Hi everyone,
I’m running into an issue with RealityKit when trying to animate BlendShapes (ShapeKeys) while a skeletal animation is playing. The model is a rigged character in .usdz format with both predefined skeletal animations and BlendShapes (exported from Blender).
The problem: when I play any animation using entity.playAnimation(...), the BlendShapes stop responding. Calling setBlendShapes(...) still logs that weights are being updated, but the visual changes are not visible.
The exact same blend shape animation works perfectly when no animation is playing.
In SceneKit the same model works as expected: shape keys get animated during animation playback. But not in realitykit
Still, as soon as an animation starts, the shape keys don’t animate anymore.
Here’s the test project on GitHub that demonstrates the issue clearly: https://github.com/IAMTHEBURT/RealityKitWitnBlendShapesSample
The goal is to play facial expressions (like blinking or talking) while a body animation (like waving) is playing.
Is this a known limitation in RealityKit? Or is there a recommended way to combine skeletal animations with real-time BlendShape updates?
Thanks in advance for any insights.