Simplest way to create new Mecanim animations?

My boys and I have been exploring the Mecanim animation system, and we're really excited about it so far. We love how you can combine animations and models from completely different sources, and they all work together. The Asset Store seems to have a large (and probably growing) set of Mecanim-compatible assets.

But suppose we need to make just one more animation for a game, or need to tweak one of the standard ones slightly. What's the best tool for doing that? Can Bonzai Engine do it? Daz 3D? Something within Unity itself?

Ideally, I'm looking for something simple enough my 9-year-old can do it... and if it matters, we're on a Mac.

Thanks,
- Joe

 

You could browse Mixamo's huge library of Mecanim-compatible mocap animations using their in-editor store. The animations are customizable and clean. They're fairly inexpensive for the occasional animation.

Since you're on a Mac, Cheetah 3D is an inexpensive, relatively easy 3D modeling and animation editing program. But all 3D software is rather complicated and might be a bit much for your son.

When Cinema Mo Cap introduces Mac support, that might be a fun option.

 

Just realized I never thanked you for this advice. I've downloaded Cheetah 3D, and it looks great.

Is anyone aware of any Cheetah 3D + Unity tutorials out there? A fair number of people seem to be using this combination, but I haven't been able to find a good introduction to topics like how to reliably import a Unity model, how to tweak the animations, how to export back to Unity, and so on.

 

Happy to help! You might try the External Tools forum. This poster is raving about how well it works with Unity:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/192377-Cheetah-3D-is-really-the-BEST-3D-drawing-package-for-Unity!

And here are some more discussions about Cheetah 3D.