Play bone animation backward, reverse animation

[getzel]

Hello !

Is it possible to play a bone animation (created in Blender) backward ?

For example : we make strafe right and want to play strafe left via code.

I imagine something like : scene.beginAnimation(skeleton, 40, 0, true, 1.0);

 

Do you think it's a cool feature ?

Implemeting all reverse animations in Blender is not complicated but heavy.

[Wingnut]

Hiya getzel!  Yeah, it's a cool feature idea, for sure, but BJS animation keys need to be in ascending order, according to Deltakosh.  

In a different post, I pondered (long-winded) a CYCLEMODE_PINGPONG for animations... so they could run forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, etc.

In the next post, Deltakosh kindly told me some excellent info, and fixed my poorly-coded pingpong function. Playground:  http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#1LNWLE#3

Lines 39-59 are the pingpong func, as you can see.  Essentially, it just reverses all the keys on the animations of all bones, and calls beginAnimation again.

So, although an invertKeys parameter/flag for our animation system might be a decent new feature, it might not be used often enough to warrant the change/mod.  Perhaps a wiser move would be to code/steal a very fast/efficient array-reverser... for reversing animation keys.  The reverser in the pingpong func is pretty good, but it could be tightened-up a bit.

See line 61 in that #3 playground above?  The pingpong func is set as the onAnimationEnd parameter.  You would not be doing that.  What you might do... is create/maintain two different arrays of keys...  one for strafe left, one for strafe-right.  Able is my abbreviation for animatable.  On our rabbit, there are 4 bones (each with animation), and line 42 is for looping through all 4 bones.  Line 54 installs the new keys on each bone's animation.

Rudy the Rabbit... is doing ping-pong animation pretty well, there.

Still, mesh.invertAnimationKeys() or perhaps Animatable.reverseAnimationKeys()... might be worthy of PR.  Not sure.  I usually delegate framework feature decisions... to Deltakosh.  He sees 'the big picture' far-better than I.    Maybe Deltakosh will comment.

Hey, thanks for the idea, Getzel.  It is worthy of some consideration, for sure.  Party on!

PS:  The #8 playground puts some texture back-onto Rudy.  It might be interesting to note that the boundingBox does not follow Rudy's reclining.  Know why?  Sure we do.  Rudy the Model... never changed rotation.  He/She stayed in one place, but the animation on his/her non-mesh "bones"... moved all his/her body parts.  Rudy never fell.  Only his/her body parts moved to horizontal (and back). 

[getzel]

@Wingnut Thank you for your answer.  In fact reverse wouldn't work for strafe I think.

 

I tried on my model with an animation where the left leg rotates left (x direction). And with your fonction, it rotates toward z direction although it should rotate right (x direction).

Not the desired effect for the moment. But at least it has an effect.

 

Maybe i have to do more tests and study on that function.