2D Animation Quickstart

Basic Animation Structure

Animation Controller: Decides what animations play at any point in time. Creates transitions between animations using arrows with parameters (e.g. if on idle animation and velocity param becomes > 0 we switch to the walk animation). Parameters can be set by script. Can also blend animations together in multidimensional space, but because it is 2d it will switch sharply between options.
Animation Series sprite frames over time. In the animation you can set framerate, keyframes, etc…

Inside a animation controller, to set an animation as the first animation to play right click it and set it as the default animation.

Add the PNG to your assets
Select the PNG. Inside the Inspector set the Sprite Mode dropdown to Multiple, set the Pixels Per Unit to some standard value (32 in my case), and set the Filter Mode dropdown to Point (no filter) So that your art is not blurred (when you are doing pixel art). Finally hit the Apply button at the bottom of the inspector.
Next inside the inspector click the Sprite Editor button to open the Sprite Editor window. At the top of the window select Slice > Grid By Cell Count. From there select the number of rows and columns to divide your image by. When you have the settings you want, click the Apply button in the upper right hand side of the Sprite Editor Window.
Next select the sprites under your sliced PNG and drag them into a scene. You will then be prompted to specify a location where you will create a new animation asset. Select the location and the animation as well as an animation controller will be created.

Note

If you want to create an animation without creating an animation controller, select all of your sprites for the animation in the project window, right click them and select Create > Animation.
Note

When clicking on a .anim asset, you may not see a preview in the inspector but only text like:
```
``No modiel is avaliable for preview``
```
We have not found a solution to this yet but you will be able to preview it once it is in the scene

Create a new Animation
Inside the Animator window, go to the Parameters tab and add 2 new float parameters by clicking the plus icon.
We will name the parameters velocity_x, velocity_y
Next from inside the animator window rigkt click and select Create State > From New Blend Tree.
Double Click on the Blend Tree. Inside it we can click on the Blend Tree node. Inside the inspector window change the Blend Type to “2D Simple Directional”.
Next we will add 4 Motion Fields. Each field will belong to a specific direction by setting PosX and PosY parameters as follows:
- Up Motion == (0, 1)
- Down Motion == (0, -1)
- Left Motion == (-1, 0)
- Right Motion == (1, 0)
Finally we can add the animations to each of the 4 mothon fields

If you do not want any delay when switching between transitions do the following:

Select the transtion in the Animator window and go to the inspector
In the transition settings apply the following settings:
- Has Exit Time == False
- Fixed Duration == False
- Transition Duration == 0
- Transition Offset == 0

Get an image you want to import like a .PNG or .JPG.
Drage the image into your assets folder.
You have now created a new Texture 2D. Look at the inspector and make sure the settings are correct. For pixel art games you should have the Pixels Per Unit consistent across your projects. Additionally make sure to set Filter Mode to Point (no filter) and Compression to None to prevent blurring and compression of your pixel art.

Note

To turn a sprite into a tile drag it into a tile pallette