Reversing Animation

In this section, we'll demonstrate how to animate a cube actor moving in the +Z direction, and then reverse the animation in the most efficient way possible.

Process

• Prepare a node tree consisting of UserTrack, UE5, and Sink nodes, and activate the APM.

• Spawn a Cube actor.

• Select the UE5 node, then go to the Node Details Panel and expand Reality Actors.

• Choose the Cube actor and expand its Properties panel.

• In the Transform property group, click on the Pin Switch button of the Relative Location property.

Alternatively, right-click on the Relative Location property and select Show as Input from the Property Context Menu.

• Create a Cast vec3 to vec3d node and connect its vec3d output to the Cube.RelativeLocation input pin of the UE5 node.

For better readability, optionally you can rename input and output pins by right-clicking on them or change the unique node name by using the Node Context Menu.

Cast vec3 to vec3d node added to extract X, Y, and Z property values to have absolute control over them.

• Create a new Action, optionally renaming it to something like First Animation.

• Select the Cast vec3 to vec3d node, then go to the vec3 property and click on the Add Timeline button.

Alternatively, right-click on the vec3 property and select the Timeline option from the Property Context Menu.

• Right-click on the property circle, add a keyframe, move the playhead to a different timestamp, and change the Z property from 0 to 200.

• Add another keyframe and change its interpolation to EaseInOut. Save the Action.

• Create another Action, optionally renaming it to something like Reverse Animation.

• Follow the same steps to add a timeline for the vec3 property.

• Go to the First Animation action, select the second keyframe, and copy it using ^ CTRL + C.

• Rectangle select the first keyframe to move the playhead to its exact timestamp.

• Switch to the Reverse Animation action and paste the copied keyframe at the beginning using ^ CTRL + V.

• Switch back to the First Animation action, select the first keyframe, and copy it.

• Rectangle select the first keyframe.

• Switch to the Reverse Animation action again and paste the copied keyframe as the first keyframe.

• Adjust the interpolation and save the Reverse Animation form.