Character Animation Component: The CAS Central Controller

CharacterAnimationComponent is the single MonoBehaviour you interact with for the vast majority of CAS tasks. Add it to your character prefab and it takes care of driving the Layered Blending component, the Procedural Animation component, and all Animation Slots. Everything else in CAS feeds into or out of this component.

What the Component Does

CharacterAnimationComponent is responsible for three things:

Orchestrating blending and procedural updates. Each frame it updates the Layered Blending and Procedural Animation components so they apply the correct weights and modifiers to the current pose.
Pose blending. When you switch between animation profiles at runtime, the component captures the current pose and smoothly blends from it into the new one, preventing visual pops.
Animation Slots. It exposes PlayAnimation and StopAnimation so you can trigger one-off clips (reloads, interactions, hit reactions) at runtime through Animation Assets.

Character Animation Settings

CharacterAnimationComponent reads its configuration from a Character Animation Settings asset — a ScriptableObject that acts as a profile for a specific gameplay situation, weapon, or item.

Create the asset

In the Project window, right-click and select Create ▸ KINEMATION ▸ CAS ▸ CAS Settings.

Assign it to the component

Drag the new asset into the Settings field on the CharacterAnimationComponent in the Inspector.

Configure the asset

Select the asset and fill in its properties as described below.

Treat each Character Animation Settings asset as a preset for one gameplay state — for example, Settings_Rifle, Settings_Torch, Settings_Unarmed. At runtime, swap between them using UpdateAnimationSettings.

Properties

Enum

The easing curve used when blending between the old and new settings when you call UpdateAnimationSettings. A smooth ease-in/out is appropriate for most weapon swaps; linear works for rapid context changes.

float

Seconds the component takes to blend the new overlay in after UpdateAnimationSettings is called.

float

Seconds the component takes to blend the previous overlay out after UpdateAnimationSettings is called.

AnimationClip

required

The standing idle animation for your character. CAS subtracts this pose from the Animator output before adding the Overlay, which is what allows smooth upper-body weapon poses while locomotion continues underneath. Always assign a clip here — Layered Blending depends on it.

AnimationClip

A single animation clip that defines the weapon or item pose. Use this for simple cases where no state machine is needed. Assign either this field or Overlay Animator — not both.

RuntimeAnimatorController

An Animator Controller that provides the Overlay pose with full state machine support — transitions, blend trees, and parameters. Use this when you need to blend between multiple overlay states, such as idle, aiming, and sprinting versions of a weapon pose. Access it at runtime via LayeredBlendingComponent.OverlayAnimator.

ProceduralAnimationSettings

A Procedural Animation Settings asset containing the list of Animation Modifiers to run after blending. Swap this at runtime (via UpdateAnimationSettings) to apply a different modifier stack for each weapon or gameplay state.

Updating Settings at Runtime

Call UpdateAnimationSettings to switch the active profile. The component blends from the current pose into the new settings over the time defined on the new asset. This is the correct way to handle equipping a weapon, picking up an item, or entering a new gameplay state.

API Signature

// CharacterAnimationComponent.cs
public void UpdateAnimationSettings(CharacterAnimationSettings newSettings)

Example

using Kinemation.CAS;
using UnityEngine;

public class ItemEquipController : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] private CharacterAnimationSettings _torchSettings;
    [SerializeField] private CharacterAnimationSettings _rifleSettings;

    private CharacterAnimationComponent _characterAnimation;

    private void Start()
    {
        _characterAnimation = GetComponent<CharacterAnimationComponent>();
    }

    public void OnTorchEquipped()
    {
        if (_characterAnimation != null)
        {
            _characterAnimation.UpdateAnimationSettings(_torchSettings);
        }
    }

    public void OnRifleEquipped()
    {
        if (_characterAnimation != null)
        {
            _characterAnimation.UpdateAnimationSettings(_rifleSettings);
        }
    }
}

UpdateAnimationSettings automatically calls RequestPoseBlending internally, so you do not need to call it yourself when swapping settings.

Pose Blending

RequestPoseBlending lets you manually trigger a blend from the current frozen pose to the live animated pose. You typically do not need to call this directly — UpdateAnimationSettings does it for you — but it is useful in one specific scenario: switching the main Animator Controller directly. Unity does not natively smooth transitions when you assign a new Animator Controller at runtime. The pose can jump abruptly. Calling RequestPoseBlending immediately after swapping the Animator Controller caches the current pose on the animation thread and blends smoothly from it into the new controller’s output starting the next frame.

API Signature

// CharacterAnimationComponent.cs
public void RequestPoseBlending(BlendTime blendTime)

Example

public void SwitchAnimatorController(RuntimeAnimatorController newController, BlendTime blendTime)
{
    // Swap the Animator Controller on the Animator component.
    GetComponent<Animator>().runtimeAnimatorController = newController;

    // Smooth the transition so there is no pose pop.
    _characterAnimation.RequestPoseBlending(blendTime);
}

RequestPoseBlending works on the animation thread. The pose capture happens at the end of the current frame, so the blend starts cleanly from the last evaluated pose rather than from an intermediate state.

Playing and Stopping Animations

CharacterAnimationComponent exposes two methods for playing Animation Assets at runtime and one for stopping them. These are the methods you call from gameplay code to trigger reloads, hit reactions, interaction clips, and any other one-off or looping animations.

API Signatures

// CharacterAnimationComponent.cs
public virtual bool PlayAnimation(AnimationAsset newAnimation, float startTime = 0f);
public virtual bool PlayAnimation(AnimationAsset newAnimation, float startTime, AnimationMixerEvent[] events);
public virtual void StopAnimation(float blendOutTime = 0f);

PlayAnimation returns true if the animation started successfully and false if it was rejected (for example, if the same asset is already playing).
startTime sets the normalised start position in the clip (0 = beginning, 1 = end).
Pass an AnimationMixerEvent[] to the second overload to receive time-based callbacks during playback. See Animation Asset — Custom Events for the full AnimationMixerEvent API.
StopAnimation accepts an optional blendOutTime that overrides the blend-out time set on the asset.

For a full usage example and details on configuring Animation Assets, see the Animation Asset page.

Get Started

Core Concepts

Animation Modifiers

FPS Add-on

Guides & Reference

Character Animation Component: The CAS Central Controller

What the Component Does

Character Animation Settings

Properties

Updating Settings at Runtime

API Signature

Example

Pose Blending

API Signature

Example

Playing and Stopping Animations

API Signatures

​What the Component Does

​Character Animation Settings

​Properties

​Updating Settings at Runtime

​API Signature

​Example

​Pose Blending

​API Signature

​Example

​Playing and Stopping Animations

​API Signatures

What the Component Does

Character Animation Settings

Properties

Updating Settings at Runtime

API Signature

Example

Pose Blending

API Signature

Example

Playing and Stopping Animations

API Signatures