2D Animations

DashBounder

Apologies if this is an obvious question but how do you trigger non-standard animations for a 2D Sprites Unity character?

Basically I'm putting together an intro cut scene and I want the character to react to a conversation. I've watched the Unity tutorial about Mecanim and animation controllers for 2D (seems marvelously simple) but I can't find any way to trigger the animation controller Transition from the cut-scene action list. Do I need to change the character animation to 2D Sprites Unity Complex and if so does that mean that there's no way to trigger non-standard animation for 2DSU?

Apologies once again if this is an obvious question, I've checked through the AC manual and spent the best part of a day trying to research it so figured I should just ask...!

Thanks!

DB

ChrisIceBox

The Character: Animate Action is what you want - it'll work for characters of any animation type, but the specific options that appear are dependent on which animation engine you're using.  This just means that you'll have to either check Is player? or assign a character in the Character to animate field once you create the Action.

At the top of the options that then appear will be Method.  If you want to play a custom animation, just set it to Play Custom, and enter the name of the animation you want to play.  So long as a clip by that name is present in your character's Animator Controller window, it'll play.

DashBounder

Thanks Chris, I knew it would be something embarrassingly simple... Character: Animate was the first thing I tried but I was trying to drag and drop the clip into the field rather than type the name, which didn't seem to work. The animations are working fine now, am I right in thinking that you don't need to create the transitions in the animator controller for this to work, but rather just trigger and reset the anims using Action List fields?

ChrisIceBox

If you're using "sprite swapping" animations that wouldn't need smooth transitions between them, then that's enough.  For complete control over your Animator Controller, you can use Sprites Unity Complex instead - in which case AC will be in charge of parameters that you can manipulate through the same Action, leaving you in control of what those parameters actually do.

CutyDina

Ok, finally solved... I think. The issue here is the other sprites. I think we have to create an empty object and add all the assets and assign the animator controller to this one. then use in the player creator. And all issues begin when we try to assign to player the animation controller, that was the mess (hoping Im right and this wont be a nightmare again) but if empty object has the right names it is ok