Animation Compression
Reducing animation memory with a small error
Also known as: Animation memory · Key reduction · Animation compression Unreal · Animation compression Unity · Animation jitter compression · Curve compression
Definition
Animation compression reduces the memory used by animation data by removing keys, simplifying curves and storing values with less precision, within an allowed error. Characters have many bones and animations, so without compression the data would use a lot of memory and streaming bandwidth. Engines apply it automatically on import, with settings such as error thresholds and per-bone rules, and too much compression leads to visible jitter, foot sliding or drifting poses.
In production
Check important animations, such as cinematics, close-ups and attacks, at full quality, and allow more compression for background characters and small bones such as fingers. If an animation looks different in the engine than in your tool, compression is a common cause, so compare the two. Bake animation with a reasonable number of keys, and avoid noisy motion capture data, which compresses poorly and may need cleanup first.
Tools that use Animation Compression
See also
Animation Looks Different in the Engine
Motion plays differently than in Maya or Blender
Keyframes and Interpolation
Poses in time and how the computer fills in between
Motion Capture
Recording real-actor motion
Texture Memory Budget
How much memory textures use
Profiling
Measure before you optimize
Animation Frame Rates (24, 30, 60 fps)
Which frame rate to animate and export at