Good day to the Unity community. I have a question that I wanted to consult those that are more experienced than me in the community, and I hope I’m not being a bother by doing so.
As stated in the topic title, since I’m relatively new to the Unity engine, I was wondering whether it would be better to do deforming animations and bones in 3rd party 3D software (say, Lightwave) and export them all into FBX pipelines so that Unity can import and use them, or whether it would be better to do it in Unity, assuming there are ways to do so efficiently and optimally. 
Any help on this matter will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking your time to answer my question!
Hi, and welcome.
I’m assuming that you are referring specifically to character workflows. You need to rig and animate characters outside of Unity, i.e. a digital content creation package, such as Maya, Lightwave, 3dsMax, etc.
You cannot create, rig, and animate characters in Unity. Unity has an animation tool, but it is very basic and though it has many uses (I use it all the time), it will not work for you when more advanced animation tools are needed, such as for making complex character animation- use Lightwave or whichever 3d program you use.
I would say 3rd party. I have tried creating animations within Unity, and it is a pain to use.
Simple animations are ok. Eg. A rotating cube. But anything more complex then that is very tricky.
Then again, it may just be me.
Thank you for the kind replies, i3DTutorials and Sir.TIddlesworth. I figured that the animation tool in Unity does not have much to offer and is very inefficient, but I still wanted to make sure. Now that you guys have confirmed it, I’m much more comfortable to plan up all character workflows in Lightwave.
Once again, thank you so much for helping me, and I wish all the best to the Unity community! <3
Again, the Unity animation tool is really good, it is not inefficient or worthless in any way. It is very useful and a great feature of Unity. It is just not meant to be the backbone of your character animation pipe. If used for the right things it was designed for, it becomes a great asset in production.
I understand entirely, i3DTutorials, but for what I’m trying to do, I have no choice but to determine that Unity’s animation tool is just inefficient and does not suit my need. Hope I’m not being offensive by saying so… ._.;
Not at all, I was just trying to make sure you have as much information as you need for your project. Didn’t want you to come away thinking you should ignore the Unity animation tool completely, just you have to know when and when not to use it, is all. Good luck with your project and be sure to drop by again when you have more questions about Unity development.