Question by Zelek · Feb 09, 2014 at 12:48 AM · animation controller mecanim

How to customize an Animator Controller?

If I create an animator controller that I want to reuse for multiple characters, how can I customize the animations for each character?

For example, say I create a large animator controller with walking, running, jumping, etc. I then apply it to two character GameObjects. I want the first character to look different than the second. But it appears that any changes I make to the animations are applied to everything that uses that controller.

In the official Unity tutorial, Mike Geig says that it should work: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnyb2f6Qqzg&feature=youtu.be&t=36m2s

Anyone have an idea? Is it a bug in Unity?

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instruct9r · Feb 10, 2014 at 06:24 PM 0

I think the idea of using one Char Controller for many characters is to make them use the same animations. Some variations are possible as well, so the characters doesn't look identical whe moving. 1: What do you mean by any changes that you make to the animator are applied to everything that uses the controller. Well you have one controller, if you make changes to it, it will add the changes to every character that uses that controller, this is how it's suppose to work. 2: If you want one controller and 2 different walks for example, you can add these 2 walks as 2 separate clips in the Animator and then activate them with 2 different parameters. You can use this way for making a lot of different animations to activate.

Zelek · Feb 10, 2014 at 07:42 PM 0

Thanks for your comment, I really appreciate it. I just recently found this post on the Unity forums which describes how to use one controller for multiple characters by overriding the animation clips in code:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/179541-$$anonymous$$ecanim-Change-the-motion-of-a-state-in-code?p=1475888&viewfull=1#post1475888

This seems to do exactly what I need, and saves me from having to duplicate my controller dozens of times.