Book Image

Unity Character Animation with Mecanim

By : Jamie Dean
Book Image

Unity Character Animation with Mecanim

By: Jamie Dean

Overview of this book

Game animation for independent developers has taken a giant leap forward with Unity 5's Mecanim toolset, which streamlines the import/export, retargeting, and many other aspects of the character animation workflow. Unity Character Animation with Mecanim is a great primer for getting to know the nuts and bolts of Mecanim and other character animation related tools in Unity 5. It offers you step-by-step instructions for preparing and exporting rigged models and animation sequences from commonly used 3D packages, such as Maya, 3ds Max and Blender. This book explores the new set of animation tools introduced with Mecanim in Unity 5. Approaching its subject matter through a typical genre–a zombie action game, character animation techniques are explored using real examples of player input and interaction, enemy behavior, and other aspects of game dynamics. As the book progresses, the reader will understand how these elements fit together in a small game development workflow. We will begin with a demonstration of the process of getting a rigged character into Unity 5 and setting it up to use provided animation sequences. We will also consider a few industry standard 3D packages and how these can be used to rig a humanoid character for use in Unity 5. We will demonstrate the retargeting capabilities of Mecanim’s Humanoid Animation type by adjusting motion sequences to fit disparate character types in our game. After this, we will look at Ragdoll physics and the implementation of this commonly used technique in a Mecanim workflow. The book culminates with a thorough dissection of the enemy character AI script incorporating the Mecanim elements detailed in the previous chapters. Unity Character Animation with Mecanim will provide you with a detailed exploration of the interaction between game development and character animation, and will broaden your understanding of the rich animation toolset within Unity 5
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Unity Character Animation with Mecanim
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Free Chapter
1
The Zombie Attacks!
Index

Chapter 1. The Zombie Attacks!

In this chapter, we will demonstrate the process of importing and animating a rigged character in Unity. After making sure the character is being imported correctly, we will work through the necessary steps to get the character animated in the game view using the Mecanim toolset and a little code.

In this chapter we will cover:

  • Starting a blank Unity project and importing the necessary packages

  • Importing a rigged character model in the FBX format and adjusting import settings

  • Organizing materials and textures within the project hierarchy

  • Setting up the Avatar using the Avatar Definition Mapping panel

  • Creating a simple state machine in the animator controller panel

  • The basics of scripting for Mecanim

Typically, an enemy character such as this will have a series of different animation sequences, which will be imported separately or together from a 3D package. In this case, our animation sequences are included in separate files.

We will begin, by creating the Unity project.