Introduction & Tips

UMotion is a Unity Editor Extension that makes it possible to create animations for any 3D model (characters, monsters, guns,...) inside the Unity Editor offering similar features and workflows like famous 3D modeling applications.

UMotion projects are stored as *.asset files that can hold an unlimited number of animation clips. Animation clips are exported to Unity's proprietary *.anim file format and can be used in any Unity project when applied to an Animator Controller or Animation Component (legacy).

Owners of UMotion Professional can import any existing animation (whether being a motion captured animation or an animation created in an external modeling application) to edit and to fine tune them.

Important Tips

• Always back-up your work on a regular basis. Even though UMotion has to pass extensive tests before being released, it may still be possible that a bug damages your project file. The use of a version control system like Subversion or Git is strongly recommended (see Unity Manual - Version Control System).
• Every element in the UMotion user interface has a tooltip with short information about the functionality of the related item. If the element has a shortcut applied, it is also displayed in the tooltip.
• Every action that can be performed in UMotion can have a shortcut assigned (see Preferences Window). Shortcuts are only triggered when the Clip Editor, Pose Editor or any Scene View has input focus.
• Every editing action in UMotion can be undone. The undo entries are stored in Unity's undo/redo system and thus mix with regular undo operations stored by the Unity Editor.
• Disabling the lightning in the Scene View may improve the visibility of the bones and the animated GameObject (depending on the current scene).
• UMotion is only executed in the Unity Editor and thus has no direct influence on the published game performance. Inside the editor, the editor windows of UMotion can have influence on the editor and editor play mode performance just like any other visible editor window. In case you discover performance issues during play mode, enable Maximize on Play (see Unity Manual - Game View). This option will hide all editor windows when starting play mode thus saving performance.

Scene View Navigation

The default Unity Scene View navigation and tool handling is used: Unity Manual - Scene View Navigation

It has some nice features you may not be aware of that come in handy when doing animations:

• Holding Alt + Right Mouse Button allows fine graded zooming (by moving the mouse cursor right or left). This also decreases or increases the step width of the mouse wheel zoom and the mouse sensibility when panning.
• When using the move, rotate or scale tool, holding Control enables snapping. Snapping can be adjusted in Unity by navigating to Edit ➔ Snap Settings....
• When using the move tool, holding Shift enables the "Free Move Mode". A rectangle appears in the center of the tool handle. By clicking and dragging it lets you move freely through 3D space. This is especially useful when moving the Inverse Kinematics handle.
• While dragging the move, rotate or scale tool ESCAPE will abort the current operation and revert changes.