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

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Configuring generic and humanoid rigs

This recipe shows how to configure two most frequently used rig types: Generic and Humanoid. We will go through all the available options for both of them.

Getting ready

As previously mentioned, make sure you have prepared two animated characters. One of them should be a humanoid and the other a non-humanoid, a quadruped for instance. You can also download the provided example Unity project and go to the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 02 Configuring generic and humanoid rigs\Rigs directory.

You will find there three FBX files:

Generic.fbx
Humanoid.fbx
Quadruped.fbx

If you are creating your characters from scratch, the bones hierarchy of your humanoid rig is important for Unity to recognize the rig as a humanoid. It should follow this pattern:

HIPS -> SPINE -> CHEST -> NECK -> HEAD 
HEAD -> EYE (for left and right eyes) 
HEAD -> JAW 
HIPS -> UPPER LEG -> LOWER LEG -> FOOT -> TOES (for left and right legs) 
CHEST -> SHOULDER -> ARM -> FOREARM -> HAND (for left and right hands) 
HAND -> PROXIMAL -> INTERMEDIATE -> DISTAL (for five fingers in left and right hands)

The hip bone is the root bone of the humanoid character. Fingers, shoulders, chest, neck, eyes, jaw, and toes are optional bones. Your humanoid character will work without them.

You should also remember to model the character in a T-POSE. It should face the Z axis in Unity (if your 3D software uses different axis alignment from Unity's like Blender, remember about the -90 and +90 degrees rotation trick shown in the Importing skeletal animations recipe). Hands of the character should be flat, palm down, and parallel to the ground along the X axis. A-POSE characters will also work.

How to do it...

To configure a generic rig you need to follow these steps:

Import your animated asset into Unity the same way as in the Importing skeletal animations recipe.
Select the asset and choose the Rig tab in the Inspector. Then select the Generic option in the Animation Tab drop-down menu. If you are using the provided example Unity Project, select the Generic.fbx file in the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 02 Configuring generic and humanoid rigs\Rigs directory.
Choose the Create From This Model option from the Avatar Definition drop-down menu.
Leave the Root Node option set to None.
Leave the Optimize Game Objects option unchecked.
Click on the Apply button to complete the configuration.

Humanoid rig configuration has a lot more options:

First, import your skinned humanoid model to Unity the same way as in the Importing skeletal animations recipe.
Select the asset and choose the Rig tab in the Inspector. Then select the Humanoid option in the Animation Tab drop-down menu. If you are using the provided example Unity Project, select the Humanoid.fbx file in the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 02 Configuring generic and humanoid rigs\Rigs directory.
Choose the Create From This Model option from the Avatar Definition drop-down menu.
Leave the Optimize Game Objects option unchecked.
Click on the Apply button.
You should see a Configure button with a tick icon near to it.

The tick icon shows that Unity was able to automatically recognize the rig hierarchy as a humanoid. If Unity fails to recognize it, automatically a cross will be displayed instead of the tick. If you are using the provided example, you can observe it when you try to set the rig to Humanoid for the Generic.fbx file.

Note

Some quadruped characters can be mistaken by Unity for humanoids. You can find a Quadruped.fbx file in the provided example Unity project. Theoretically, you can set its rig to Humanoid, and Unity will recognize it as valid. This, however, is a mistake—all quadruped characters' rigs should be set to Generic. Setting them as humanoids can cause problems later.

Click on the Configurebutton to enter the Avatar Configuration Inspector. A new scene will be opened. You should be able to see your model in the scene and bone mapping section in the Inspector tab.

Make sure you are in the Mapping section (1). All recognized and assigned bones are shown as green body parts on the displayed dummy character. If a required bone is missing or is not assigned, it will show up as red. You can navigate between the Body, Head, Left Hand, and Right Hand sections by clicking on a corresponding button (2). All bones are displayed in a list (3) for each section. Required bones are marked with circle icons and optional bones are marked with dotted circle icons.
You can change the bone assignment by dragging a bone from the Hierarchy tab and dropping it onto a corresponding bone slot in the Inspector tab. Unity will occasionally miss a bone or two (especially fingers); thus, you should always check the bone assignment manually.
If your character is not in a T-POSE (is modeled in an A-POSE for instance), a Character is not in T-POSE message will be displayed in the scene view and the character's bones will show up in red. Unity needs the character in a T-POSE for proper humanoid avatar configuration. You can enforce that pose by choosing the Pose |Enforce T-POSE option, found below the bones mapping list.

Click on the Apply button and then the Done button to finish configuration.

How it works...

Humanoid rig uses more advanced Mecanim features than the Generic rig. You can find the list of such features below:

Automatic retargeting: This is one of the most important differences between those two rigs. The Humanoid rig uses automatic retargeting, which means that you can have the same animations on different humanoid characters. Your characters can share a group of animations (basic movement or some common actions). It gives you the possibility to buy your animation assets from the Asset Store and easily use them on your characters. Generic rigs don't support this feature. You have to prepare animations for your specific rig or retarget them in a 3D package.
Inverse kinematics: This feature lets you control your characters' feet and hands position with scripting. It is useful for making your characters stand on uneven ground or grab an object in the scene. It is a built-in feature for Humanoid rigs in Unity. Generic rigs have to use custom-made solutions.
Advanced animation settings: Humanoid rigs have more settings for animation import, such as the mirror option. We will discuss them in depth in the Looping mirroring and offsetting animations recipe.
Look at: Unity has a built-in solution for humanoid characters looking at something. You have to write custom systems for generic characters.
Additional bones: A lot of people think that they cannot use additional bones with Humanoid rigs. It is not true. If your rig has an animated weapon slot for instance, you can still use it with the Humanoid rig. All you need to do is to find the Mask section in your animation import settings and enable the additional bone for each animation it is used in (you need to use the Transform foldout to find your additional bone).

I highly recommend using Humanoid rigs for all humanoid characters in your game.

There's more...

In the Humanoid rig configuration, you can find the Muscles & Settings section, where you can preview and adjust the movement (muscle) range for your character.

You can preview the range of movement in the Muscle Group Preview section by adjusting the sliders (1). You can preview the range of movement per muscle in the Per-Muscle Settings section. You can also adjust the range here by unfolding a given muscle foldout and using the slider (2). In the Additional Settings section, you can adjust more options of your avatar. These are mainly responsible for the flexibility of your rig. You can set how much a bone can be stretched during animation for instance.
The Translation DoF option enables animating bones transition in your Humanoid rig. It is turned off by default, meaning that only rotation of the bones is used in animation.
In the Rig tab in the model import settings, you can find some additional options:
- Avatar Definition: This option is responsible for creating a new avatar or copying the avatar from another model. The second option is useful for storing animations in multiple files. It will be discussed further in the Using animations from multiple assets recipe.
- Optimize Game Objects: This option lets you hide all bones from the Hierarchy view. The number of game objects in the game has an impact on the performance. You can still choose a number of bones that will be displayed in the Hierarchy. It is useful for having exposing weapon slots and similar gameplay-related bones while hiding others.
- Root node: This option is visible only for Generic rigs. It lets you choose the bone responsible for root motion calculation. We will discuss it further in Chapter 4, Character Movement.

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

Configuring generic and humanoid rigs

Getting ready

How to do it...

Note

How it works...

There's more...