Animation tab
Reference information for the Animation tab in the Model Import Settings window.
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Animation Clips are the smallest building blocks of animation in Unity. They represent an isolated piece of motion, such as RunLeft, Jump, or Crawl, and can be manipulated and combined in various ways to produce lively end results (see Animation State Machines, Animator Controller, or Blend Trees). You can select Animation Clips from imported FBX data.
When you click on the model containing animation clips, these properties appear:
The Animation Clip Inspector
There are five areas on the Animation tab of the Inspector window:
(A) Asset-specific properties. These settings define import options for the entire Asset.
(B) Clip selection list. You can select any item from this list to display its properties and preview its animation. You can also define new clips.
(C) Clip-specific properties. These settings define import options for the selected Animation Clip.
(D) Clip properties. These settings define import options for all Animation clips.
(E) Animation preview. You can playback the animation and select specific frames here.
Asset-specific properties
Import options for the entire Asset
These properties apply to all animation clips and constraints defined within this Asset:
Property | Function |
|---|---|
| Import Constraints | Import constraints from this asset. |
| Import Animation | Import animation from this asset. Note: If disabled, all other options on this page are hidden and no animation is imported. |
| Bake Animations | Bake animations created using IK or Simulation to forward kinematic keyframes. Only available for Autodesk® Maya®, Autodesk® 3ds Max® and Cinema 4D files. |
| Resample Curves | Resample animation curves as Quaternion values and generate a new Quaternion keyframe for every frame in the animation. This option only appears if the import file contains Euler curves. This option is enabled by default. Disable this option to keep animation curves as they were originally authored. You should only disable this option if there are interpolation issues in the resampled animation when compared with your original animation. |
| Anim. Compression | The type of compression to use when importing the animation.
|
| Animation Compression Errors | Only available when Keyframe Reduction or Optimal compression is enabled.
|
| Animated Custom Properties | Import any FBX properties that you designated as custom user properties. Unity only supports a small subset of properties when importing FBX files (such as translation, rotation, scale and visibility). However, you can treat standard FBX properties like user properties by naming them in your importer script via the extraUserProperties member. During import, Unity then passes any named properties to the Asset postprocessor just like 'real' user properties. |
Setting error tolerance for key reduction on position and scale curves
Set the error tolerance percentage to determine whether or not Unity can remove a key on a position or scale curve as a strategy for animation compression.
When you set the Anim. Compression property to Keyframe Reduction or Optimal, Unity compares the original curve to what the curve looks like after removing a specific keyframe and applies this test:
OriginalValue - ReducedValue > OriginalValue * percentageOfError
Unity removes a keyframe if the delta between the original value and the reduced value is less than the original value multiplied by the error tolerance percentage.
Note that Unity compares the distances between the three curve components (it compares ), and also per component ( , , and then ).
distance(x,y,z)distance(x)distance(y)distance(z)This example demonstrates how Unity evaluates a reduction on the y-axis using an error tolerance of 10%:
Define a position error of 10% on a simple animation of a translation on the y-axis
Keyframe A has a value of 11.2
Keyframe B has a value of 11.1
The resulting reduced curve
Keyframe A is not reduced because:
- The distance between the original and reduced value is .
D = 11.2 - 10 = 1.2 - The error margin is
E = 10% * 11.2 = 1.12 - D > E
Keyframe B is reduced because :
11.1 - 10 < 10% * 11.1- The distance between the original and reduced value is
D = 11.1 - 10 = 1.11 - The error margin is
E = 10% * 11.1 = 1.11 - D = E
Note that this method has a limitation when using high values that vary only slightly. Moving the Scene 1000 units away results in essentially the same animation but located far from 0.
High values with small variance
In this case, both keyframes are reduced.
Keyframe A is reduced because:
- The distance between the original and reduced value is
D = 1011.2 - 1010 = 1.2 - The error margin is
E = 10% * 1011.2 = 101.12
Keyframe B is reduced because :
11.1 - 10 < 10% * 11.1- The distance between the original and reduced value is
D = 11.1 - 10 = 1.11 - The error margin is
E = 10% * 1011.1 = 101.11
Higher values require a much larger difference between the original and reduced values for keyframes to remain in the reduced curve. Keyframe A has a value of 1100 and is discarded; keyframe B has a value of 1112 and remains:
Higher values require a much larger difference
Clip selection list
List of clips defined in this file
You can perform these tasks in this area of the Animation tab:
- Select a clip from the list to display its clip-specific properties.
- Play a selected clip in the clip preview pane.
- Create a new clip for this file with the add () button.
+ - Remove the selected clip definition with the delete () button.
-
If you manually change properties of imported clips, Unity does not import new animation clips when the source Asset changes. For example, if you create a new clip or change a clip timing on the Animation tab, the clip list does not update even if you add clips to the FBX file from outside Unity. To view new and changed animation clips, you must add a new source take to the clip list.
