Modifiers

PAL has a unique feature called a modifier, which can be used to change things about an animation — mirror it, change its speed, or apply transformations to a specific bone.

PAL offers many built-in modifiers, but you can also make your own. Both are covered on this page.

Adding and removing modifiers

Modifiers can be added to an instance of the AnimationController or ModifierLayer class using the following methods:

• addModifier
• addModifierBefore
• addModifierLast

Modifiers run in order — the modifier with the lowest index runs first and has priority over all the other modifiers.

To remove them again, use:

• removeModifier
• removeAllModifiers
• removeModifierIf

warning

Modifiers last for the lifetime of the animation controller or modifier layer they're attached to unless removed. Some modifiers can remove themselves, which is explained below.

How to make your own modifier

In order to make your own modifier you need to make a class that extends the AbstractModifier class. There you can override many methods in order to change how the animation is processed:

Method	Description
tick	Called every game tick, useful for keeping track of time.
setupAnim	Called every frame, useful for getting the tickDelta in order to make smooth translations.
get3DTransform	The most useful method — called for every bone, including the custom ones, and gives you the bone so you can apply whatever translations you want to it.
canRemove	If true, it will tell the host to remove the modifier.

warning

Don't forget to call super when you override a method! Modifiers work by chaining: calling super calls the next modifier in line, and the last modifier calls the host. If you don't call super, the host animation will never be called.

note

All position translations are measured in pixels, and all rotations are measured in radians. The axes work the same as in Blockbench, so forward is negative Z, right is positive X, and up is positive Y.

You will also be able to access a variable called host, which is the animation controller or modifier layer hosting the modifier. If you are sure your host is a controller, you can also use the getController method.

Built-in modifiers

Here is a list of all the modifiers included with PAL by default and how they work.

AbstractFadeModifier

Can be used to fade in or out of an animation. It is made using a static method in the class rather than a constructor. When fading in, the modifier removes itself when it's done, but not when fading out.

tip

You should usually use the replaceAnimationWithFade method in the host, rather than add this modifier yourself.

SpeedModifier

Multiplies the speed of the animation by the given value. The value can be changed after the creation of the modifier.

AdjustmentModifier

Can be used to apply specific translations to the desired bones.

MirrorModifier

Mirrors the animation... (some of these modifiers are really self-explanatory!) For example, if you have an animation that uses an item with the right arm, you can mirror it to use the left arm instead.

MirrorIfLeftHandModifier

Same as the mirror modifier, but is only applied if the client sets its main hand to the left hand.

FirstPersonOffsetModifier

Meant to be used with the first person follow camera mode turned on (read more here). Usually with that mode turned on the arms are out of frame, so this modifier raises the body up by the specified amount (or 1.92 pixels by default) only in first person, so the arms are in frame.