The Idiots Guide to Blender Animating

[Guest]

Hello there.  I've been meaning to make this for a while and never did, but here I am!

 

So, to start.  I'm going to assume that you know how to make a model in Blender, and import it into Unity, along with exporting it as a .mu file.  Go ahead and open up Blender.  For texturing purposes, make sure you are on Blender Render as opposed to Cycles.  (You can use cycles still, but this is for beginners mainly)

 

Now go in and make your model.  You can do just about anything, but I'm going to just use a simple cube.  Now go to the bottom right corner and click on this:

Click 'LocRotScale'  Now whenever you click 'I' you will create a keyframe.  Move your mesh into whatever position you want it in at the start, make sure you're on frame 0 and click 'I'

You should see a yellow bar appear on the timeline.

 

Go to the frame that you want your lamination to end at.  Now you can move it into the position you want it in when the animation stops.  Then click 'I'  Like before, you should see a yellow bar appear on the timeline.  Remember, you can have as many keyframes as you want, but make sure you go in order.

If you click play, you'll see it running the animation.  If you want something to move on a hinge, change the origin of the mesh.

 

Now for Unity.

Create a new Unity project and save your .blend into the assets folder.  Click on the .blend in Unity to see the import settings.  I'm now using a different part, just for demonstration.

Click on 'Rig'

Change 'Animation Type' to legacy.

Click 'Apply'

Now go into 'Animations'  Change the name to whatever you want it to be.  You can also play the animation.  Hit apply.

Put it into a game object, add part tools, and write it to where you need it.

 

Now for the config.

 

Add the following module:

	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleAnimateGeneric
		animationName = popup  //The name that you specified for the animation above
		startEventGUIName = Inflate //Whatever you want for starting the animation
		endEventGUIName = Deflate //Whatever you want for reversing the animation
	}

 

If you launch KSP with this part in it (and make sure you have written the rest of the config) you should have a part with the option to inflate/deflate, or do whatever your animation was.  Feel free to as me to elaborate on anything or clear things up.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Guest

[Stone Blue]

EDIT: NM...I figured out my issue... Now if I could just figure out how to DELETE posts, not just EDIT them...

Edited December 25, 2015 by Stone Blue

[Randazzo]

4 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

EDIT: NM...I figured out my issue... Now if I could just figure out how to DELETE posts, not just EDIT them...

Honestly it's better if you leave them intact, that way if someone else has the same issue, your problem and solution can be found.

There really are no stupid questions.

Edited December 25, 2015 by Randazzo

[Stone Blue]

Well, after several hours, I think I got the animations all worked out nicely. I found that having three, overlapping objects, animated so they "telescope" in one axis, I had to make them all the same dimension in the animated axis...

I had originally tried just gradually lengthening the largest on the "bottom end", that was to be animated first...
With the two other objects staying the original smaller size, being "dragged" along, flush, with the end of the first object...
It all lined up and looked good as I was stepping thru, keyframing...
But when I actually played the animation, there ended up being empty gaps between the ends of the objects as they lengthened...
I think partly because I wasnt placing the new object center points properly in relation to their new lengths....
Ended up being quicker and easier to just make them the same length, and "hide" them inside the larger tubes till they needed to be animated on their own...

It took so long, because I was playing with textures, and screwing around trying to figure out how to close the dozen "window frames" I ended up opening so easily with a couple simple, split-second  mis-clicks, and then the 10 more I opened with trial and error trying to get them closed.... I'm sure Blender experts like how Blender saves your current "window frames" layout when you exit the program, but for someone who hasnt gotten the hang of the VERY un-Windows like interface, its quite infuriating to say the least...lol

Thanx a bunch for the tute, @CliftonM.... Hopefully I can give the Unity part of it a try soon... I still have to get a handle on finishing up the textures, too... Oh, and the colliders...

[pizzaguy]

I have just tried this, but when it comes to changing the name of the animation this is the screen I get.

Edited February 14, 2016 by pizzaguy

[Guest]

35 minutes ago, pizzaguy said:

I have just tried this, but when it comes to changing the name of the animation this is the screen I get.

<SNIP>

What version of Unity are you using?  This tutorial is actually using Unity 5, so if you're in 4, you do not need to change the rig to legacy.  Try that, and if it doesn't work, reply again, and I'll see if there's anything else that could be causing this.  Also, could you show me what the setup of it is on all of the screens for it?

[pizzaguy]

6 minutes ago, CliftonM said:

What version of Unity are you using?  This tutorial is actually using Unity 5, so if you're in 4, you do not need to change the rig to legacy.  Try that, and if it doesn't work, reply again, and I'll see if there's anything else that could be causing this.  Also, could you show me what the setup of it is on all of the screens for it?

Nevermind, for some reason when I exported it as a .fbx it did this. I tried exporting as a .blend and it worked.

Edited February 14, 2016 by pizzaguy

[Guest]

Just now, pizzaguy said:

Nevermind, for some reason when I exported it as a .fbx it did this. I tried exporting as a .blend and it worked.

OK.  Your part looks good!

[pizzaguy]

1 minute ago, CliftonM said:

OK.  Your part looks good!

Thanks!

[InsaneDruid]

Why the "be in blender render for texturing"? I did all my texturing while beeing in cycles mode and I never had a single problem. I also bake ambient occlusion using cycles.

As an info for future readers regarding the "many animations instead of one" that @pizzaguy reported, @raidernick said it can be solved using FBX 6.1 ASCII instead of binary.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, InsaneDruid said:

Why the "be in blender render for texturing"? I did all my texturing while beeing in cycles mode and I never had a single problem. I also bake ambient occlusion using cycles.

As an info for future readers regarding the "many animations instead of one" that @pizzaguy reported, @raidernick said it can be solved using FBX 6.1 ASCII instead of binary.

I actually texture in cycles aswell, but it's mainly for beginners, as sometimes texturing in cycles isn't as "beginner-freindly."  I'll say that that's optional in the OP.