Clip-specific properties
Import options for the selected Animation clip
This area of the Animation tab displays these features:
(A) The editable name of the selected source take. (B) The animation clip timeline. (C) Clip properties to control looping and root motion extraction properties for transform rotation, transform position Y, and transform position XZ. These features also include additional properties for reference pose, curves, events, and Avatar masks.
You can set these properties separately for each animation clip defined within this asset.
Source Take name
Property | Function |
|---|---|
 The name of the source take source take name | The name of the source take in the source file. Source files contain a set of source takes that are created in external 3D applications such as Motionbuilder or Autodesk® Maya®. You can import source takes as individual Animation clips. You can also create Animation clips from a subset of frames. |
Clip timing
Property | Function |
|---|---|
 The timeline editor The timeline editor | Drag the start and end indicators on the animation timeline to define frame ranges for each clip. Creating clips is essentially defining the start and end points for segments of animation. To define a looping clip, trim the start and end points so that the first and last frames match as best as possible. You can also zoom and scroll the timeline to be more precise. |
| Start | Start frame of the clip. |
| End | End frame of the clip. |
| Loop Time | Play the animation clip through and restart when the end is reached. |
| Loop Pose | Loop the motion seamlessly. |
| Cycle Offset | Offset to the cycle of a looping animation, if it starts at a different time. |
Root Transform Rotation
Property | Function |
|---|---|
| Bake into Pose | Bake root rotation into the movement of the bones. Disable to store as root motion. |
| Based Upon | Basis of root rotation.
|
| Offset | Offset to the root rotation (in degrees). |
Root Transform Position (Y)
Property | Function |
|---|---|
| Bake into Pose | Bake vertical root motion into the movement of the bones. Disable to store as root motion. |
| Based Upon (at Start) | Basis of vertical root position.
|
| Offset | Offset to the vertical root position. |
Root Transform Position (XZ)
Property | Function |
|---|---|
| Bake into Pose | Bake horizontal root motion into the movement of the bones. Disable to store as root motion. |
| Based Upon | Basis of horizontal root position.
|
| Offset | Offset to the horizontal root position. |
Additional clip properties
Property | Function |
|---|---|
| Mirror | Mirror left and right in this clip. Only appears if the Animation Type is set to Humanoid. |
| Additive Reference Pose | Enable to set frame for the reference pose used as the base for the additive animation layer. A blue marker becomes visible in the timeline editor: Additive Reference Pose blue marker |
| Pose Frame | Enter a frame number to use as the reference pose. You can also drag the blue marker in the timeline to update this value. Only available if Additive Reference Pose is enabled. |
| Curves | Expand this section to manage animation curves for this animation clip. |
| Events | Expand this section to manage animation events for this animation clip. |
| Mask | Expand this section to manage Avatar masking for this animation clip. |
Properties for all clips
These expandable properties apply to all Animation clips being imported.
Import options for all Animation clips
Property: | Function: |
|---|---|
| Motion | Select the root motion node source of the clip. Choose from the following options:
|
| Import Messages | Expand this section to see detailed information about how your animation was imported, including an optional Retargeting Quality Report. |
Animation import warnings
If any problems occur during the animation import process, a warning appears at the top of the Animations Import inspector:
Animation import warning messages
The warnings do not necessarily mean your animation has not imported or doesn't work. It may just mean that the imported animation looks slightly different from the source animation.
To see more information, expand the Import Messages section:
Animation import warning messages
In this case, Unity has provided a Generate Retargeting Quality Report option which you can enable to see more specific information on the retargeting problems.
Other warning details you may see include the following:
- Default bone length found in this file is different from the one found in the source avatar.
- Inbetween bone default rotation found in this file is different from the one found in the source avatar.
- Source avatar hierarchy doesn't match one found in this model.
- This animation has Has translation animation that will be discarded.
- Humanoid animation has inbetween transforms and rotation that will be discarded.
- Has scale animation that will be discarded.
These messages indicate that some data present in your original file was omitted when Unity imported and converted your animation to its own internal format. These warnings essentially tell you that the retargeted animation may not exactly match the source animation.
Note
Unity does not support pre- and post-extrapolate modes (also known as pre- and post-infinity modes) other than constant, and converts these to constant when imported.
Animation preview
Animation clip preview
The preview area of the Animation tab provides these features:
(A) The name of the selected clip.
(B) The 2D preview mode button (switches between orthographic and perspective camera).
(C) The pivot and mass center display button (switches between displaying and hiding the gizmos).
(D) The Avatar selector (change which GameObject will preview the action).
(E) The play/pause button.
(F) The playback head on the preview timeline (allows scrubbing back and forth).
(G) The animation preview speed slider (move left to slow down; right to speed up).
(H) The playback status indicator (displays the location of the playback in seconds, percentage, and frame number).
(I) The Tag bar, where you can define and apply Tags to your clip.
(J) The AssetBundles bar, where you can define AssetBundles and Variants.