I would like to animate a Humanoid Character(Man in a Suit found in Unity Asset Store). But whenever I try to Create an animation clip, the model (3D Humanoid) is changing its pose and position in the scene view.
I am trying to animate the hands of the Humanoid. I am pretty new to animation. Please help me guys. Thanks in advance.
First Image: pose changes automatically after creating an animation clip on this object
Second Image: Initial image when this 3D model Humanoid is added to the hierarchy
The pose in the first screenshot is the relaxed pose (the pose when all humanoid muscles are at 0). If you’re not animating anything but the hands, this is the result you’ll get.
If the current clip is empty, it will always revert to the relaxed pose (first image). If you’re using layers/layer masks, this will be the case for any unanimated bones.
Thanks so much for ur reply, I’m really sorry if this is a too basic question. I’m not aware of that layers you are talking about. and the animation clip is empty, I have just created an animation clip in the animation window, Can you please walk me through how I can create a basic hand animation, may be like making a hand movement for salute action. It would be of great help to me.
Thanks for the reply. No I haven’t done any animations, on that Humanoid, Is it possible to make some hand movements. Could you please walk me through a basic hand animation.
There’s not really a workflow to animate in humanoid in the Editor (yet).
Normally, when working with humanoids, users will import animations from a dedicated tool (Blender, Motion Builder, Maya, 3DS Max, etc…), usually in the form of an FBX file.
The result you are getting is normal. The base pose for humanoids in Unity is the relaxed pose.
When your clip is empty, it’s the same as writing 0 to every human bone, which will give you the relaxed pose.
If you want to animate your character, and use humanoid animations, I suggest you start by animating your character in Blender (or any of the previously mentioned tools, but Blender is free), because Unity doesn’t have most of the advanced features that make animating characters reasonably easy.
As for animating a hand, a quick google search (Google*) seems to have quite a few tutorials to get you going.
Thanks for the swift reply LaneFox. I just want the hand movements as in sign language for deaf. Is it possible to do in Unity animation? or should I use some third party animation tools?
You could, but you would be using the wrong tool. As David points out above you’ll want to use a third party tool to do it properly, especially so if you’re doing ASL you’ll want clear and accurate animation for the entire body.
Thanks for the quick reply David. Is it possible to do some sign language type of actions in Unity animation or that blender tool you have mentioned, is there any other tool with which I can do those sign language sort of hand animations in a short span of time?
As @DavidGeoffroy mentioned earlier, there isn’t a straightforward workflow for animating a humanoid rig in the Unity editor. This is primarily because you can’t directly animate bones of a humanoid rig, instead it relies on a the concept of muscle clips.
You could potentially change the import settings for the rig to generic, but that would prevent retargeting of other animations to your rig. Even though it would allow for bone animation.
I have used this tool in the past: Unity Asset Store - The Best Assets for Game Making
If you are willing to invest a small bit of money and the time to learn about how muscle clips work, it is well worth it.
There isn’t really a quick way to learn about animation. Sometimes the things that sound simple, like moving a finger, require knowlege of much more.
Yes, I have watched it earlier, but I couldn’t understand it, I am really new to animation, I need animations for fingerspelling. I’m not sure how to do that. Could you please help me with it.
