Book Image

Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook

By : Maciej Szczesnik
Book Image

Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook

By: Maciej Szczesnik

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.

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Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook
Maciej Szczesnik
May, 2016 | 328 pages
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Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Title Page
Title Page
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewer
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Working with Animations
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
2
Working with the Animation View
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
3
2D and User Interface Animation
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
4
Character Movement
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
5
Character Actions and Expressions
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
6
Handling Combat
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
7
Special Effects
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
8
Animating Cutscenes
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
9
Physics and Animations
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
10
Miscellaneous
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
Index

Creating animation transitions in Animator Controller

As mentioned previously, Animator Controllers are state machines containing animations (states). Any given character can be in one such state (play one animation) at a time. To switch between states (animations), you need to create state transitions.

Getting ready

Before we start, you should have an animated model placed on a scene with an Animator Controller assigned. You can find such a model in the provided example Unity project. Go to the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 04 Creating animation transitions in Animator Controller directory. Open the Example.unity file. You will find a Sheep object in the Hierarchy. It has an Animator Controller assigned. You can open it by double-clicking on the Controller field in the Animator component of the Sheep game object.

How to do it...

To create a state transition in an Animator Controller, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Animator Controller asset.
  2. Add at least two states by dragging and dropping two animations into the Animator window. You can also point the cursor at an empty space in the Animator window, press the right mouse button and select Create State | Empty, then select the state, and add an animation to the Motion field in the Inspector.
  3. Click on the right mouse button on the state you want to transition from and choose Make Transition.
  4. Drag the transition onto the state you want to transition to and click the left mouse button.
  1. A default transition will be created. The state will switch after its animation has finished playing. To be able to observe it in gameplay, make sure you transition from the default (orange) state, as only the default state will play when the game starts.

How it works...

State transitions define how we can travel through the graph of animations. They are combined with transition conditions based on Animator Controller parameters; we will discuss the parameters in detail in the next recipe: Using parameters to control the animation flow. Each transition has a set of properties we can adjust. Click on the transition (white arrow) to select it. You can find the transition properties in the Inspector tab (make sure to unfold the Settings foldout):

  • Has Exit Time: If set to true, this enables the transition only after a given percentage of the animation has been already played. If disabled, the transition will take place instantly after its conditions are met. If you want to create a sequence of animations, set it to true.
  • Exit Time: This is the percentage (0-1 range) of the animation length after which the Has Exit Time condition is met. If you set it to 0.5, for instance, the state will transition after 50 percent of the animation was played.
  • Fixed Duration: This property is combined with the next one, Transition Duration (s). If it's on, the Transition Duration (s) is in seconds, and if it's off, the Transition Duration (s) is in percentage of the animation time.
  • Transition Duration (s): the time of the state transition. This is how long the animations will transition one into another. Animations are being blended together during the transition. Longer transitions are smoother, shorter, are more sharp. A good default value is around 0.25.
  • Transition Offset: This offsets the target animation in time. The value is in percentage of the animation. Setting it to 0.3 means that the target animation will start from 30 percent of its length instead of the beginning.
  • Interruption Source: This setting tells Unity whether the transition can be interrupted by other transitions. You can set it to:
    • None: the transition cannot be interrupted by any other transition.
    • Current State: The transition can be interrupted by transitions from the state we are trying to transition from.
    • Next State: The transition can be interrupted by transition from the state we are trying to transition to.
    • Current State then Next State: The transition can be interrupted by the transitions of the state we are trying to transition from or by the transitions of the state we are trying to transition to. The transitions from the state we are trying to transition from take the priority.
    • Next State then Current State: The transition can be interrupted by the transitions of the state we are trying to transition from or by the transitions of the state we are trying to transition to. The transitions from the state we are trying to transition to take the priority.
    • Ordered Interruption: If set to false, this lets the transition be interrupted by other transitions independently of their order. If set to true,the order of the transitions matters.

There's more...

When you create an Animator Controller, you can see three more nodes apart from your animation states:

  • Entry and Exit: This node is used when you transition between state machines (Animator Controllers or substate machines). We will discuss it in detail in the Using Sub-State Machines in Animator Controller recipe in Chapter 6, Handling Combat.
  • Any state: This node can be used as a helper to make a transition from any state to a given state. It is used when you have an animation that can be played anytime, for instance, a hit animation. We will discuss it in detail in the Using transitions from any state to play hit reactions recipe in Chapter 6, Handling Combat.
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