This page contains guidance on creating a model for use with Unity’s Animation System.
For general best practice guidance on creating all types of models, see Creating models for optimal performance. For information on importing a model with animations into Unity, see Importing a model with humanoid animations or Importing a model with non-humanoid (generic) animations.
There are two types of models that you can use with Unity’s Animation System:
Both require a rigged, skinned model. The stages of creating such a model are:
You usually perform all of these steps in 3D modeling software (such as Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Maya®, or Blender), export the resulting model, and import it into Unity.
There are a few guidelines you can follow to ensure a model works well with animation in a Unity Project:
3D modeling software provides a number of ways to create joints for your rig.
For a Humanoid model, there are specific requirements for the skeleton so that Unity can match it to a Humanoid Avatar:
For a Generic model, the only requirement is that the skeleton contains a bone that you can designate as the Root nodeA transform in an animation hierarchy that allows Unity to establish consistency between Animation clips for a generic model. It also enables Unity to properly blend between Animations that have not been authored “in place” (that is, where the whole Model moves its world position while animating). More info
See in Glossary when you import the model. This effectively defines the model’s center of massRepresents the average position of all mass in a Rigidbody for the purposes of physics calculations. By default it is computed from all colliders belonging to the Rigidbody, but can be modified via script. More info
See in Glossary.
The initial setup is typically automated. Skinning usually requires a fair amount of work and testing with animations in order to ensure satisfactory results for the skin deformation.
Some general guidelines for this process include:
Unity imports a number of different generic and native 3D file formats, but the recommended file format is .fbx. For more information, see Model file formats.
When you use .fbx, you can: