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Head layer tutorial?

There was a rough guide for string head layers working in an old deleted thread, and I got it working back in January (after it was added) by following your instructions. I've also looked at the brain2d example, which helps a lot, but have you considered a quick Unity Simple and Unity Complex head layers tutorial? I think it would help clarify how to align the position of the heads in animator for beginners, and remind people like me who've forgotten how to do it! 😜 I checked the manual too but I couldn't find a wealth of information on how to wire them up.

Comments

  • See the examples on the Downloads page.  The head sprite(s) are parented to a child of the body, and its this object's position that's animated as part of the body idle/walk animations.  A new position for each sprite change in the animation.  When you play it, it'll interpolate the values - so you'll need to make sure to set the interpolation to constant to prevent it jumping around.
  • Thanks, I remember the downloads page example now. Regarding my lost post question about eyes, I asked Ron about the method used for eyes, blinking and head layers on Thimbleweed Park:

    Eyes open is baked into the head, there is a seperate layer for looking left, right and blink. There is a blink timer that fires off every few seconds that turns on and then off the blink layer, but only if they are look forward. If they are looking left or right, it skips the blink. It might also skip the blink if they are talking. If they layer doesn’t exist, it’s also ignored, so if the actor blinks while using a special-case animation, nothing breaks.

    I presume this workflow would be easy enough to implement using animator layers in Unity? I'm passing this on as I'm interested if this would be your recommended way of working with Unity and AC's head layer mechanics. For eyes to work in the dynamic way they do on Thimbleweed Park, would you suggest using this way of layering elements?
  • It'll depend on your chosen Animation engine, but Sprites Unity Complex offers much more flexibility for this kind of thing.

    A "blink" animation can be added to a new layer in your Animator, and you can then rely on Animator parameters to determine if it should play (isTalking = false, facingDirection = 0, MoveSpeed = 0, etc).
  • Ah, Unity Complex gave me nightmares before, but I have this feeling I should try again and learn it for the flexibility. If you plan on any video tutorials for head layers in Unity Complex, I think it would be very useful, but I understand it's a lot of work and you're very busy right now. I'll have another look at it! Ron also said the blinking is random, so would the animation layer be wired into an AC script for this, or would a script on the gameobject for the eyes suffice?
  • The blinking wouldn't be anything to do with AC - as with all animation in "Complex" mode, it's all controlled via Animator Parameters.  An isolated script on your Animator could control it randomly.
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