This page explains some of the general settings on the Motion Matching node details panel. These settings are all found under the following titles:
General
Options
Traits
Update Interval - The rate at which the motion matching search is updated. i.e. the time (in seconds) between motion matching searches. It is not necessary to perform motion matching searches every single frame and doing so does not necessarily improve the quality. A value of 0.1 - 0.03333 (10Hz - 30Hz) is recommended for best results. That having a lower value for Update Rate will help improve performance as the motion matching search will not be done every frame.
Playback Rate - How fast the animation plays. A value of 1.0 provides normal animation speed while lower and higher values make the animation slower and faster respectively.
Blend Time - The amount of time to blend between different pose transitions. Typically motion matching ensures minimal blends but some blend time is still required. A value between 0.2 - 0.4s is recommended (0.25 default).
Blend Out Early - This is a setting predominantly for cut clip workflow. If checked, the system will ensure that an animation coming near it’s end will be blended out before reaching its end. This avoid awkward pauses in the animation when it has ended but is still blending out.
Note: If an animation is blended out early, a pose search will be forced regardless of Update Interval
Pose Match Method - How the poses should be searched:
Optimized - pose search will use the relevant optimization module attached to the Motion Data asset
Linear - all poses will be searched linearly (not performant)
Note: Pose Match Method defaults to Linear if optimization is disabled on the Motion Data asset or no optimization module is found.
Transition Method - How animations should be transitioned:
None - No blending will occur. Animation will ‘snap’ in place immediately between transitions
Inertialization - The motion matching node will utilize UE4’s inertialization node to handle blending. This is the recommended setting as it provides better quality and is much more performant.
Blend - Animations will be blended in a traditional manner within the motion matching node.
Past Trajectory Mode - The mode to use for handling past trajectory. Typically the past trajectory is recorded from actual positions of the character. However, this can be insufficient in some cases where procedural movement is being used and the past trajectory does not fit with the animation data.
Actual History - The past trajectory will be continuously recorded from actual historical positions of the character
Copy from Current Pose - The past trajectory will be copied from the current pose. Use this if you are using a lot of procedural rotation or character movement.
Required Traits - The current required traits. This is an input that should be bound to a ‘Traits’ variable in your animation graph. The motion matching node will only ever choose poses that match the ;’Required Traits’ input. Please see more details on Traits in 'Tagging’ and ‘Advanced Topics’