Question loading "animation" after stepping on the pressure plate

what's the best way to do a loading "animation" (e.g. color change) on a gameobject?

I mean something like the attached picture.
I wish this yellow "cable" had its loading animation. To change its color from gray to yellow.

I wouldn't want to do it with an animator tool, I'd prefer a script.

 

Color.lerp ?

 

as far as i know, color.lerp will only change the color smoothly, but it won't provide animation like in the picture.

 

Hmm , i guess i missed something, but i dont see any animation, just a static image.

 

yeah, it is a static image. but these red arrows are supposed to mean how this "animation" is supposed to work, I don't know how to describe it better xd

 

ohhhh, you want the color to smoothly go around the outside edge (faces, whatever you prefer) as its loading? First thing that comes to mind, is using a gradient and evaluating it over time. But i havent really attempted something like that, i just think i could make it hapen with a bit of poking.

 

ooo yes, exactly

 

I've been meaning to make a little circular / square loading demo like this for a while now so I did. See attached. Geometry has been hand-UV-unwrapped in Blender, exported also as an FBX for use in the scene.



Here's the salient script:

Code (csharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4.  
5. // @kurtdekker - animates the fill level by changing
6. // the material main offset.
7. // Requires that you have UV-mapped the shape correctly!
8.  
9. public class SetFillLevel : MonoBehaviour
10. {
11.     [Header("Provide or else we GetComponent()")]
12.     public Renderer TargetRenderer;
13.  
14.     [Header( "Set at start: 0 to 1")]
15.     public float currentFill;
16.     [Header( "Set at runtime to change: 0 to 1")]
17.     public float desiredFill;
18.  
19.     Material mtl;
20.  
21.     const float LoadSpeed = 2.0f;
22.  
23.     void Start ()
24.     {
25.         Debug.Log( "Press 1 or 2 for 0 or 100% loaded.");
26.  
27.         // if you forget, we'll look here where we are
28.         if (!TargetRenderer)
29.         {
30.             TargetRenderer = GetComponent<Renderer>();
31.         }
32.  
33.         mtl = TargetRenderer.material;
34.  
35.         desiredFill = currentFill;
36.  
37.         DriveToMaterial();
38.     }
39.  
40.     void DriveToMaterial()
41.     {
42.         // zero is half-loaded the way I UV-mapped it
43.         float y = currentFill - 0.5f;
44.  
45.         Vector2 offset = new Vector2( 0, y);
46.  
47.         mtl.mainTextureOffset = offset;
48.  
49.         TargetRenderer.material = mtl;
50.     }
51.  
52.     void Update ()
53.     {
54.         if (Input.GetKeyDown( KeyCode.Alpha1))
55.         {
56.             desiredFill = 0;
57.         }
58.         if (Input.GetKeyDown( KeyCode.Alpha2))
59.         {
60.             desiredFill = 1;
61.         }
62.  
63.         currentFill = Mathf.MoveTowards( currentFill, desiredFill, LoadSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
64.  
65.         DriveToMaterial();
66.     }
67. }

 

Nice one, Kurt. That about sums it up, and saves me from poking around at all.

 

Thanks! I find that by doing even simple little full-stack Unity things like this (things that exercise scene, canvas, material, renderer, importer, Blender3D, export, and a sprinkling of code) it helps me do my day job a lot better, where I might not need to touch vast portions of that stack for weeks on end.

 

oh nice, that's exactly what I meant, thanks a lot!