8-Way Animation Blending

In my game, I blend the animations (6, since I am on a hex grid) based on the angle between the look direction and the move direction, not directly via the input.

 function Update () {
  lastPos = curPos;
  curPos = transform.position;
  
  if(curPos != lastPos){
  curAngle = Vector3.Angle((curPos - lastPos).normalized, transform.forward);
  clockwise = angleDir(transform.forward, (curPos - lastPos).normalized, Vector3.up);
  if(curAngle < 30)
  animation.CrossFade("walk_F", 0.1);
  else if(curAngle > 30 && curAngle < 90 && clockwise < 0) 
  animation.CrossFade("walk_FL", 0.1);
  else if(curAngle > 30 && curAngle < 90 && clockwise > 0) 
  animation.CrossFade("walk_FR", 0.1);
  else if(curAngle > 90 && curAngle < 150 && clockwise < 0) 
  animation.CrossFade("walk_BL", 0.1);
  else if(curAngle > 90 && curAngle < 150 && clockwise > 0) 
  animation.CrossFade("walk_BR", 0.1);
  else if(curAngle > 150) 
  animation.CrossFade("walk_B", 0.1);
  }
  
  if(curPos == lastPos)
  animation.CrossFade("idle", 0.1); 
 
 function angleDir(fwd: Vector3, targetDir: Vector3, up: Vector3) {   //determines CW or CCW
  var perp: Vector3 = Vector3.Cross(fwd, targetDir);
  var dir: float = Vector3.Dot(perp, up);
  
  if (dir > 0.0) {
  return 1.0;
  } else if (dir < 0.0) {
  return -1.0;
  } else {
  return 0.0;
  }
 }

There are no real blends between the animations here, since the player can only move in distinct directions, but it should be quite simple to implement...

What you want to do is use animation.Blend("animname", weight) and calculate your weight depending on what's important for you.

For us, we had a 4 way blend and we use the heading angle to calculate the correct blend weight:

1. get blending angle in radians

2. calculate sine and cosine

3. save sign of sine and cosine

4. animation.blend("forward", Mathf.Clam01(cosSign * cosinevalue^2))

5. animation.blend("up", Mathf.Clam01(sineSign * sinevalue^2))

6. animation.blend("back", Mathf.Clam01(cosSign cosinevalue^2 -1))

7. animation.blend("down", Mathf.Clam01(sineSign sinevalue^2 -1))

This will give you values between 0-1 for each animation and will let you blend between.