Introduction

Since Unity 4.6 in 2014, Unity has shipped with dedicated 2D features, and Unity 2018 continues to build on these. In this chapter, we present a range of recipes to introduce the basics of 2D animation in Unity 2018, and help you understand the relationships between the different animation elements.

 

The Big picture

In Unity 2D, animations can be created in several different ways—one way is to create many images, each slightly different, which frame-by-frame give the appearance of movement. A second way to create animations is by defining keyframe positions for individual parts of an object (for example, the arms, legs, feet, head, and eyes), and getting Unity to calculate all the in-between positions when the game is running:

Both sources of animations become Animation Clips in the Animation panel. Each Animation Clip then becomes a State in the Animator Controller State Machine. We can also duplicate States based on Animation Clips, or create new States, and add scripted Behaviors...