Character rigging

Follow the below steps to create the bones and skeleton for animating your character:

  1. Select theicon_small_CreateBoneCreate Bone tool to begin creating the bones of the character skeleton.

  2. With the tool selected, click in the __Sprite Editor __window to define the start-point of the bone. Move the cursor to where the bone should end, and click again to set the bone’s end-point.

  3. To create a continuous chain of bones, select the icon_small_CreateBoneCreate Bone tool and click the end-point of an existing bone. The new bone is started from the end-point, creating a chain.

  4. Once all bones are created, generate the Mesh geometry for the Sprites. It is recommended to use the icon_small_GenGeoAuto Geometry tool to autogenerate the Sprites’s geometry Mesh. Then refine the geometry with the icon_small_CreateVertexCreate Vertex and icon_small_CreateEdgeCreate Edge tools.

  5. To edit the bones that influence a Sprite, select the icon_small_BoneInfluenceBone Influence tool and double-click a Sprite to select it. A list of bones currently influencing the Sprite appears.

    • To remove any of the listed bones, select it in the list and click '-' to remove them.

    • To add a bone, select it in the Sprite Window and click + to add it to the list.

  6. The weight attached to vertices affects the influence between bones and the Sprites' geometry. Select the icon_small_GenWeightAuto Weights tool to autogenerate the weight of a selected Sprites. To generate weights for all Sprites at once, deselect all Sprites before selecting the tool. Refine the weights of the vertices with the icon_small_WeightPainterWeight Brush and icon_small_WeightSliderWeight Slider tools.

  7. Test the skeleton rig previewing poses with the icon_small_PreviewPosePreview Pose tool. Move and rotate the different bones to check their influence on the geometry Mesh. Previewing poses can also be done while using the following tools: the icon_small_WeightPainterWeight Brush, icon_small_WeightSliderWeight Slider, icon_small_BoneInfluenceBone Influence, icon_small_GenWeightAuto Weights, and icon_small_VisibilityVisibility tools.

To restore a skeleton rig to its original pose, select icon_small_RestoreBindReset Pose. The default pose can be edited with the icon_small_EditJointsEdit Joints tool.

Animating

To begin animating, drag the Asset into the Scene. This creates a GameObject that reassembles the imported character as it originally appeared in the PSB file in the form of a Prefab. The Prefab contains multiple child GameObjects in the order that represents their layer hierarchy.

With the new GameObject in the Scene, you can begin animating it with the general Unity animation workflow and tools.