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Animation

Sedulous supports three animation systems: skeletal animation (bone-driven mesh deformation), property animation (keyframed value tracks), and animation graphs (state machines with blend trees).

Skeletal Animation

For character animation. A skeleton defines the bone hierarchy, and animation clips contain per-bone keyframes. The renderer uses compute skinning to deform the mesh on the GPU.

Components

Attach both a SkinnedMeshComponent and a SkeletalAnimationComponent to the same entity:

// Skinned mesh
let skinnedMgr = scene.GetModule<SkinnedMeshComponentManager>();
if (let mesh = skinnedMgr.Get(skinnedMgr.CreateComponent(entity)))
{
    var meshRef = ResourceRef(.Empty, "project://models/character.mesh");
    defer meshRef.Dispose();
    mesh.SetMeshRef(meshRef);
}

// Skeletal animation
let animMgr = scene.GetModule<SkeletalAnimationComponentManager>();
if (let anim = animMgr.Get(animMgr.CreateComponent(entity)))
{
    var skelRef = ResourceRef(.Empty, "project://models/character.skeleton");
    defer skelRef.Dispose();
    anim.SetSkeletonRef(skelRef);

    var clipRef = ResourceRef(.Empty, "project://animations/walk.animation");
    defer clipRef.Dispose();
    anim.SetClipRef(clipRef);

    anim.AutoPlay = true;
    anim.Loop = true;
    anim.Speed = 1.0f;
}

Animation Player

The SkeletalAnimationComponent creates an AnimationPlayer internally. You can control playback:

if (anim.Player != null)
{
    anim.Player.Play(clip);
    anim.Player.Pause();
    anim.Player.Stop();
    anim.Player.Speed = 0.5f;  // Half speed
}

Animation Graphs

For complex animation logic – blending between walk, run, idle based on game parameters. Uses a state machine with blend nodes.

let graphMgr = scene.GetModule<AnimationGraphComponentManager>();
if (let graph = graphMgr.Get(graphMgr.CreateComponent(entity)))
{
    var skelRef = ResourceRef(.Empty, "project://models/character.skeleton");
    defer skelRef.Dispose();
    graph.SetSkeletonRef(skelRef);

    var graphRef = ResourceRef(.Empty, "project://animations/character.animgraph");
    defer graphRef.Dispose();
    graph.SetGraphRef(graphRef);
}

Setting Parameters

Animation graphs expose parameters that game code can set to drive transitions:

if (graph.GraphPlayer != null)
{
    graph.GraphPlayer.SetFloat("Speed", playerSpeed);
    graph.GraphPlayer.SetBool("IsGrounded", isGrounded);
    graph.GraphPlayer.SetTrigger("Jump");
}

Property Animation

For animating any property over time – transform position, color, intensity, etc. Useful for doors, platforms, UI animations, and environmental effects.

using Sedulous.Animation;

// Create a clip programmatically
let clip = new PropertyAnimationClip("OrbitPath", 12.0f, true);

let posTrack = clip.AddVector3Track("Transform.Position");
posTrack.AddKeyframe(0.0f, .(5, 0, 0));
posTrack.AddKeyframe(3.0f, .(0, 0, 5));
posTrack.AddKeyframe(6.0f, .(-5, 0, 0));
posTrack.AddKeyframe(9.0f, .(0, 0, -5));
posTrack.AddKeyframe(12.0f, .(5, 0, 0));

Component

let propAnimMgr = scene.GetModule<PropertyAnimationComponentManager>();
if (let propAnim = propAnimMgr.Get(propAnimMgr.CreateComponent(entity)))
{
    var clipRef = ResourceRef(.Empty, "project://animations/orbit.propanim");
    defer clipRef.Dispose();
    propAnim.SetClipRef(clipRef);
    propAnim.AutoPlay = true;
    propAnim.Loop = true;
}

Property Binding

Property animation tracks target properties by path (e.g., "Transform.Position"). The PropertyBinderRegistry maps these paths to actual component fields. Built-in bindings include:

• Transform.Position – entity local position
• Transform.Rotation – entity local rotation
• Transform.Scale – entity local scale

Custom binders can be registered for game-specific properties.

Resource Types

Type	Extension	Description
SkeletonResource	.skeleton	Bone hierarchy (names, parent indices, bind poses)
AnimationClipResource	.animation	Skeletal animation keyframes
AnimationGraphResource	.animgraph	State machine + blend tree
PropertyAnimationClipResource	.propanim	Property keyframe tracks

Next Steps

• User Interface – screen-space and world-space UI
• Physics – rigid bodies, collision, raycasting