Unity modify animation at runtime

Question

TLDR: Basically, I use the same animation for all of the soldiers, but I want those animations to behave little different from each other, so all my soldiers won't behave all the same. Would i be able to modify those animation at runtime?

So I'm working on this RTS style game that has a group of soldiers, let's say charging. Since most of them using the same animation. Although I randomize the starting time of each animation, so they won't be played simultaneously. But everybody in the unit is still charging with the same animation. And it looks rather weird.

I wonder if there's a way that I can alter each animation a little bit on runtime, to the degree they swing their arm, for example, one of the soldiers would swing a few degrees more, and other will swing less.

I wonder if it's possible to do in unity at runtime. And if so, how would I do it?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Farhan Farhan · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-17T05:44:13

First and foremost, replace your animation with animator controller.

Inside the animator, for example, you can add animation events. You can also define animation parameters. Based on the parameters you define, your character can switch between different animations. Lets take a look at an example now.

Put a script, SoldierAnimator, on your soldier that has reference to the animator controller.. Now, lets say that your soldier's 'loadGun' animation has 3 variations. You now assign a parameter to each animation. So 'crouchLoad', 'quickLoad' and 'stuckLoad' substates can be assigned parameter 'loadType' with values of 0, 1 and 2.

Assuming that you can go from "Any State" to 'loadGun' state with trigger parameter 'load', and your SoldierAnimator reaches a point where it has to load gun, you can do something like this:

public class SoldierAnimator : MonoBehaviour
{
    public Animator _animator;

    void someUserInputEvent()
    {
        //... Some code here...
        loadGun();            
    }

    void loadGun()
    {
        int animType = Random.Range(0, 3);
        _animator.SetInt("loadType", animType);
        _animator.SetTrigger("load"); //Now your animations are randomized



        // You can also experiment with _animator.speed = xx, for 
        // different speeds of loading animation, probably randomized a
        // little, but then add an event to end of the animation and
        // on the event, set speed back to 1.
    }        
}

Unity modify animation at runtime

2 Answers