How to animate shaders/pfx etc on 3D characters? Can't add keyframes to imported (Read-only) animations.

Questions & Answers
1

Hello, thanks for your time :slight_smile:

I have a 3D animated character driven by a state machine, BUT within the same gameobject hierarchy, driven by the same state machine, I’d like to animate unity properties (eg: particles, shaders / squash & stretch etc)

The 3D anims are imported (read-only), so I can’t add those properties, BUT I have achieved a solution using 2 identical animator controllers in the same hierarchy (see attached image)

The 3D model is a Child, and uses an Override Controller based on the Parent’s Animator Controller.

This works, but feels like a dodgy inflexible hack which will end in tears further down the line…

Do you know of a better one?

50270-unityproblem.png
50270-unityproblem.png846×1043 259 KB

2

SOLVED: Research and experimentation has revealed that hierarchy is the fundamental factor, and I was doing it wrong.

With the correct hierarchy, ANIMATION LAYERS make it possible to animate shaders & pfx on a 3D character, within a single animator controller.

  • The imported 3D model MUST be the parent object (top tier), and any other objects (eg: particle emitters) inserted as children.
  • Add animation layers, with new Unity-editor created animations to these layers. They can play in parallel to your 3D anims and aren’t limited by the “read-only” flag. :slight_smile: