Creating an animated menu

minhta

Hi,

I've been looking for a solution to this for a few days, but haven't found anything. Hopefully someone has some experience with this.

I've created a custom Unity UI menu which I have successfully linked to the AC menu manager. My goal is really simple: at certain points in my game, I want certain actions (gaining an inventory item, solving a puzzle, etc.) to trigger this menu and display a nice achievement graphic within it. The menu isn't interactive except for a close button. So far, so good.

Issues arise, however, when I try to add animations (via animator controller) to the achievement icons. Although all my animations are already setup within the Unity UI prefab, the icon never animates or changes states. All I can seem to get is for it to display the default animations first frame.

Am I missing something here? What's the easiest way to achieve the result I'm looking for?

Thanks!

minhta

Ah... So, I've got a piece of the puzzle figured out. My menu is set to pause gameplay, and apparently that pauses everything, including any menu animations.

So, I guess my question is, is there another way to achieve what I'm looking for?

ChrisIceBox

If you want Unity animations to play while the game is paused, I think you can do that by changing the settings in your Animator component - specifically by changing your Update Mode to Unscaled Time.

Alternatively, you can uncheck the pause gameplay option, and use the Engine: Manage systems Action to temporarily disable player interactions and movement while the Menu is open.

minhta

Awesome! Looks like either one will do the trick. Thanks a lot Chris!

Farlandsky

And I can't play the animation in the menu at all. It's not clear what I did wrong though. Everything works individually:
1) I made a prefab - a picture with animation.
2) Installed the prefab in the scene. In order for it to connect to the AC, I added an image component to it.
3) I made an action in the game that includes a menu and plays an animation.
4) When I turn on the game, I see a white rectangle and no animation at the same time

I will add that I just need animation for certain events. Just to make the animated icon appear and disappear in the right place.

https://gyazo.com/8c36caafc5aa77daaf847b9b46db5a95

ChrisIceBox

Your Object: Animate Action has no Animator assigned, meaning it has no Animator controller to manipulate.

You've also set the "Clip" name to that of the GameObject - this should instead be the name of the animation inside that Animator Controller you wish to play. Going by your screenshot, this is "morale_roll".

Also, you don't necessarily need to link your Image to AC's Menu Manager - only do this if you want AC to be able to control the Image's sprite at runtime. If you haven't assigned a texture to display in Menu's Graphic element, this may be why your Image's sprite is replaced by a white rectangle at runtime.

It also looks like you have nested Canvases in your hierarchy. Only the root object ("Canvas") should have a Canvas component attached.

Farlandsky

Thanks Chris, everything works!

ImagineTheEnding

Is there a way to animate a AC menu? Or does the UI have to be made in Adventure Creator?

ChrisIceBox

You'll need to use Unity UI as your Menu's Source if you wish to animate it.