Animation clips in Unity - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Animation clips

📖 Scenario: You are creating a simple Unity project where a character can play different animation clips based on user input. This helps bring your game characters to life with movement.

🎯 Goal: Build a Unity script that sets up animation clips, configures a controller, and plays animations on a character.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an AnimationClip variable with a specific clip

Create a RuntimeAnimatorController variable to hold the controller

Use Animator component to play the animation clip

Add a method to trigger the animation clip

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Animation clips are used in games and interactive apps to make characters move and respond to player actions.

💼 Career

Understanding how to control animations in Unity is essential for game developers and interactive media creators.

1

Create an AnimationClip variable

Create a public variable called walkClip of type AnimationClip inside a new C# script called CharacterAnimation.

Unity

using UnityEngine;

public class CharacterAnimation : MonoBehaviour
{
    // Declare a public AnimationClip variable called walkClip
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use public AnimationClip walkClip; inside the class.

2

Add a RuntimeAnimatorController variable

Add a public variable called animatorController of type RuntimeAnimatorController to the CharacterAnimation script.

Unity

using UnityEngine;

public class CharacterAnimation : MonoBehaviour
{
    public AnimationClip walkClip;
    // Declare a public RuntimeAnimatorController variable called animatorController
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use public RuntimeAnimatorController animatorController; inside the class.

3

Get Animator component and assign controller

Inside the Start() method, get the Animator component from the GameObject and assign animatorController to its runtimeAnimatorController property.

Unity

using UnityEngine;

public class CharacterAnimation : MonoBehaviour
{
    public AnimationClip walkClip;
    public RuntimeAnimatorController animatorController;

    void Start()
    {
        // Get Animator component and assign animatorController
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Use GetComponent<Animator>() to get the Animator and assign the controller.

4

Create a method to play the walk animation clip

Add a public method called PlayWalkAnimation() that uses the animator to play the walkClip animation by calling animator.Play(walkClip.name).

Unity

using UnityEngine;

public class CharacterAnimation : MonoBehaviour
{
    public AnimationClip walkClip;
    public RuntimeAnimatorController animatorController;

    private Animator animator;

    void Start()
    {
        animator = GetComponent();
        animator.runtimeAnimatorController = animatorController;
    }

    // Add a method to play the walk animation clip
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Define a public method that calls animator.Play(walkClip.name);