newbie - player loads face down in t-pose. Mecanim never kicks in

wetcircuit

I am a newbie, so I am sure the issue is me not knowing how to search for a solution to my problem.

I'm trying to follow the tutorials and set up a simple 3D scene, with a 3rd-person player. I've set up my figure (as best I know how, the mesh and bending all work - humanoid), applied the collider capsule, rigid body, Player script and Paths script - loading it into a blank scene works as expected.... I built a small scene with AC Wizard: a few obstacles and navmesh segments to define where he can walk... The player prefab is saved to the Resources folder and dragged onto the Player parameter under AC Settings.

When I press play the figure loads face down and in T-pose. Navigation (point and click) works but mecanim is not kicking in. I have the Avatar and the Controller set in the figure's inspector. In the Mecanim (animator) window I can see the bar is running but not animating the rig.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I can screw around with the Avatar (selecting another Avatar from another prefab) while the game is running, and the model will jump off into the distance (model is not zero'ed?) and I can see it is now animating with the mecanim animations. The capsule collider is where it should be but still tipped forward (X rotated 270°).... So the model seems to work, but my Avatar assignment appears dead, and the capsule rotates

Any suggestions? Even keywords for me to hunt down a "slow-learner" Unity tutorials for setting up a figure? I've gone over both the AC tutorials and the starter Mecanim Unity tutorials... I don't see what I am missing. Thank you!

ChrisIceBox

This may be a more Unity-level question rather than a strictly-AC one, but I think we'll need to see screenshots of your Player's full Inspector, and associated Mecanim controller.

To really be sure, I'd suggest leaving AC separate until you can get your character to animate with just a simple FSM (e.g. a Mecanim bool that you can check to transition between states).  Once you know your animation is running on a Unity level, it'll be easier to get it working in AC.

wetcircuit

Thank you, you are correct. I will narrow it down to understanding Mecanim first.