Implementing Multi-character Animation

I'm curious what steps are used, in a broad sense, to create multi-character animations. An example would be something like the player grabbing an enemy to perform a takedown. Mostly I am curious how something like this would be implemented in Unity, and whether or not Mechanim would support such a feature.

 

Unless you record/prepare two-character animation clips, you'll need to play a separate, related animation clip on each participant. Mecanim can be a big help. Use Target Matching to get characters into position, Inverse Kinematics to get the right body parts touching (or Final IK [on sale now] for more control), and Animation Events to trigger the clips at the right time to keep them in sync.

Also Google Naughty Dog's presentations on how they do animation. They've always been very generous about sharing their development techniques. Their presentation on Uncharted 2's animation has a section on aligning characters to perform animations at anchor points in world space and in relation to other characters. Peyman Massoudi also recently published a nice, Unity-oriented article on Gamastutra about animation techniques.

You might also consider using Universal Fighting Engine or at least reading its Throw Move Guide. I haven't used UFE, but it's highly regarded and looks like it does what you're asking.

 

Show this video very easy to Character Animation with Mixamo