Directional Animation Sets are a convenient way of managing groups of up/right/down/left animations (including or excluding diagonals) with a standardised way of selecting which one you want.

Overview

1. Create an animation set

2. Use it in code

Select the animations you want, Right Click, and use Create/Animancer/Directional Animation Set/From Selection.

using Animancer; using UnityEngine; public class DirectionalAnimationSetExample : MonoBehaviour { [SerializeField] private AnimancerComponent _Animancer; [SerializeField] private DirectionalAnimationSet _Idles; protected virtual void Update() { Vector2 direction = new Vector2( Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal"), Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical")); AnimationClip clip = _Idles.GetClip(direction); _Animancer.Play(clip); } } Assign the set in the Inspector:

The Directional Sprites samples demonstrate how to use them in more detail.

Creation

DirectionalAnimationSets can be created by Right Clicking in the Project window and using the menu functions in Create/Animancer/Directional Animation Set/...:

Once you have created a set, you can assign animations to each of its fields manually or use its Find Animations context menu function to automatically assign animations with the same name (varying only by direction) in the same folder. For example, the video below shows a set called Mage-Idle which finds the animations called Mage-IdleUp, Mage-IdleRight, Mage-IdleDown, and Mage-IdleLeft because those animations have the same base name as the set:

Also note that DirectionalAnimationSets are not limited to only Sprite animations. For example, the Directional Mixers sample originally used a set to reference its movement animations before Mixer Transitions were implemented.

Usage

Using DirectionalAnimationSets in your scripts is very easy:

1. Declare a Serialized Field:

[SerializeField] private DirectionalAnimationSet _Idles;

That gives you an Inspector field where you can assign any DirectionalAnimationSet asset. Since DirectionalAnimationSet8 Inherits from DirectionalAnimationSet, you can assign either type of set to such a field without changing the script.

2. Determine the direction you want from the set:

// Input Vector:
Vector2 direction = new Vector2(Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal"), Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical"));

// Or Enum (4 Directions):
DirectionalAnimationSet.Direction direction = DirectionalAnimationSet.Direction.Right;

// Or Enum (8 Directions):
DirectionalAnimationSet8.Direction direction = DirectionalAnimationSet8.Direction.UpRight;

3. Get the set's AnimationClip corresponding to that direction and Play it normally:

// Assuming you also have a reference to an AnimancerComponent somewhere:
// [SerializeField] private AnimancerComponent _Animancer;

AnimationClip clip = _Idles.GetClip(direction);
_Animancer.Play(clip);

The Directional Sprites samples demonstrate how to use them in more detail.

Snapping

The DirectionalAnimationSet.Snap method returns a copy of a given Vector pointing in the closest direction that set type has an animation for (4 or 8 directions depending on which type of set you are using). This is useful for clamping an input vector to the exact direction the animation is facing so that you can limit the character to only move in those directions.

Under the Hood

public class DirectionalAnimationSet : ScriptableObject
{
    [SerializeField] private AnimationClip _Up;
    [SerializeField] private AnimationClip _Right;
    [SerializeField] private AnimationClip _Down;
    [SerializeField] private AnimationClip _Left;

    public virtual AnimationClip GetClip(Vector2 direction)
    {
        if (direction.x >= 0)
        {
            if (direction.y >= 0)
                return direction.x > direction.y ? _Right : _Up;
            else
                return direction.x > -direction.y ? _Right : _Down;
        }
        else
        {
            if (direction.y >= 0)
                return direction.x < -direction.y ? _Left : _Up;
            else
                return direction.x < direction.y ? _Left : _Down;
        }
    }
}

DirectionalAnimationSet8 Inherits from DirectionalAnimationSet so it has the same fields as well as another 4 for the diagonals and it overrides the GetClip method to choose from all 8 of its animations.

Both of those scripts are included in Animancer Lite so you can read and modify them if you want to.