is there a way to check if an animatorcontroller has a parameter?

Question

With mecanim, if you try to set a parameter that doesn't exist, it logs a warning. It doesn't throw an exception or return null or anything useful like that. So if I set a parameter very often that doesn't exist, a lot of CPU time is spent logging warnings. How can I tell if a parameter exists in an animatorcontroller? It would be great if there was a method like ProceduralMaterial.HasProceduralProperty (which allows you to check if the ProceduralMaterial has the property in question).

(crossposted from gamedev.stackexchange)

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by drod7425 · Nov 08, 2013 at 03:53 PM

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything in place to check if a parameter exists. If you just want to turn off warnings to save CPU, set Animator.logWarnings = false (not in the scripting reference for some reason). If you want something that will do error handling, I wrote a hacky way to do it:

 void Awake(){
     animator.SetBool("nonExistant",true);
     if(!animator.GetBool("nonExistant")){
         Debug.LogError("The parameter nonExistant does not exist! Fix it!");
     }else{
         animator.SetBool("nonExistant",false);
     }
 }

Hope this helps!

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Answer 2

Answer by thexdd · Aug 17, 2015 at 03:10 PM

I know its quite an old topic, but maybe somebody is still looking for any other options of how to deal with it. Here is my solution:

 public static bool HasParameter(string paramName, Animator animator)
 {
    foreach (AnimatorControllerParameter param in animator.parameters)
    {
       if (param.name == paramName)
          return true;
    }
    return false;
 }

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saipavan4391 · May 04, 2018 at 08:35 AM 2

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it works! but produces garbage if many parameters are present in the animator controller

Bunny83 saipavan4391 · May 04, 2018 at 12:33 PM 2

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~~Ins$$anonymous$$d of using parameters you should use parameterCount and GetParameter in a normal "for" loop.~~

edit
Well I though this might help with garbage but it actually makes things worse ^^. I though that GetParameter is a direct accessing method for a single parameter. However under the hood GetParameter actually uses the parameters property so this is completely pointless.

Though as i said in my old comment the information if the animator has a certain parameter or not does not change over time. So getting this information at start and caching it would be the best approach.

Answer 3

Answer by RChrispy · Sep 29, 2015 at 10:21 AM

I found the code of @inferno222 and @thexdd realy useful. So I made an extension real quick should work. But such calls should not be done in an Update! Store the outcome during a Start() in a variable and use this variable!!!

Just add it into your projekt I use a lot of extensions.

 public static bool ContainsParam(this Animator _Anim, string _ParamName)
 {
     foreach (AnimatorControllerParameter param in _Anim.parameters)
     {
         if (param.name == _ParamName) return true;
     }
     return false;
 }

Use like this:

 void start() {
 tOutcome =  myAnimator.ContainsParam("JumpCount");
 }

And then you can ask for:

 if( tOutcome ) {
 myAnimator.SetInteger("JumpCount", JumpCount);
 }

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stjernerlever · May 10, 2019 at 08:44 PM 0

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How do you use that extension?

When I enter

  public static bool ContainsParam(this Animator _Anim, string _ParamName)
  {
      foreach (AnimatorControllerParameter param in _Anim.parameters)
      {
          if (param.name == _ParamName) return true;
      }
      return false;
  }

I get this error:

Extension method must be defined in a non-generic static class. Do you have a separate script that defines a public static bool ContainsParam?

alt text

untitled.png (20.2 kB)

rufreakde stjernerlever · May 10, 2019 at 09:04 PM 0

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You just have to define the extension in a seperate file. It is C# thing to extend existing classes horizontically.

Here is a tutorial: https://unity3d.com/de/learn/tutorials/topics/scripting/extension-methods

Answer 4

Answer by inferno222 · Aug 20, 2015 at 12:54 AM

A slightly shorter answer is:

  public static bool HasParameter(string paramName, Animator animator)
  {
     foreach (AnimatorControllerParameter param in animator.parameters)
     {
        if (param.name == paramName) return true;
     }
     return false;
  }

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thexdd · Aug 20, 2015 at 05:58 AM 0

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thanks, you're right, I've updated my answer. Sometimes I just should really fall asleep rather than code anything :D

Answer 5

Answer by mkgame · Jan 12, 2019 at 09:22 PM

I would recommend to speed up this check with a Dictionary:

         Dictionary<string, bool> animNames = new Dictionary<string, bool>();
         
         void Awake() {
              animNames.Add("Attack", false);
              animNames.Add("Run", false);
              animNames.Add("Walk", false);
         
              foreach (AnimatorControllerParameter param in MyAnimator.parameters) {
                  if (animNames.containsKey(param.Name)) {
                        animNames[param.Name] = true;         
                  }
              }
 
             // To check then the known param.
             if (animNames["Attack"] == true) {
                  // Attack param available, use it.
             }
         }

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is there a way to check if an animatorcontroller has a parameter?

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