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Overview

After applying the preset, you’ll see these ScriptableObjects and prefabs created in the current folder:

Assets after the setup.

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Character Animation Settings

CAS_SK_Kinemation_Mannequin_Humanoid
This is the main CAS data asset. It defines which Overlay and Procedural Animation settings to use:

Character Animation Settings.

Blend Time configures how blending should work, including blend in/out time in seconds and easing type. Base Pose is the character’s standing idle animation. Overlay Pose is a character pose that represents the current gameplay state. It can be a weapon, item or a character’s state (e.g., injured or unarmed). The Overlay Animator serves the same role as an Overlay Pose. The only difference is that it is a separate Animator Controller with state machines and blend trees.
Tip: Keep the character model separate from the main prefab. For example, a pistol overlay can consist of these states:
  • Idle Aim
  • Idle Rest
  • Tactical sprint (holding it with the right hand).
All these states have different blending curve values, so we can put them into a separate Overlay Controller, and CAS will handle the rest.

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Procedural Settings

This data asset contains procedural animation modifiers that will be enabled for this character:

Procedural Animation Settings example.

Character Prefab is a reference to the main player prefab. It is used by animation modifiers to link your gameplay logic with the animation system. Animation Modifiers are displayed as items in a single list. The order is important, as it defines the way modifiers will be applied at runtime. To learn more about modifiers and their use-cases, check out this page:

🔸 Animation Modifiers

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Character Skeleton Prefab

This prefab works as a variant of your character model. It is recommended to keep character model separated from the main prefab to ensure the skeleton data is always up-to-date.
Tip: If you need to modify character’s hierarchy (e.g., add a camera socket Game Object), make sure to do it in the Skeleton prefab.
CAS relies on Character Skeleton component to get the information about character bones. It’s added to the top bone in the hierarchy (root, armature, skeleton):

Skeleton component.

Note: Whenever a hierarchy is modified (e.g., a bone is added or removed), make sure to always update skeleton!
All main CAS components are attached to it:

CAS components.

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Character Animation Component

CAS component.

This is a central component in CAS, which is responsible for:
  • Updating current Character Animation Settings.
  • Controlling Layered Blending and Procedural Animation components.
  • Playing animations from code.
  • Full-body pose blending.
To find out more, please visit:

🔸 Character Animation Component

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Procedural Animation Component

Procedural Animation component.

It’s responsible for creating, managing and disposing animation modifiers at runtime. To learn how to work with procedural animation, see:

🔸 Procedural Animation

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Layered Blending

Layered Blending component.

This component generates animation pose at runtime, by blending Overlays (character poses, like holding a torch) with the Animator output (main Animator Controller). Layered Blends define what parts of the body will be blended, and what parameters will drive that blending:

Layered Blend and curve properties

These parameters are public float values animated by clips at runtime. Here’s how it works:
  • In the editor: Properties are added to the Animation Clip using Curve Property Editor.
  • At runtime:
    • Animation Clips update their curve values.
    • Layered Blending Component uses those values for blending.
Tip: Each Animation Clip tells the system how to blend it with the Animator output
To learn more about this system, check out this page:

🔸 Layered Blending

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Player Controller Prefab

This prefab includes the Skeleton prefab, and the Character Example Controller:

Character prefab.

This component is an example controller script, which handles:
  • Movement.
  • Actions and inputs.
  • Props (items like torch, axe, barrel and gun).
To find our more about example scripts, check out this page:

🔹 Example Content

The next page explains how to work with animations in CAS.