Character Animations in Timeline
Timeline is useful for more than just animating objects. We can also use Timeline to sequence Character Animations. That is to say, we can place Animations on the Timeline and order the sequence and timing in which they will occur.
To illustrate this, we will need a character…
And we need to create a Timeline Director…
Note: Ideally, we want our Director and Character to be in the same Position. It is easiest to Create an Empty Object for the Director as a Child of the Character, set the Director Position to (0,0,0), Unparent the Director from the Character, and then Parent the Character to the Director.
And now an Animation Track…
Now, we can take an Animation from Mixamo.com.
We will need to modify the Rig from Generic to Humanoid.
Now, we duplicate and rename the Animation.
We can now add this Animation to the Animation Track. This will put a Clip of the Animation on the Track.
We can add multiple Animations to the Track and just like any other Animation Track, we can Ease In Out the Clips into each other in order to smooth their transitions.
When we play the Track it seems to work.
At this point, there may be anomalies in the Animation, such as Rotation or Position being off. We can fix this by viewing the Inspector for each Animation and adjusting the Offsets to fit the Animation.
Now, we can make a series of Clips and fit them together to make one big Animation.
This is sped up to fit Medium’s file size parameters, but it works.
Now, what if we want to add an Animation on top of our current Animation? For instance, we want to have our Character slash while walking. We can do this easily by adding an Override Track.
We can drag the additional Animation onto the Override Track…
Now, we just position and adjust the Animation and it should work just fine.
Well, maybe not. The position information from the Override Track is taking over our main Animation. We can fix this easily by adding an Avatar Mask. The purpose of this Mask is to limit the areas of the Character Rig that will be affected by the Animation. We can see the spot to put the Mask inside the Inspector for the Override Track.
In our Hierarchy, we can Create an Avatar Mask.
Now, we adjust the Mask to not affect the legs or the IK Position, denoted by the disk at the Avatar’s feet.
Now, we add the Mask to our Override Track.
Now, when we play back…
Our Animation plays back fairly smoothly.
Thanks!
