Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook

Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook

By : Maciej Szczesnik

Buy this Book

Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook

By: Maciej Szczesnik

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

This recipe-based practical guide will show you how to unleash the power of animation in Unity 5.x and make your games visually impeccable. Our primary focus is on showing you tools and techniques to animate not only humanoid biped characters, but also other elements. This includes non-humanoid character animation, game world creation, UI element animation, and other key features such as opening doors, changing lights, transitioning to different scenes, using physics, setting up ragdolls, creating destructible objects and more. While discussing these topics, the book will focus on mecanim, the Unity 3D animation tool, and how you can use it to perform all these tasks efficiently and quickly. It contains a downloadable Unity project with interactive examples for all the recipes. By the end of this book, you will be confident and self-sufficient in animating your Unity 3D games efficiently.

Title Page

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewer

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

Working with Animations

Introduction

Importing skeletal animations

Configuring generic and humanoid rigs

Creating and assigning an Animator Controller

Creating animation transitions in Animator Controller

Using parameters to control the animation flow

Using animations from multiple assets

Looping, mirroring and offsetting the animations

Adjusting the playback speed of animations

Using override animator controllers to animate different types of characters

Importing object animation from a 3D package

Working with the Animation View

Introduction

Using the Animation View to create a flickering light

Blending light colors with the Animation View and the Animator Controller

Animating an object's world position - creating a moving platform

Animating object's local position - creating automatic doors

Using the Hierarchy to animate local rotation - creating an orbiting planet

Animating triggers - creating a death trap

Creating an elevator triggered by player input

2D and User Interface Animation

Introduction

Exporting a 2D sprite animation from a 3D package

Creating a frame-by-frame sprite animation with the Animation View

Creating a 2D sprite doll animation with the Animation View

Using the Animator Controller to play sprite animations

Creating a fade out - fade in transition with the Animation View

Creating a swipe transition with the Animation View

Using filled images for creating animated progress bars

Using Mecanim states for animating UI button states

Character Movement

Introduction

Using Blend Trees to blend walk and run animations

Using root motion to drive Rigid Body characters' movement with animations

Using root motion to steer a character

Using animations for better looking transitions

Using root motion for a 180 degrees turn

Making a character jump with 3-phase animation

Using root motion to drive a NavMesh Agents' movement with animations

Using triggers to grab an edge while jumping

Changing the character's collision while crouching

Adding animation to off-mesh links

Using root motion for climbing

Using root motion to create flying characters

Character Actions and Expressions

Introduction

Creating an appear or a disappear animation

Creating background characters and critters with animation-driven behavior

Using Blend Trees to create randomized actions

Using Quaternion.LookRotation() and Animator.SetLookAtPosition() methods to make characters follow an object with their gaze

Action Points - performing an action in a specified spot

Synchronizing an animation with objects in the scene

Using IK for interacting with scene objects

Animating facial expressions with Blend Shapes

Handling Combat

Introduction

Using Sub-State Machines in Animator Controller

Using Animation Events to trigger script functions

Using transitions from Any State to play hit reactions

Using root motion to create a dodge move

Checking what Animator state is currently active to disable or enable player actions

Using Animation Events to draw a weapon

Using Avatar Masks and animator controller layers to walk and aim

Using the LookAt() method to aim

Using Blend Trees to aim

Detecting the hit location on a character

Special Effects

Introduction

Using Animation Events to trigger sound and visual effects

Creating camera shakes with the Animation View and the Animator Controller

Using the Animation View to animate public script variables

Using additive Mecanim layers to add extra motion to a character

Using Blend Shapes to morph an object into another one

Using wind emitters to create motion for foliage and particle systems

Using sprite sheets to animate particles

Animating properties of a particle system with the Animation View

Using waveform of a sound clip to animate objects in the scene

Creating a day and night cycle with the Animation View

Animating Cutscenes

Introduction

Using the Animation View to animate the camera

Changing cameras with animation

Synchronizing animation of multiple objects

Importing a whole cutscene from a 3D package

Synchronizing subtitles

Using root motion to play cutscenes in gameplay

Physics and Animations

Introduction

Using cloth

Using rigid body joints

Destructible objects

Creating a humanoid ragdoll with the ragdoll wizard

Creating a generic ragdoll with character joints

Applying force to a ragdoll

Dismemberment

Getting up from a ragdoll

Miscellaneous

Introduction

Using math to animate an object

Using the Lerp() function to animate an object

Using the Rotate() function to animate an object

Preparing motion capture files for humanoid characters

Adding behaviors to Mecanim states

Index

Customer Reviews

5 star

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1 star

Importing skeletal animations

This first recipe shows how to import a skeletal animation from a 3D package. It assumes that you have an animation already prepared. We are going to bring the file to Unity and show where you can adjust the import settings. We will not jump into too much detail for now to make the import process as quick as possible. We will cover all the settings in further recipes.

Getting ready

Most animations are created in external 3D packages such as Maya, 3ds Max, Motion Builder, or Blender 3D. Make sure you have prepared a 3D model with a skeleton, the model is skinned, and you have created at least one animation. You can also download the provided example; open the project in Unity and go to this folder: Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 01 Importing skeletal animations\Sheep Model. You will find an imported FBX file called Sheep.fbx there.

How to do it...

To import a skeletal animation, you need to follow these steps:

Export a skinned model and its skeleton (called rig in Unity) to FBX format.

Note

If you are using Blender, you don't have to manually export the file to FBX format. Simply drag and drop the file to your Assets folder. Unity will use Blender FBX exporter in the background. Additionally, you will be able to open the file by double-clicking on it in Unity. After you edit and save it, Unity will reimport it again. It is a very convenient way of editing animations as you don't have to go through the export-import process each time you make a change.

Drag and drop the exported file into any subfolder in the Assets folder in your project or go to Assets | Import new asset and choose your FBX file.

Select the imported file and navigate to the Inspector tab. Click on the Rig button:

Here you can specify the type of the rig to use. For bipedal characters, use the Humanoid option, for all the rest choose Generic. We use a sheep model in this example, so we need to choose the Generic rig. Differences between those options are described in the How it works section.
Leave all the other inputs as defaults.

Click on the Animations button. If an Unapplied import settings window appears, click on Apply.

Make sure the Import Animation checkbox is checked.
Click on the Apply button in the lower right corner of the Inspector (just above the Animation Preview). You may need to scroll the Inspector down.

You should be able to see all imported animation clips as child assets of your imported FBX file.

How it works...

Unity uses four different rig configurations:

Generic rig: This one is used for quadrupeds, spiders, and other non-humanoid characters. It uses Unity's Mecanim system for controlling animation flow. It can use root motion if you provide a Root node—a bone responsible for character movement.
Humanoid rig: This one is used for humanoid characters only. It also uses Mecanim system for controlling animation. If you are using Humanoid rigs, you have more options for importing animations. The biggest advantage is automatic animation retargeting—you can use the same animation clip on various types of humanoid characters (for example, a dwarf and a troll).
Legacy: This option is used mostly for backward compatibility with previous versions of Unity. It is similar to the Generic rig but uses scripts instead of Mecanim for controlling animation flow. I recommend using Generic rig instead.
None: This last option turns off the rig and disables animation import.

We will discuss differences between Generic and Humanoid rigs further in the next recipe.

There's more...

Imported animation clips are also listed in the Clips section of the Animations tab.

You can add new clips by clicking on the plus button below the Clips section. You can also remove clips by clicking on the minus button.
You can rename each clip by using the input field above the Source Take drop-down menu.
You can choose the source take (the animation stored in your FBX file) for each animation clip with the Source Take drop-down menu.
You can also trim the animation clip by editing the Start and End input fields.

Note

If you are using Blender, make sure to rotate the rig -90 degrees in the X axis, apply the rotation in Blender and then rotate it again, +90 degrees in the X axis. The rotation of the rig in Blender should be: 90 X, 0 Y, and 0 Z. Your model should be facing the -Y axis in Blender (when you change the view to FRONT, you should see the face of your character). Blender and Unity use different axes alignment: in Blender, Z is up and Y is back; in Unity Z, is front and Y is up. This little trick solves the problem. Your model after import should have 0 rotation and should be facing the Z axis. It is important for moving objects (such as characters) and rig configuration. If you don't do this, your model will have -90 X rotation after the import.

Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook

By : Maciej Szczesnik

Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook

By: Maciej Szczesnik

Overview of this book

Related Content you might be interested in

Current Title:

Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook

Importing skeletal animations

Getting ready

How to do it...

Note

How it works...

There's more...

Note