Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook

Maciej Szczesnik

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781785883910
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Digital Media
• Index: Computer Science

A recipe-based guide to give you practical information on Unity 5.x animation techniques and tools

About This Book

• A straightforward and easy-to-follow format.
• A selection of the most important tasks and problems.
• Carefully organized instructions to solve problems efficiently.
• Clear explanations of what you did.
• Solutions that can be applied to solve real-world problems.

Who This Book Is For

This book is for Unity developers who have some exposure to Unity game development who want to learn the nuances of animation in Unity. Previous knowledge of animation techniques and mecanim is not necessary.

What You Will Learn

• Importing animations to Unity
• Work with different animation assets and components
• Create, visualize, and edit animated creatures
• Animating game cut scenes
• Design character actions and expressions
• Create gameplay by animating characters and environments
• Use animations to drive in-game logic

In Detail

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.

Style and approach

This practical no-nonsense guide is recipe-based with real-world examples of almost all the techniques mentioned.

Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook

---

Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: May 2016

Production reference: 1160516

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78588-391-0

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author Maciej Szcześnik	Copy Editor Sameen Siddiqui
Reviewer Grzegorz Mazur	Project Coordinator Bijal Patel
Commissioning Editor Amarabha Banerjee	Proofreader Safis Editing
Acquisition Editor Aaron Lazar	Indexer Rekha Nair
Content Development Editor Prashanth G Rao	Production Coordinator Aparna Bhagat
Technical Editor Murtaza Tinwala	Cover Work Aparna Bhagat

About the Author

Maciej Szcześnik is an experienced game designer and Unity developer, specializing in gameplay and combat mechanics. His daily responsibilities include motion capture session planning and coordination, creating animation graphs and state machines, and AI design and implementation.

He started his professional career in 2004 at CD Projekt RED—the company best known for the critically acclaimed The Witcher series. Maciej had key roles in the Witcher games, being lead gameplay designer and lead combat designer. He also worked at 11 bit studios, another well-known Polish game development company, famous for the This War Of Mine game.

Maciej gave three talks at the Game Developers Conference and Game Developers Conference Europe. He is also a lecturer at Warsaw Film School, teaching Unity and technical aspects of animation as part of the game development BA course.

I'd like to thank my wife for her support, Kacper Kwiatkowski and Grzegorz Mazur from Vile Monarch for their reviews, Marek Ziemak and Piotr Tomsiński for inspiring discussions about games and animations, and Michał Pieńkowski and Marcin Iwanek for countless RPG and tabletop game sessions. I'd also like to thank all my friends and former coworkers from 11 bit studios and CD Projekt RED for helping me develop my skills.

About the Reviewer

Grzegorz Mazur is a programmer who graduated in information technology from Warsaw University of Technology. He is currently co-boss and technical director at Vile Monarch. Previously, he worked for 11 bit studios, where he was lead programmer of This War of Mine and Sleepwalker's Journey. He specializes in gameplay and AI programming and is a teacher at Warsaw Film School. He is also an amateur musician and board game enthusiast.

www.PacktPub.com

For support files and downloads related to your book, please visit www.PacktPub.com.

eBooks, discount offers, and more

Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at [email protected] for more details.

At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books and eBooks.

https://www2.packtpub.com/books/subscription/packtlib

Do you need instant solutions to your IT questions? PacktLib is Packt's online digital book library. Here, you can search, access, and read Packt's entire library of books.

Why subscribe?

• Fully searchable across every book published by Packt
• Copy and paste, print, and bookmark content
• On demand and accessible via a web browser

Free access for Packt account holders

Get notified! Find out when new books are published by following @PacktEnterprise on Twitter or the Packt Enterprise Facebook page.

Preface

This book describes Unity's animation techniques from a designer's point of view. It is focused on achieving interesting gameplay effects and creating game mechanics. Each topic is presented in the form of a short recipe with a list of steps needed to implement the given feature. All the recipes are prepared in the most condensed form—a good basis to build your own solutions on.

This book doesn't cover animating in a 3D package, although you may find some helpful tips regarding Blender 3D in i...

Table of contents

• Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook