Mecanim - Questions regarding animation editing in Unity 4

First off I would like to apologize if this has been already posted.

So I REALLY thinking about purchasing Unity 4 Pro.

But I have some questions regarding Mecanim - Unity's Animation Editor.

Those questions being -

Can we incorporate separate animations such as minor head turning or just random twitching of the fingers the like into our main animation pipeline as a secondary / Tertiary animation? (aka stuff that just adds a touch more detail to a animated model.)

Does Mecanim support run time* lip syncing?

Or just Lip sync

*(Using VOIP as an Input for triggering the Lip sync)

 

... and I´d like to know if direct import of mocap-files as *.bvh, *.bip is possible...

 

Does Mecanim by any chance allows automatic rigging and bone placement inside Unity? If not that could be interesting to see in future. Also does Mecanim supports biped, or 3ds max CAT bones?

 

It supports bone names and makes a best guess, which you can fix up easily with a few clicks. It doesn't to my knowledge, support lip synch however you could probably butcher it into working with manually assigning bones. I am not sure that's the purpose of the system though, or even better than using what you have now. You should be blending across animations for phonetic sounds.

Unity already supports this.

 

Can't wait to find out more about Mecanim!

 

Far more exciting (for me) is proper instancing of geometry for large speed gains.

 

The answer to your first question is yes. As an eaxample, if you have a dude running around and you want him to wave one arm or flip the bird you can add the mocap data of for that to the run.

 

Thanks for answer

 

This is awesome! I have been wanting a great animation blending solution in Unity for a while, especially my game project will be quite animation heavy... now you say a certain numbers of bones, should I be wary of using two bones for the forearm to simulate the arm twist or three bones for the spinal cord (I use Softimage for my rigging)...and will this be able to detect a null based rig?

 

- Do you plan to support morethantwo-pedal character in future ?
- Can the character have custom bones for shoulder pads, tail, wings, lara croft's... guns
- Is it compatible with skinned cloth ?

 

And will be still be able to copy keys in the Animation Editor? I love that feature...err oh wait. You can't.

 

I think he was trying to simulate breasts...this can be done with springs

 

BVH support would be awesome. Here's hoping!

 

So if I am going to be using mecanim, I should only have a chest bone, two spine bones, pelvis, and the other bones... sounds like a fair tradeoff. I usually use two extra bones to simulate the bicep "twist"... you guys just made my life easy... also wil I be able to blend states from two different models, such as Player A strikes, and Player B reacts...

 

YAY ... i recently saw this video and I love the fact that I can have a lot of bones and pick the ones I will use

 

That would be a good idea for a asset store plugin program. Something that lets like packs and things hanging off the character bounce around.

 

But for that to even considered, it would be a case by case scenario... I am still trying to get the cloth anchors to not slide around... kinda bothers me that in Unity, when you use interactive cloth, none of the pieces are truly fixed... and as far as mecanim is concerned, will I be able to blend between ragdoll and animations

 

I plan on sinking my teeth into this!


Question: Will this in some way,form, or limited features be in the UnityFree version so I can check it out first?


and is there a way to export out/save/transfer specific animation 'clips' once I specify the cycle's range from an FBX?

 

Ho ho http://mecanim.com/

 

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2012/06/20/more-mecanim/

Interesting:

So it sounds like we can take an existing animated character, apply the retargeting skeleton, and then extract the animation from it to apply to another character? Very interesting to me if true!

Also:

And driving 1000 characters? Really sounds good.

 

Yeah, this new Unity system is a full techrection. This saves my time and is an excellent force multiplier for production. I do not think most folks are giving this enough attention. I think that other engines will follow suit within the next few years.

 

This is so great, Unity can trash the current system for all I care.

Also, does anybody know if this will be in Unity Free?

 

I was wondering this too,...at least a limited version or something, just to get a taste of it first would be nice.


-Welby

 

looking at the chart, it does show that free users get the base Mecanim, but not "IK rigs" and "Sync Layers"

 

So what exactly does this system entail? Will you still have to rig models out side of unity?

 

Pierre,
This system looks so promising! Yes, having the hability to blend between ragdolls and animations will be so nasty (kind of what euphoria can do).
Keep it up!

 

Yup, especially for stuff like fighting games where I want hit reactions based on location...so I don't have to animate it myself...

 

+1 for BVH support

 

What about characters which bipedal walk is supported by arm-ground contact, such as Donkey Kongs, I mean gorillas

 

Does anyone know if we can use Mecanim for retargeting or programatically move the model. Or is that still up to good old fashion scripting?

 

Based on the mecanim demonstration video, the character is 100% animation driven (which means is the animation that makes moves the character) and adjust the controller to it.
[EDIT] Btw, i would like to know if traditional (in place) animations where the controller drives the character (and animations where played on place) will also work with mecanim or it does requires exclusively the model to be animated in world space (like motion capture data for example)?

 

Which saves me a hell of a lot of work.

 

Or you could ask the new bosses if you could keep the site.

You know, say what Mecanim is, who you are, and how it's now part of Unity thanks largely to your acquisition. I think it would be cool. Mechanism is a hell of an animation system as it looks in the videos, so it is sure to attract potential buyers to Unity. They can't say no to that, can they?

 

Pardon my idiocy, but which features shown in the video are those? Is the IK rig the adjusting the animation so it's only on the feet, or is the whole animation adjusts model thing?

Also, sorry about triple posting, but absolutely love Mecanim. And I'm jealous as hell I didn't invent it...

 

So you don't mind foot skating?

 

So what file format does it use???

 

Nope, not if the character is ice skating.

Way to necromance a topic, buddy.

Ahem... Honestly, I have no idea. I'd assume the information is stored in the project metadata.

 

Is there an ETA for this feature?

 

How far can we get regarding procedural animation ?