Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook: An advanced solution to all your Animation problems

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.

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

Unity uses four different rig configurations:

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

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: 

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.

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

Humanoid rig configuration has a lot more options:

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

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

As always, you should have a rigged and animated character ready before we start. Import it into Unity, choose the proper rig type, and put it into a scene. You can download the example Unity project and go to the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 03 Creating and assigning an animator controller directory. There is a scene called Example.unity there. If you open it, you'll find a Sheep character in the Hierarchy. It has an Animator Controller already created and assigned. You can also use the Quadruped.fbx file from the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 03 Creating and assigning an animator controller\Rigs directory to follow the recipe step by step.

To create and assign an Animator Controller, follow these steps:

Every animated object in Unity uses an Animator component and an Animator Controller asset. The component is responsible for playing animations in runtime. It has a number of parameters that we have to set or we can use to tweak the component's functionality:

The Animator Controller asset stores a graph of animations (animation states) and defines the rules of switching between them, blending them, and so on. The controller (asset) is attached to the component's Controller field (the component is attached to a character prefab or a character placed in the scene). Many objects or characters can share the same Animator Controller if they use the same animations (have the same rigs or are humanoid characters).

If you want to learn how to create animation graphs and control their flow, see the next two recipes: Creating animation transitions in Animator Controller and Using parameters to control the animation flow.

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.

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

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):

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

Before we start, you should prepare an Animator Controller with at least one transition between animation states. The controller should be assigned to a character (its Animator component) placed in a scene. You can also use the provided example Unity project and go to the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 05 Using parameters to control the animation flow directory. You will find an Example.unity scene there. There is a Warrior game object in the scene's Hierarchy. If you run the game and press the space bar, the Warrior will make a wave gesture. You can select the Warrior and open his Animator Controller. If you click on the Idle | Wave transition, you will be able to see the transition condition.

To use parameters for controlling state transitions, follow these steps:

      using UnityEngine; 
      using System.Collections; 
 
      public class Wave : MonoBehaviour { 
      //The anim variable is used to store the reference 
      //to the Animator component of the character. 
      private Animator anim; 
      void Start () { 
      //We get the component and assign it to 
      //the anim variable when the game starts 
      anim = GetComponent<Animator>(); 
      } 
      void Update () { 
      //We check if player pressed the spacebar 
      if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space)) 
      { 
      /*We cal the SetTrigger() function on the 
      Animator component stored in the anim 
      variable. The function requires one 
      parameter - the name of the trigger 
      parameter set in our Animator Controller 
      ("Wave" in our example). Make sure to match 
      it with the name of the parameter you've 
      created in your Animator Controller*/ 
      anim.SetTrigger("Wave"); 
      } 
      } 
      } 

You can use several types of parameters and corresponding script functions to set them:

Before we start, you should prepare and import at least two assets containing animations. If you are using a Generic rig, make sure to have the same rig in both assets. You can also use the provided example Unity project and go to the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 06 Using animations from multiple assets. There is a scene called Example.unity file there. In the scene Hierarchy you can find a Character game object. It has an attached Animator Controller in which you can find two animations: Idle and Wave. In the Rigs directory, you will find the Character.fbx asset containing only a rigged character along with the Idle.fbx and Wave.fbx assets containing the corresponding animations.

To use animations from multiple assets, you need to follow these steps:

All Generic rigs can use animations from multiple assets that share the same Avatar Definition. To share the same Avatar Definition, Generic rigs have to have exactly the same rigs (the same hierarchy, the same bone names and transforms). All Humanoid rigs can use animations from multiple assets that are also set to Humanoid. Additionally, they don't need to have the same rigs because Unity automatically retargets all humanoid animations.

Before we start, you should prepare and import a Humanoid rig with at least one animation. You can also use the provided example Unity project and go to the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 07 Looping mirroring and offsetting animations directory. There is a scene called Example.file there. In the scene Hierarchy, you can find a Mirror game object. It has an attached Animator Controller in which you can find two animations: Wave and WaveMirror. In the Rigs directory, you will find the Mirror.fbx asset. If you select it and go to the Inspector, and to the Animations tab, you can find normal and mirrored animation examples, as well as looped animation examples (Idle and IdleMirror).

