How can I make animations for a 3d model.
(80% newbie)
Use a 3D app of your choice or script it via transforms inside Unity. Check the refering pages in the manual.
This question is so global, it cant really be answerd to a satisfying point. Choose the 3D Application you want to use (check the unify-wiki to see what app can bring what into Unity) and then… get a book or ask the web.
I use a modeling tool called Wings 3D could I make animations with that?[/url]
Wings3d and Blender Animations are not supported by Unity.
You can check here wich Software will do:
http://unifycommunity.com/wiki/index.php?title=3D_Applications
And to see what your 3D app can do, this is the wrong place to ask. Look at the forums that are targeted on that application.
Wings 3D seems to have an fbx exporter, so that should work. Has someone tried Wings 3D animations? Can you actually create an animated character in wings 3d?
last i checked wings doesn’t do animation but it’s been a while. you’ll need to get an app that does. blender (free) does but currently you can’t get animations out and into unity. hopefully you’ll be able to soon. if you have a PC you can use milkshape (~$20). prices go up from there…
On the wings homepage it says :-
“There is no support in Wings for doing animations.”
It’s fine for producing non-animated models as it can export in a variety of common formats, some of which are supported by Unity.
we use maya for modeling and motionbuilder for animation. mb is soo amazing for character stuff.
maya’s an excellent tool but Sam, seeing as you’re using wings, someone should mention it costs thousands of dollars per seat. there is a learning edition but, afaik, you can’t do anything useful with the output.
I can absolutely, positively confirm that Wings 3D does not support animation. There is an animation plug-in project underway, but it’s been on going for well over a year with no completion date in sight.
I worked with the .FBX export plugin developer to get a version out for the Intel Mac version of Wings3D, so that should be in the package by now.
Wings is a very easy to use, intuitive and fast poly modeler with some features still not found in Blender (like a rock sold bevel tool). But, neither can export animations to Unity.
I can report good news on this front: Cheetah 3d v. 4 (I’m a beta tester, as is Viking Dan) will support skinned animations, and has very good Unity support. I expect Martin will release it any day now. I don’t know if the price will go up, but I paid an indie-friendly 100 usd for version 3. The rigging and posing tools are relatively simple compared to Blender or the mainstream commercial apps, but also easier to learn and use. I was able to get my first animated character into Unity just a few days ago, which had stimied me for months.
woohoo! polytropoi’s finally in business!!! 
awesome news! hey poly - is there any decent blender = cheeta workflow? it’d be great to do it all in blender then just swap through cheetah, but i imagine i’d probably have to rig in cheetah at least.
i might be as well ; )
EDIT: i just checked i imagine at least i can get the meshes over:
yep, I exported blender geometry as *.obj, worked fine. Make sure to “Recalculate Normals Outside” (Ctrl N) before exporting from Blender; I found some were flipped when it came into Unity that I couldn’t fix in Cheetah. There are no envelope tools or vertex groups for rigging, only weight painting, which makes it a bit cumbersome on complex figures. Once you get your model properly rigged, posing is very straightforward (supports IK and FK) and poses are keyed to animations as takes, and takes show up as separate animation sequences in Unity, that can be mixed together. It’s missing all the Character Studio/Motion Builder tools, of course, but it does work well when you get the hang of it (easier curve than Blender) and it’s infinitely better than nothing. Give a starving man a cracker, etc… And considering the low price, and that Martin has built it singlehandedly, AFAIK, it’s nothing short of Extremely Cool. It fills one of the few missing pieces in the Unity toolkit - a low-cost character animation tool.
No more excuses now! 
nice, thanks for the info. even if its not “perfect” for me at least the choice between a $1000+ animation solution a $100 one isn’t a choice at all ; )
agreed on all. great work martin, you’ll have a sale from me shortly after it comes out : ))))
shortly after it comes out
i think it’s a free upgrade from the current version. never know, price might go up after the release.
i figured that, i need it really for the animation only and also i don’t have any spare cash ATM ; )
I’m using Dim3 Inspire, but I can’t seem to assign the animations to the model. 
i don’t know if it helps but there’s a tut on the wiki: