Game animation integration

Start with the approved rig, runtime export and clip manifest. Inspect the existing animation player and movement authority before replacing anything. Confirm forward/up axes, scale, bone paths, import type, bind pose, clips, loop flags and event times. Keep source animation approval separate from import verification and in-game visual acceptance.

Separate movement, facing and authored motion

Choose which system owns translation and yaw. Applying controller rotation and the same authored turn twice produces a false turn. Keep uncompensated source clips for pure previews where useful; document the compensated gameplay route. Record heading samples and their frame/time origin. Derive sample spacing from the actual count and duration, not a presumed integer or quarter-frame step.

Do not change base movement speed, attack cadence or navigation responsiveness incidentally. A character need not complete an entire turn clip before obeying a new movement or combat order. Keep visual stepping speed, gameplay facing and speed recovery independently configurable.

Match the pose at a transition

If leaving a partial turn causes a foot swap, longer crossfading alone may not fix it. Compare the last evaluated pose with sampled gait phases in a shared body-local space, excluding world placement and controller yaw. Select a nearby phase at the handoff, then advance normally. Preserve an already better phase.

Build a mapping for the actual anatomy: two feet/knees for a biped can be useful; four-legged rigs need all relevant paws and support joints. Do not prescribe one sample count, stride or blend duration for every rig. Bake reusable pose tables at import/update time; cache bones and avoid allocating or searching each frame. Rebuild when the rig, clips or coordinate convention changes.