To set an animation to loop, you need to go through the following steps:

To offset an animation, you need to go through the following steps:

To mirror an animation, you need to go through the following steps:

You can also mirror and offset animation states in the Animator Controller. If you select an animation state and go to the Inspector tab, you can find the Mirror and Cycle Offset options. There is also an option to use Animator Controller parameters to switch the Mirror option on and off and set the Cycle Offset. You need to have a Boolean parameter defined for the Mirror option and a float parameter for the Cycle Offset. Those settings will be automatically synchronized with the parameters. Whenever you change a parameter value, the setting will also be changed.

Before we start, you should prepare and import a rig with at least one animation and create an Animator Controller with at least one animation state for it. You can also use the provided example Unity project and go to the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 08 Adjusting the playback speed of animationsdirectory. There is a scene called Example.unity there. In the scene Hierarchy, you can find and AdjustSpeed game object. It has an attached Animator Controller in which you can find two animation states: WaveSpeedNormal and WaveSpeedIncreased. There is also an AdjustSpeedByScript game object in the scene. You can increase the playback speed of its animations by pressing the Space button on your keyboard in runtime.

To change the animation playback speed, follow these steps:

The Speed parameter set for an animation state in the Animator Controller multiplies the speed playback of the animation state. Setting this parameter to zero will freeze the animation.

You can also set the parameter using scripts. Following is an example script (it is used by the AdjustSpeedByScript game object in the provided Example.unity). You can assign it to your animated game object that has the Animator component and an Animator Controller attached:

using UnityEngine; 
using System.Collections; 
 
public class AdjustSpeedByScript : MonoBehaviour { 
//This is a variable, in which we store the reference to the 
Animator component 
private Animator anim; 
//We store the wanted animation speed in this variable, the 
default value is 2 (200%). 
 
public float newAnimationSpeed = 2f; 
void Start () { 
//At the start of the game we assign the Animator 
component to our anim variable 
anim = GetComponent<Animator>(); 
} 
void Update () { 
//We check if player pressed the Space button 
if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space)) { 
//And set the playback speed of the whole Animator 
Controller (it multiplies all states animation 
playback speed) 
 
anim.speed = newAnimationSpeed; 
} 
} 
} 

If you want to change the speed of just one animation state, then add a float parameter to your Animator Controller, use this parameter in the Multiplier field in the animation state Inspector, and change the parameter with scripts using the following function:

anim.SetFloat(string name, float value); 

Here name is the name of your parameter in the Animator Controller and value is the float value you want to set the parameter and playback speed to.

You should have at least two characters with different animation clips ready and imported into Unity. You can also download the provided example Unity project and go to the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 09 Using override animator controllers to animate different types of characters directory. There is a scene called Example.unity there. If you open it, you'll find Warrior and Spider game objects in the Hierarchy. They have Override Animator Controllers attached, and you can examine them. If you run the game, the characters will play attack animations. The underlying logic is defined in the HumanCombat controller (found in the Animator Controllers directory). The Warrior game object uses the HumanCombat controller without overriding it, the Spider game object uses a SpiderCombat override controller.

To use Override Animator Controllers, follow these steps:

Override Animator Controller only replace animation clips from your original Animator Controller. The logic of the original controller stays the same (so you can also use the same scripts to set the same parameters and so on). It is extremely useful for creating NPC characters in your games. You create the Animator Controller once, you write the scripts driving the controller once and only change the animations.

You have to animate an object's translation, rotation, or scale in a 3D package, then export the object as FBX file. You can also download the provided example Unity project and go to the Chapter 01 Working with animations\Recipe 10 Importing object animation from a 3D package directory. There is a scene called Example.unity there. This object has a follow path animation created in Blender and exported to FBX file. It has a normal Animator Controller with that animation as default state (looped). You can run the game to see the object animate.

To import object animation, follow these steps:

Unity imports translation, rotation, and scale animation of 3D objects from a 3D package. It makes it easy to create complex animations and use advanced features of a chosen 3D software. Make sure to bake your animations into frames before importing them to Unity (Blender bakes the exported animations to frames by default). Importing mesh animation (vertices movement) is not supported (you have to use Blend Shapes instead; we will discuss them in detail in the Animating facial expressions with Blend Shapes recipe in Chapter 5, Character Actions and Expressions).