Unity animation workshop 2021-22
- 1. Unity Animation Workshop Narrative Design Series Thomas Deacon, 2021-22
- 2. Stuff to do now! ● Get these slides: https://tinyurl.com/rca-unity-animation ● Register a Mixamo account to grab animations and character models ● Download and open the Narrative Control Unity project ○ https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AfISzpSKN9UFjqteEZ hpltPYAR8AhKWv/view?usp=sharing
- 3. Digital Content Creation (DCC) Workflow Unity Workflow Potential Facial Animation Workflow 1 Make a model and rig For the example of facial animation, the model will need weight painting and morph targets Record/Link Animation See this example for how blender can make facial mocap from just pen marks and a camera! https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=uNK8S19OSmA 2 Import/Setup in Unity Get the animation and model FBX file into Unity with correct settings. 3 Trigger Animation Make the face move when you need it to! 4
- 4. DCC Terminology Rigging - Preparing an object for movement, in the case of a character by applying a skeleton similar to a human bone structure to control the joints. Skinning - Attaching the geometry to the rig mentioned above to deform correctly. Morph Targets / Blendshapes - Morphing/blending or interpolating between two geometry vertex positions, e.g. a neutral face morphing into a smiling face where the user creates both expressions and the application can animate between the targets. Weight Painting - ‘Painting’ the influence the rig/joints will have on the geometry
- 5. Humanoid Rig 1 Mesh (w skin) 2 Rig 3 Weights
- 6. Unity Terminology Mecanim - Unity’s mecanim is a state-machine for animations. It is a rich and sophisticated animation system. Rig / Armature - A collection of bones inside a model file, typically a FBX. To create rigs you use Digital Content Creation (DCC) packages like Maya. Here is an example of how to create one in Blender. Clips - Animation clips generated inside Unity or made in DCC software such as Maya. Typically, clips are in FBX format. Clips contain information about how certain objects should change their position, rotation, or other properties over time.
- 7. Unity Terminology Generic Animation - In Mecanim terminology, non-humanoid animations are referred to as Generic Animations. These can be objects, animals, buildings, trees, humans with extra limbs, insects. Key thing is the rig structure is not humanoid. Humanoid Animation - specific bone structure that allows retargeting. Within mecanim, bones are transformed into a muscle system that allows added constraints via the Avatar System. Similar to a rig, this is the system in Unity where humanoid characters are mapped to a common internal format. This is what gives you the ability to retarget humanoid animation from any source (for example: motion capture) to your own character model, as well as adjusting muscle definitions.
- 8. Unity Terminology Animator Controller - The Animator Controller acts as a State Machine which keeps track of which clip should currently be playing, and when the animations should change or blend together. A very simple Animator Controller might only contain one or two clips, for example to control a powerup spinning and bouncing, or to animate a door opening and closing at the correct time. A more advanced Animator Controller might contain dozens of humanoid animations for all the main character’s actions, and might blend between multiple clips at the same time to provide a fluid motion as the player moves around the scene.
- 9. DIY Overview 1. Setup Project 2. First Animation! 3. Linking Animation to Scripts with Events 4. Explore basic transform animations 5. Curves and Tangents 6. Animator Variables 7. Let’s make a door 8. Working with Humanoid Animation
- 10. Follow-ups ● Practise using Animation Controllers in your own time ● Use MakeHuman to generate custom characters ● Make a simple dialogue system (YouTube) ● Make a simple audio manager (YouTube) ● Introduction to 3D Animation Systems (Unity Learn Course) ● Character animation technical features (Unity Learn Course) ● Procedural facial animation within Unity (pro-level) ● Building Interactive 3D Characters and Social VR (coursera)