List of applications that can get animations into Unity...

I think it'd be helpful for all including myself to list them off. I'll start:

* Maya
* LightWave
* Cinema4D
* Modo (If you have Maya)

-Jon

 

Here is another pipeline to get skeletal animation into Unity:

*Animation:Master > .X > PolyTrans > .FBX

 

Cheetah3D doesn't support skeletal animations yet, unless there is something you've spyed...

I wasn't even aware that its FBX exporter even included its animations. Maybe I made the thread title a bit wrong. :/

-Jon

 

That's right.

The fbx exporter in Cheetah3D v2.5 will export animations. I'm currently beta testing the animation export.
So with v2.5 the animation export will also work via the direct .jas import.

By,
Martin

 

Excellent, Martin!

 

I know this is an old forum topic, but just as those went before me, many shall follow...(do you like that one?)
Okays, so Ive made a character in Maya, It has a skeleton,(from the FBIK examples-In the Visor Window(Maya))and I want to know how to use it as a third person character in Unity. There was this time where I some how seperated the camera from the capsule colider, and could see the capsule in front of me, coliding into things. Ithought,"Damn, if i could get my character downthere running round instead of that pill thing, how cool would that be?"
So I've been trying to figure out how to get from Maya into Unity with an animated Character. Do I export a walking animation as: "character@walk.fbx", then another animation called "character@running.fbx" and maybe 1 at: "character@shooting.fbx" Is there 3 or(?) types of animation I need to make, and export each seperatly? Do I need to use motionbuilder?

 

Do a search for third person controller. A number of people have done some neat examples of this, from how to manipulate the camera with collision detection to triggering animations.

I did an example a while back for triggered anims and basic camera relationships.

Link... the download is halfway down the thread.

 

Wicked man Im downloading it and will try it...I do have to do my animations in maya and export them in the "Character@something .something "style though ay? The mac I work on is a 3/4 hour bus ride away and I wont be able to try that script today...But thanks mega.
Are you suggesting a www search for "third person javascript?" If I find one it should/might work?
I got a script and used it effectivley last time I booted Unity, just 1 from within the program. I was real happy bout that.
Thanks again

 

No, a search on these forums. In Maya right now you have to save out each anim separately. So save your FKIK character at it's bind pose and then build off of that file for each of your anims using the "character@anim" naming method. It's not just about one script. There's a handful of relationships/scripts that go into creating a successful 3rd person control scheme. That example is a Unity Package that shows how the hierarchies work.

 

Just a small question Targos, why do you keep on digging up old threads? You seem to be talking about vaguely related things in them, instead of starting a new thread on them.

Not that I'm penalising you or anything, I'm just wondering what your reason for not searching and then making a new thread

It's much better than all those users on other boards asking questions that have been answered millions of times before in other threads

 

Well Socksy Ive been trawling the threads for info thats at a level I can understand. Idont really know if its better to start new threads or work with whats there already...I guess if all those folk who posted on those old threads are getting messages to check in on them then I guess I should start new threads>point taken...
I have a lot of questions no i wont be patient I wont I wont and The answers are coming thank u mass u kno who you are, so yeah if anyone can tell me anything relevant to mastering unity thats great, and as soon as I have things sussed, I'll probably offer up some tut's for newbies myself...
What project are you on man? Im working on an FPS in the desert. Soon my animations from Maya will be colliding with my camera collider capsule and I will have an interactive environment for the first time ever...I've just gotta figure out how much data a gamescene can handle. Do you have any advice in terms of (x)-megabytes of textures,(x)megabytes of sound files and (x)amount of megabytes of Maya stuff and (x)amount of polygons I and others should be considering when designing unity scenes, I'd love to hear about it. Yes many questions, many...too many? well more answers!yes answers mmm they make me feel good yes :roll:

 

I don't mind you digging up old topics. It shows you are really willing to learn and not just ask "how do I do X" when it says how to do X with just a bit of research.

Also for your questions about file size of things. For first the file sizes of the assets before unity uses them and once they are in your game is not the same (I know this is true at least for textures). And as for deciding where to draw the lines of "too complex" or "too simple" for your project it all depends on your target audience. Which is always the case and makes drawing the lines much more difficult. I would suggest choosing a target audience (Say people with G4 or better processors and at least a 32 MB GPU)

Once you have the target audience then you can start to figure out what the limits are. For example if they have 32 MB of VRAM then you can't have more than 32 MB of textures on screen at the same time. There is a chart at the Unify wiki that will help you find out the size of a texture after unity uses it with the import settings you chose: http://unify.bluegillweb.com/scriptwiki/index.php/VRAM_tips

As for polygon count, thats always a hard one, read up on games that run well on your target platform and try to see what limit they shot for, do some tests yourself. Remember that its polygons on screen that really matter. So if you have small rooms you could put much more detail into each, and then write your own portal culling system even. Hope this helps, if you do write Unity tutorials I have a site dedicated to tutorials over at http://unify.bluegillweb.com so we let me know so I can add them. Best of luck, Jeff

 

>Antenna Tree
Heay, I just had a spin with your goober Character-From the link you gave me-How cool is that? Was he a game character or a "Plaything"?
I had a look at the components(goober@rest....etc) In Maya and Kinda get the gist...I made a few sphere animations with same names(Sphere@rest...)In hopes of trying to understand the mechanics...But It didnt really work...
Any Chance of writing a tutorial? That'd be cool. I must dig out those adjustments you made to the script and see if I can patch it up like you suggested to that other reader...
Surely it looks something like this?Or this can be logically modded?

Script for goober.
W=goober@walk.mb>z
A=Goober@walk.mb>-x
D=Goober@walk.mb>x
Spacebar=goober@jump.mb

Like trying to use a fanbelt where a rubberband would suffice no doubt.
Cheers, Hes good fun

 

There's nothing patched up from the original unity.package for download. The scripts are all unchanged and should work fine if you open the package and then open the scene within the package. To use those scripts on your own character/object, you just need to look at how all the scripts are attached to the main character mesh, how they're in a parented hierarchy, and how the relationships work.

I've heard that there's a good Third Person tutorial coming out in the not too distant future, and it should help out with these issues a lot.