Animation Montage
Unreal asset for playing action sequences from gameplay
Also known as: Unreal montage · Anim montage · Montage sections · Attack animation montage · Animation slot · Play montage
Definition
An animation montage is an Unreal Engine asset that wraps one or more animation sequences so that gameplay can play them on demand and control them. A montage can have named sections, such as wind-up, strike and recovery, which can be jumped to or looped, and slots that decide in which part of the animation graph it plays, such as the upper body only. It is the standard tool for attacks, abilities, reloads and interactions, which are triggered by game logic.
In production
Create the montage from the animation sequence, set up sections and blend in and out times, and add notifies for hits, sounds and effects at the key frames. Use slots and layered blending to let the upper body play the montage while the legs keep walking. Keep montage names and sections clear for the gameplay team. Unity achieves similar results with Animator layers, avatar masks and animation events.
Tools that use Animation Montage
See also
Animation Notifies and Events
Triggers placed on specific frames of an animation
Animation State Machine
Graph of animation states and transitions
Animation Graph
Node-based runtime animation evaluation
Additive Animation
Layering motion on top of other animation
Blueprint
Unreal Engine visual scripting
Animation Blending
Interpolate poses between clips