Unity Animation Manager (UAM)

Used to simply play animations without having to create transitions, while giving the opportunity to create them via. code instead.

Contents

• Unity Animation Manager (UAM)
  • Contents
  • Introduction
  • Installation
• Documentation
  • Reference to Animation Manager Script
  • Possible Errors
  • Inspiration
  • Public accesible methods
    • Play Animation method
    • Get Current Animation Length method

Introduction

A lot of games use the animation tree to create transitions between animations this small and easily integrated Animation Manager can help you play animations without having to create transitions that will result in animation trees like this.

Unity Animation Manager implements the following methods consisting of a way to:

• Play an Animation with additional error message depeding if starting to play succeded or failed (see Play Animation method)

For each method there is a description on how to call it and how to use it correctly for your game in the given section.

Installation

Required Software:

• Unity Ver. 2020.3.17f1

The Animation Manager itself is version independent, as long as the Animator object already exists. Additionally the example project can be opened with Unity itself or the newest release can be downloaded and exectued to test the functionality.

If you prefer the first method, you can simply install the shown Unity version and after installing it you can download the project and open it in Unity (see Opening a Project in Unity). Then you can start the game with the play button to test the Animation Managers functionality.

To simply use the Animation Manager in your own project without downloading the Unity project get the file in the Example Project/Assets/Scritps/ called AnimationManager.CS or alternatively get the file from the newest release (may not include the newest changes) and save them in your own project. Then create a new empty gameObject and attach the AnimationManager.CS script to it.

Documentation

This documentation strives to explain how to start using the Animation Manager in your project and explains how to call and how to use its publicly accesible methods correctly.

Reference to Animation Manager Script

To use the Animation Manager to start playing sounds outside of itself you need to reference it. As the Animation Manager is a Singelton this can be done easily when we get the instance and save it as a private variable in the script that uses the Animation Manager.

private AnimationManager am;
private Animator animator;

const string PLAYER_ATTACK = "Player_attack";

private void Start() {
    am = AnimationManager.instance;
    animator = gameObject.GetComponent<Animator>();

    // Calling Function in AnimationManager
    am.PlayAnimation(animator, PLAYER_ATTACK);
}

Alternatively you can directly call the methods this is not advised tough, if it is executed multiple times or you're going to need the instance multiple times in the same file.

private Animator animator;

const string PLAYER_ATTACK = "Player_attack";

private void Start() {
    animator = gameObject.GetComponent<Animator>();
    // Calling Function in AnimationManager
    am.PlayAnimation(animator, PLAYER_ATTACK);
}

Possible Errors

ID	CONSTANT	MEANING
0	SUCCESS	Method succesfully executed
1	ALREADY_PLAYING	The given animation is already playing currently
2	DOES_NOT_EXIST	Given animation does not exist on the given animator or layer

Inspiration

The creation of this Animation Manager has been inspired by the Escaping Unity Animator HELL video.

Public accesible methods

This section explains all public accesible methods, especially what they do, how to call them and when using them might be advantageous instead of other methods. We always assume AnimationManager instance has been already referenced in the script. If you haven't done that already see Reference to Animation Manager Script.

Play Animation method

What it does: Starts playing the choosen animation if possible and returns an AnimationError (see Possible Errors), showing wheter and how playing the animation failed.

How to call it:

• Animator is the animator the given animation is contained in
• NewAnimation is the name of the animation we want to play
• Layer is the layer on the animator that the animation resides on
• StartTime is the time in the animation we want to start playing at

Animator animator = gameObject.GetComponent<Animator>();
string newAnimation = "Player_attack";
int layer = 0;
float startTime = 0.0f;
AnimationManager.AninmationError err = am.PlayAnimation(animator, newAnimation, layer, startTime);
if (err != AnimationManager.AninmationError.OK) {
    Debug.Log("Playing animation failed with error id: " + err);
}
else {
    Debug.Log("Playing animation successful");
}

Alternatively you can call the methods with less paramters as some of them have default arguments.

Animator animator = gameObject.GetComponent<Animator>();
string newAnimation = "Player_attack";
AnimationManager.AninmationError err = am.PlayAnimation(animator, newAnimation);
if (err != AnimationManager.AninmationError.OK) {
    Debug.Log("Playing animation failed with error id: " + err);
}
else {
    Debug.Log("Playing animation successful");
}

When to use it: When you want to play an animation directly without any transitions.

See Animator.Play for more details on what Play Animation does.

Get Current Animation Length method

What it does: Returns the length of the currently playing animation clip.

How to call it:

• Animator is the animator the given animation is contained in
• Layer is the layer on the animator that the animation resides on

Animator animator = gameObject.GetComponent<Animator>();
int layer = 0;
float length = am.GetCurrentAnimationLength(animator, layer);
Debug.Log("Current animation has a length of: " + length + " seconds");

Alternatively you can call the methods with less paramters as some of them have default arguments.

Animator animator = gameObject.GetComponent<Animator>();
float length = am.GetCurrentAnimationLength(animator);
Debug.Log("Current animation has a length of: " + length + " seconds");

When to use it: When you want to know the length of the current animation.