Animation Status Update (Q3 2024) Unite Announcement

Wow. Woo Hoo!
This looks so good!

Are there any plans for improved support with netcode for gameobjects for the new system?

You mentioned IK several times in your post and there are several shots in the RoadMap video presentation on YouTube that most likely show IK. But will there be any sub-broadcasts on the IK system?

Iā€™m leaning heavily on only having ā€˜ONEā€™ animation solution on U7. Thatā€™s means I donā€™t want to see Mechanim & legacy anim as an option in U7. But Iā€™m not sure how this will impact ā€˜Timelineā€™. Since Timeline requires you to have Animator (playable) on the GameObject you want to animate, that means you canā€™t axe Mechanim right? Unless you change Timeline underlying API to use the new tech, or you have equivalent of Timeline & playable from the new system? That would be most ideal scenario, unifying the animation tech stack.

Hello again.
Thanks for jumping in so early with the detailed questions, unfortunately I/we canā€™t answer just yet. But I absolutely will in time. Not only that, but we will try and incorporate answering these types of scenarios in an upcoming post. I hope his does not dampen your enthusiasm.

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This is still on our to do list, and I honestly canā€™t say 100% if we will have time to address this (along with the numerous other animation window requests)

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I kind of mentioned earlier, but to be clear. We are no longer investing in improving Mecanim, Humanoid or the Animation Rigging package, however they will absolutely continue to be supported. Instead we are focusing on the new universal character system, which will be capable of so much more, and no longer need any of the above.

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Whatever improvements are made in Netcode, we should be supporting them.

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Good callout, but a bit like my answer to Yoraiz0r I canā€™t answer that one just yet, but will do so in an upcoming post at some point.

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I edited my original post to include a link to the Roadmap video, but thought to add it here as well.

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This all looks insanely impressive! Congratulations to you and the whole animation team. I canā€™t wait to sink my teeth in the new system!

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Thatā€™s a shame, but happy this is planned at some point.

That would be awesome. In general, anything that would allow complex rigs and animations to be made directly in Unity.

Accompanied of course with improvements in Unityā€™s keyframe animation toolset.

Right now, we need to bake animation and bring it in Unity using heavy animation files. The same data is mere fraction of the keyframes in our DCC and a fraction of the file size.

In the exported animation files there is a keyframe for every frame, even if you optimize it as much as possible it still is large. A good chunk of game installation size is thousands of large baked animation files.

Ask @keesrijnen about that. This guy has made one of the best universal rigging systems out there. Puppetshop/CAT for 3dsmax.

What I understand from the new system is, the system itself was IK driver. It not separate IK from animation logic system anymore. Every kind of logic to animate transform component is and could be under animation system. And IK or any kind of rigging will flow into the graph node then we need to have blending graph to decide which should be in control

And I assume IK will be the built in node of this system

I create animations in Unity, and I prefer to make character animations directly in Unity rather than in Blender or Maya. This way, I donā€™t have to switch between different software, and I can directly preview how my character looks in my scene with Unityā€™s rendering. For character animation, HumanIK/FullBodyIK is extremely important; itā€™s much better than simple Rigify, as it makes animation creation more convenient. I personally created an animation tool in Unity using Final IKā€™s FullBodyIK and keyframed it in the Timeline, and I used a motion path from the Asset Store to make the animations smoother.https://vimeo.com/1011713813

So, in Unityā€™s new animation system, will there be similar features that facilitate animation creation, like FullBodyIK animation layer parent constraints? Iā€™m really looking forward to this!

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Looking good! Main thing Iā€™m looking forwards to is the record-and-playback debugging tool, that will make an incredible difference. Now if we could only get that for every other systemā€¦

Iā€™m looking forward to being able to try a beta of this! The new UI seems somewhat overwhelming, but I assume itā€™ll not be too bad once weā€™re used to it.

Great to hear that we can also just play an animation and bypass the system entirely, for those ā€œI just want a door to openā€ cases.

The big remaining question is ā€œwhat happens to timelineā€. A system for syncing unrelated kinds of animation-like things on a bunch of different objects is very useful. Sadly, Timeline was built during the ā€œUnity will do everything 3Dā€ era of JR, so itā€™s more concerned about creating films than itā€™s concerned about creating cutscenes. Iā€™d love for a rework thatā€™s better at handling things like branching and waiting for player input. That being said, just having this new animation system as a track in a Timeline would be a good stopover.

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Lean data centric architecture.

GameObject as a plugin.

I believe in you Unity!

Make it happen!

I honestly asked as the demos shown off looked like they were in FK, not IK. Problem Iā€™ve had with Unityā€™s built in systems was that it lacked dedicated character animation tools, especially with the lack of tools for making humanoid animations which require you to look for either a github tool or something in the asset store that can help with IK stuff. The new system has potential, but itā€™s unknown to me if thereā€™s any IK scripts or if theyā€™re putting some of the Animation Rigging stuff directly inside the new system.

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One very important question for me is how do you reference parameters from script in the new system?

I know itā€™s always a complex topic but Iā€™m honestly tired of relying on string references everywhere in my project.
I can always take care of it myself with a custom of class and using Animator.StringToHash() like @CortiWins recommended to me last time (link).
But since this tool seems to be built for scalability i would guess it might have a built in solution.

Iā€™m probably repeating myself at this point, but the generated C# class from the input system feels like the perfect tradeoff for me.
Would something like this be possible, or do you have another solution in mind?

Either way Iā€™m very excited for this tool. Iā€™ve been waiting for this for years and itā€™s even better that I expected!
Even if it takes a while Iā€™m very excited for when this will be available.

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I also feel this doesnā€™t get enough attention and then it spirals into ā€œThere isnā€™t enough documentation!ā€. The legacy particle system comes to mind in terms of just having finicky logic and setups to execute core tasks. The code requirements arenā€™t TERRIBLE but there are several things from naming conventions to organization and some irregular syntax for enabling different things. They all add up to make interfacing with the system kind of a headache.

Another example: It always seemed weird to me that we have to create a duplicate variable (I know iā€™m butchering the jargon) just to then adjust the settings of a particle system

var particleSys = particleSystem.colorOverLifetime;
particleSys.enabled = true;

Iā€™ve created some custom scripts to change the emission rates, color gradients, or restart particles or whatever, but why isnā€™t the internal logic out of the box more approachable and refined? Itā€™s like spending years rebuilding an old car but leaving the exterior unpainted and exposed to rust. Itā€™s such low hanging fruit to put that really nice coat of paint on it and make it presentable.

Iā€™m kind of a scrub when it comes to code and when Iā€™m creating custom tools to be able to do basic functions with these systems it feels as though something is ā€œoffā€.

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