Is it possible to dynamically change the mask applied to animation layers in Mecanim?

In the legacy system it was possible to add mixing transforms dynamically. Is it possible to do the same in Mecanim?
For example, suppose you had a full-body sword swipe anim. When the player is stationary, I want to play the animation wholesale i.e. on the whole body. When the player is running around, I just want to play the animation on the upper body only.
Can it be done? I haven't come across anything that suggests I can dynamically change the mask for an animation layer or would that not be the way to go?
Cheers.

 

No, it not possible to dynamically change the mask at runtime

 

Hi, this page on the manual could lead to some misinterpretation:

"Mask assets can be used in Animator Controllers, when specifying Animation Layers to apply masking at runtime, ..."
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-AvatarMask.html

What does that statement means in fact?

Just to note, as a workaround I have tried to change the active body parts of a mask at runtime (on LateUpdate function), but it seems to mess with the animator, loosing its reference after deactivating some body parts.

 

yup I agree this is not quite clear.
Mask asset can be used in your controller's layers when you build a controller. see image below

If you need to change the mask at runtime, then you should try to use the new playable API which has the AnimationLayerMixerPlayable

 

Hi, I am trying to assign AvatarMask in code, not at runtime. But it doesn't work, the newly created layer has no mask. the other layer parameters are correct. And srcBoneMask is not null. I'd really appreciate it if you can give me a hint? Thanks in advance.

srcAnimatorController.AddLayer(newLayerName);
AnimatorControllerLayer newLayer = srcAnimatorController.layers[srcAnimatorController.layers.Length - 1];
newLayer.defaultWeight =0f;
newLayer.blendingMode = AnimatorLayerBlendingMode.Override;
newLayer.iKPass = false;
newLayer.avatarMask = srcBoneMask;

 

Try putting

srcAnimatorController.layers[srcAnimatorController.layers.Length - 1] = newLayer;

at the end so it knows you have actually modified the layer.

If that doesn't work, try

srcAnimatorController.layers = srcAnimatorController.layers;

.

I definitely recommend the Playables API though. There's really no reason why this sort of thing should need to be locked in before runtime.

 

Thanks a lot, SilentSin. That method works like a charm.

 

is it possible to change the animation update frequency in Animancer. for example when a NPC is far away i only want to update its anim 5 times per second

sorry for posting the question here, I only know you seem to be the author of Animancer.

 

animancer.Playable.PauseGraph will prevent it from updating on its own, then you can call animancer.Evaluate(deltaTime) whenever you want.

 

great！

 

I'm instantiating a prefab animation controller at runtime. But the runtimeAnimationController doesn't seem to allow any addlayer command, or even access to the layers. How can I set an AvatarMask when I instantiate my animation controller at runtime?

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. animator = myParentObj.AddComponent<Animator>();
3. animator.runtimeAnimatorController = Resources.Load(animationContollerPaths[def.animationControllerID]) as RuntimeAnimatorController;
4. animator.avatar = myAvatar;
5.  
6. var b = agentDat.animator.layerCount;
7.  
8. // till here it works and animates.
9. // now i want to add code to animate the 'extra bones' availavble in both the model and the animations.
10.  
11. animator.AddLayer -> doesn't exist
12. animator.runtimeAnimationController.AddLayer -> doesn't exist
13. animator.AnimationController -> doesn't exist
14. animator.GetAnimationController -> doesn't exist
15.  

 

You can't. It's not possible to change the masks of an Animator Controller at runtime.

 

Ah, thanks. So then I'll try adding the avatarmask to the prefab of the animationcontroller which is set as runtimeAnimationController. In the prefab I see the layer with the mask set, but at runtime the new layer dissapears from the controller. Any idea what is happening?

 

That looks like two completely different Animator Controllers since the states are in different places.

 

Ah, yes, I had a depicated one lying around. Anyway, put it on the right one but extra bones won't actually animate unless I set the avatarmask directly in the import settings of each of the animation clips

 

If you want the ability to change layer masks at runtime, you can try out Animancer (link in my signature) or make your own system using the Playables API. Otherwise yeah, you'll have to come up with clunky manual workarounds to simple problems if you keep using Animator Controllers.

 

for me it is very important to be able to change the avatar mask layer for the animation controller because my weapons share the same transition logic but the weapons have a lot of extended bones so it is quite complicated to create multiple animaiton clones controller will be very difficult to manage them

 

maybe I'm stupid, but how are you using this code if not in runtime? Where do you write it?

 

but is it possible to do it in editor with code? How do you select the mask variable then?

 

var animatorController = animator.runtimeAnimatorController as UnityEditor.AnimatorController;

That gives you access to the Editor-only stuff.