Animation Integration in Unity
Table of Contents
- 1 Table of Contents
- 2 Summary
- 3 Video demonstration
- 4 Starting the task
- 4.1 Ftrack
- 4.2 Git Unity Project Tool
- 4.3 Unity
- 5 Animation integration
- 6 Common Issues
- 6.1 Render sanity check complains about unassigned bindings
- 6.2 Asset is invisible in shot
- 6.3 Asset only appears when you look somewhere specific
- 6.4 Asset is animated, but offset
- 6.5 Static asset (placement) is offset, cloned or missing
- 6.6 Door frame is missing/standing at 0, 0, 0
- 6.7 Characters are blurry / out of focus
- 7 Publishing the animation integration
- 7.1 Rendering
- 7.2 Publishing
Summary
This document details the workflow of the animation integration task in Unity, a.k.a. the process of importing animations in a Unity project to check that everything works as it should, and all the requirements and common pitfalls that might occur during that step. This step comes after Layout in the production process, once animation has started.
Video demonstration
Add a video demo here.
Starting the task
Ftrack
In order to start working on the layout of your sequence, you will first need to:
Make sure you’re logged in to Ftrack connect, which is a standalone app.
Travel to the Animation Integration task of the sequence you want to work on.
Launch the SYNK Git Unity Project Tool action.
Git Unity Project Tool
Once the Git Unity Project Tool opens, you'll need to:
Set up the unity projects directory if this is your first time launching the tool
Clone the unity project if this is your first time working on a task in this environment
Make sure you have all the latest changes
Unity
Once Unity opens, you'll need to:
Make sure the SYNK packages are up to date
Check or change the task status
Lock the scenes you want to work on
Animation integration
Render Sanity Check
Before doing anything, it is always a good idea to press the Render button once - this will launch the general Unity sanity check. Any issues here should be resolved before continuing with the next steps.
See Common Issues for some solutions to the issues that could pop up here.
Ftrack Sanity Check
Before importing animations to your project, it is absolutely vital to make sure your Ftrack links have all been set up (meaning all referenced props and characters of any shot need to be linked to that shot). That step is normally done in Layout. However, it can happen that new assets were added to shots or that existing assets were duplicated in Animation.
When that’s the case, make sure to import or duplicate these assets to your Unity project and to link them to ftrack using the Ftrack Links Sanity Check tool or to do it manually in ftrack.
Shot animations
Shot animations - animations specific to a shot, never reused - will be imported through the Asset Updater. This is the perfect occasion to also update all of the assets present in your project:
Asset animations
Asset animations - e.g. animation cycles - are imported through the Asset Browser, just like you would import any other asset task to your project.
When an animation cycle has been imported to the project, you can assign the animation clip to the rig of the correct asset in a Timeline.
Animation Assignment
Once your animations are imported, they will need to be assigned correctly to the corresponding assets. We can do this through the Animation Assignment tool.
You can find it from the SYNK menu > Artist toolbars > Finalising tools.
As we’ve seen, there are different Timeline Overlays you can use to make your job easier while integrating animations. If you are interested in other timeline tools, have a look below :