Character Animations in Timeline

Objective: Create unique animation for your character using Timeline!

Together we are going to create a character sequence. So, begin like always, create a director.

We are going to pull in a character and animated it based on the animations we have. First thing to do is select your model and make sure that the animation type is set to humanoid.

Place you model into the scene.

Child the model under the director and add them onto your Timeline as an animation track.

In the project view select you animations and make sure they are all set to humanoid.

Now select the actual animations and duplicate it, and rename it.

What we want is for the Timeline to implement these animations on our character. The first thing we need to do is grab an animation and drop it onto the Timeline. Set the post-extrapolate to loop, and turn loop on under animation playable asset.

Now grab another animation and drop it in. You’ll notice a sharp transition. We can fix this by using the ease in/ ease out.

Let’s not end there let’s add another animation. Let’s add a turn animation and a walk backwards animation.

You’ll notice we have an issue with this animation. The character will turn, and then snap back to the other direction when walking backwards. You’ll also notice that the character walks in place instead of moving backwards. When downloading animations from Mixamo you have the option to have it animate in place, or not.

We need to download the one where they are actually moving backwards. Set it to humanoid, duplicate it, and set it into your Timeline.

Next we can fix the direction the character is facing. We need to match the offsets. Select the walking backwards animation, right click, and select match offset of previous clip.

This is a really easy way to make a character animate using Timeline. Don’t be afraid to experiment with your animations and I’ll see you in the next tutorial!