Is animating movement of an object less costly than physics simulation?

Unity Engine
1

I just simply want a mailbox door to sway subtly in the wind.

So I can;
A) Drop a windzone into Unity and set a hinge joint on the mailbox door and allow Unity to calculate the physics.
Or
B) Simulate the movement in Maya and import the animation.
Or
C) Use something like tweening in Unity to mimic the sway.

I’m not using physics simulations anywhere in the game, it’s largely a visual/render-heavy game, so I’m inclined to think it would be best to keep to this pattern and simulate/animate in Maya.

Can anyone shed any light here? Or perhaps suggest a better method?

Second Question:
I also intend to add a subtle creaking sound, so I’ll add an Audio source to the mailbox and maybe a reverb zone. When testing I’ve noticed that I can hear the sound from anywhere in the scene.

Is there a way to limit at what distance the audio is heard? I assumed a reverb zone would do this but I had misunderstood the use of a reverb zone.

I figure I could add a collider to the mailbox, make the radius the distance from the mailbox I want the sound to be heard, and code an OnCollissionEnter or something.

Problems with that is the Audio would begin everytime you entered the audio source zone. Unless I adjusted the volume OnCollison, but then the Audio would be constantly playing which I assume is bad for performance.

Anyone got a simple solution for this problem? I get the feeling I’m missing something simple here.

Thanks for reading :]

2

Even cosine animating that is less computationally expensive than physics. Physics are the most expensive form of animation possible.

Finish the game. Optimize last.

3

Thanks for your reply, interesting point too to leave the optimization til the end, would speed things up a bit. I’ll avoid any physic simulations so, shouldn’t need em anyway.

Got any thoughts on my Audio problem?

4

Generally speaking, you’ll only hear the audio from everywhere in the scene if you’ve set it up to be that way. Make sure the audio clip has been imported with 3-d sound enabled, tune the min and max distances and rolloff curve for the audio source as appropriate, and you should be able to get the results you’re after.