Need prototype animations for third-person Unity game.
Okay, I've been trying to avoid having to do this, but unfortunately, I'm more or less at my wit's end with this. I can't really do animation myself, but the actual game I'm trying to do isn't terribly ambitious. I have managed to scrounge together various animations from various places, including the Unity asset store, but I don't really need much to get what I really need, and the paid stuff on the asset store doesn't really suit my needs anyway.
Alright, here's the details of what I'm doing, and what I need:
- My project, currently named "Strike Fighter Idyal", is a third-person game split into two parts - first part is a Star Fox-style space shooter (both on-rails and free-flying), the second being third-person action similar to Kid Icarus Uprising (with weapons capable of both ranged and melee attacks), but injected with a bit of classic shooter design and a bit of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time in terms of movement. Setting-wise, think "Mass Effect meets Lyrical Nanoha".
- The project is currently in the prototyping stage, but I'm mainly hit a roadblock for the ground action due to limited animation assets. I don't need animations for the flying bits, that's not neccessary, thankfully.
- I'm more than happy to pay for the job in a lump sum, that can be negociated.
- As well, I'm more than happy for the animations made to also be released as copyright-free assets for anyone to use. Considering what I'm using them for, and that they might be replaced further down the line after I get a full-time artist to help me out (probably after a kickstarter), I feel it'd be wrong of me not to give back to the community in some way.
I don't need a specialized model and rig, but rather I just need animations done with a mecanim-compatible rig that work well enough for any mecanim-compatible rig and can easily be retargeted. This model is a good example.
Animations I already have (though not neccessarily good-looking, but still): Idle, walking, jumping, falling, 8-directional strafing, sprinting, crouching, crouch walk, forward dodge, unarmed melee attacks.
What I'm currently missing (the weapon in this case is a gun/sword hybrid that projects a blade when needed, like the blade weapon type in Uprising):
- One-handed weapon aiming (neutral, upwards, and downwards, a blend tree can easily handle in-between)
- Dash-firing (player leaps/rolls in a particular direction while firing, forward, sides, and back)
- Melee combo (three-hit standing combo)
- Melee dash strike (strikes while leaping forward)
- Side evasion dash (left and right)
- Backwards evasion dash
- Wall run (both up and along a wall, think Prince of Persia)
- Wall jump (from a wall run)
Keep in mind that I don't need a model or a rig, I just need animations. A model would be appreciated, but that's a seperate request altogether, and unfortunately, not something I could release to the public domain. That being said, the creation of additional assets by anyone who wants to do them is certainly negociable. The above list is pretty much what I really need at the moment.
Either you dont fully have a grasp on how animations work or im just not getting what you're exlaining. you would have to post the models you are using for others to animate them, for most things (other things like what Maximo does, all of their rigs are the same so they work in all of their characters) you cant just make an animation file and put it in anything.
Well, it's not particularlly important because I don't need a specialized rig, any Mecanim-compatible rig will do, such as a rig generated by Rigify in Blender. That basically enables animations to be easily retargeted. But I have found have a rigged model in Blender that should suffice.
Hmm. I do understand now that you say you're using rigify.the bad thing about retargeting in blender though is that it doesnt always look 100% good with the mesh moving around from the animations. The higher the poly count the bigger flaws there normally are.
In this case, I'm more concerned about function than form, as long as it works well enough for what I want to do, I'm not gonna complain if it doesn't retarget perfectly for all cases.
When working with Unity and mecanim you don't need to post a model. Unity will retarget the animation to actually work with any humanoid, regardless of how many bones it has.
I think most of the animations you are requesting are already available as mocap data for free on the asset store, just search for mocap and you'll find hundreds of animations:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/search/mocap
Are you sure you have searched it through entirely? I think I've seen what you describe on there...
And why would you need a 3D-model when you can use UMA for free and get character customization as a bonus?
Oh almost forgot, I bought this asset that contains a ****load of animations. The guy who createed it does mocap himself I think and you can request him to add an animation you need and he'll add it to the pack for free. I never had to search for any more animations after I got this one...
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/10214
I've looked, and honestly, nothing I see really fits the bill, though Props animations might help. We'll see, I guess, but I've lot a rather limited budget right now, and nothing specific on the asset store really fits my needs, as far as I can see.
I don't know if this helps you at all but looking at your requirements:
This one should be fairly basic and as you say technically easy to solve with a blend tree. These animations exist in props and possibly in the mocaps as well. In the props there are animations for aiming pistol, shotgun and rifle up, down and neutral. (and a lot of others, reloading and stuff)
This one is pretty localized I guess but you could solve it with one animation for jumping, dashing etc and maybe IK for the hand holding the weapon?
This one s pretty basic, seen lots of these. Not in the props AFAIK. Maybe mocaps. I've seen it somewhere :)
Hmm this might be a bit harder, maybe you could do it with different animation layers for different parts of the body but that is quite hard to make look good. Here you might need an animator create it for you to make it look good.
Basic animations that're in both the mocap and the props animations I believe.
This one is interesting! Have you considered using the technique in the unity mecanim tutorial where the character leans to the left and right when turning but simply using it with the wall as the floor? Otherwise this animation is actually in the props animation package. But doing it with code would be way cooler :)
How far into your game are you? Anything to show? :) Sounds really interesting!
/Mike