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

Timing out the zombie's pursuit


By adding the time out, we allow the zombie to forget about the player after enough time has been spent out of range:

  1. Add the following code to the list of variables at the top of the zombie_nav_Start script:

    var alertTimeOut : float = 5.0;
    var alertTimer : float;

    The variable alertTimeOut defines the time in seconds that it will take the zombie to forget about the player. Keeping this variable exposed, makes it easy to adjust in the Inspector panel.

    The next variable, alertTimer, keeps track of the time that has passed.

  2. In the Update function, locate the following if statement:

    if(playerDistance <= attackRange && !attacking)
    {
     Attack();
    }
  3. Add the following line of code after Attack():

    alertTimer = 0.0;
  4. After the closing curly bracket of the statement, add the following code:

    else if(playerDistance > alertDistance)
    {
        alertTimer += Time.deltaTime;
        if(alertTimer > alertTimeOut)
        {
            alerted = false;
        }
    }

    The else if statement comes...