, and engaging to your audience. In addition to providing immersive visuals, character animations provide players feedback from their actions, guidance on how to navigate the environment, and vital information about their character and others.

Using the Hazardous Space Station .rbxl file as a reference, this tutorial shows you how to play character animations using two different techniques, including guidance on:

• Swapping default character animation assetIDs with your own custom animations.
• Triggering animations in response to character actions within the 3D space.

After you complete this tutorial, you will have the skills to customize animations for a wide variety of gameplay situations.

Change default animations

Every character with a default Humanoid object, whether it's a player-controlled avatar or a non-player character (NPC), includes a set of default animations that play whenever the character performs specific in-experience actions, such as running, climbing, and jumping. Roblox provides these animations out-of-the-box for every experience without any additional scripting effort.

However, if these default animations don't meet the design requirements for your world's environment, aesthetic, or overall narrative, you can swap them out with custom animations that apply to every player that joins your experience. This game design technique can help your characters and experiences feel more personal, engaging, and immersive.

To demonstrate, the following section teaches you how to swap out the default walk animation with a custom walk cycle animation from Create Character Animations. Using this same process, you can swap out any of the default animations with your own animation assetIDs.

Create script

Every character's Humanoid object includes a child Animator object that stores all of the character's default animations. In order to set any of these default animations to new assetIDs, you must create a script in the Class.ServiceScriptService so that it can reference and override the Animator object's default values as soon as players load into the experience.

To create a script that will reference the default animation assetIDs:

1. In the Explorer window, add a new script to ServerScriptService.

   1. Hover over ServerScriptService and click the ⊕ button.
   2. From the contextual menu, insert a Script.

2. In the new script, paste the following code:

   local Players = game:GetService("Players")
   
   local function onCharacterAdded(character)
       local humanoid = character:WaitForChild("Humanoid")
       local animator = humanoid:WaitForChild("Animator")
       print("Animator found!")
   
   local function onPlayerAdded(player)
       player.CharacterAdded:Connect(onCharacterAdded)
   end
   
   Players.PlayerAdded:Connect(onPlayerAdded)

Replace assetID

Now that you know your script is able to detect when players load and connect to the server, you can modify your script to specifically reference the animation id(s) you want to swap with your own custom animations.

The following table contains all of the default character animations that you can call and replace within the Animator object. Note that Idle has two variations that you can program to play more or less frequently.

To replace the default walk animation assetID:

1. Call the default walk animate script reference, then replace the assetID with your own custom animation assetID. For example, the following code sample references the walk cycle animation from Create Character Animations.

   local Players = game:GetService("Players")
   
   local function onCharacterAdded(character)
       local humanoid = character:WaitForChild("Humanoid")
       local animator = humanoid:WaitForChild("Animator")
       print("Animator found!")
   
       local animateScript = character:WaitForChild("Animate")
       animateScript.walk.WalkAnim.AnimationId = "rbxassetid://122652394532816"
   
   local function onPlayerAdded(player)
       player.CharacterAdded:Connect(onCharacterAdded)
   end
   
   Players.PlayerAdded:Connect(onPlayerAdded)

2. Playtest your experience to ensure your custom walk animation overrides the default animation.

   1. In the toolbar, click the Play button. Studio enters playtest mode.

      

   2. Walk around the space station with your avatar.

Trigger animations

While the previous technique focuses on swapping out default animations that automatically play whenever a character performs specific in-experience actions, you can programmatically trigger animations to play in response to any character action within the 3D space, such as picking up an item or taking damage from a hazard.

This method of playing animations is useful because it provides players instantaneous feedback on how they should interact with objects in their environment. To demonstrate, the following section shows you how to trigger an animation whenever characters are too close to hazardous steam leaks as a way of subtly teaching players to avoid walking too close to the walls.

Insert volume

One of the most common ways to trigger unique gameplay behavior is to use volumes, or invisible regions within the 3D space, to detect when characters or objects interact with specific areas of the environment. When you pair volumes with scripts, you can use their collision feedback to programmatically trigger actions, such as reducing the player's health or playing an animation.

When adding a volume to your experience, it's important to scale it so that it only covers the space that you want to trigger your animation. If you make your volume too small, players may never collide with the area to play the animation; conversely, if you make your volume too large, the animation will play before players reach the item or area of interest, and they may not understand what they did to trigger the animation.

To insert a volume around a steam leak that will trigger an animation:

1. In the Explorer window, add a new block part.
2. Position and resize the block until it covers the area that you want to trigger your animation.
3. In the Properties window,

   1. Set Name to AnimationDetector.

   2. Set Transparency to 1 to make the block invisible.

      

Create script

Now that you have a defined region for triggering your animation, it's time to create a script that programmatically detects whenever players collide with the volume. You can then listen for collision events to trigger any animation that makes sense for your gameplay requirements.

For example, this animation technique uses a LocalScript instead of a Script to provide players immediate feedback when they collide with the volume. If the server were to listen for the collision and play the animation, there could be a delay between the player touching the volume on their client and seeing the animation play because of the replication time from the server to the client.

To create a local script that will detect when the local player's character touches the volume:

1. In the Explorer window, add a new script to StarterCharacterScripts. This placement ensures the script and its children clone into the player character on join and when they respawn back into the experience.

   1. Expand StarterPlayer, then hover over its StarterCharacterScripts child and click the ⊕ button.
   2. From the contextual menu, insert a LocalScript and rename it TriggerAnimation.

2. In the new script, paste the following code:

   local Workspace = game:GetService("Workspace")
   
   local animation = script:WaitForChild("Animation")
   local humanoid = script.Parent:WaitForChild("Humanoid")
   local animator = humanoid:WaitForChild("Animator")
   local animationTrack = animator:LoadAnimation(animation)
   local animationDetector = Workspace:WaitForChild("AnimationDetector")
   
   local debounce = false
   
   animationDetector.Touched:Connect(function(hit)
       if debounce then 
    	   return
       end
    
       local hitCharacter = hit:FindFirstAncestorWhichIsA("Model")
       if hitCharacter ~= localCharacter then
    	   return
       end
   
       debounce = true
       animationTrack:Play()
       animationTrack.Ended:Wait()
       debounce = false
   end)

Add animation

If you were to playtest your experience right now, your TriggerAnimation script still wouldn't be able to play an animation in response to the local player-volume collision. This is because it's waiting for a child Animation object with an animation assetID it can reference, and that Animation object doesn't currently exist.

To add an animation for the local script to reference as players collide with the volume:

1. In the Explorer window, add a new animation to TriggerAnimation.

   1. Hover over TriggerAnimation and click the ⊕ button.
   2. From the contextual menu, insert an Animation.

2. Select the new animation object, then in the Properties window, set AnimationID to the animation assetID you want to trigger when players touch the volume. For example, the Hazardous Space Station sample references rbxassetid://3716468774 to play an animation of a character falling backwards.

3. Playtest your experience to ensure your animation plays when players are near the first steam leak.