*This took 2 days of research and experimentation, multiple breaks from frustrations, so much gum + water, my laptop crashing and so many YouTube videos of Stardew Valley playthroughs to finish*
After finalizing the idea for the AR creative image target I made a quick animation test with my limited animation experience
Just came down to a blob of ink overtop of each other
I do recall an animator mentioning the usefulness of onion skins so I found out how to turn those on and felt much more prepared
From there I made a blob transform into two blobs and then into fish
A simple animation but since it was something I had never done before I felt proud of myself for accomplishing such a simple animation
From there I actually needed to get the animation with a transparent background into Unity. So that it would be able to play when the image target was presented to the screen.
This was easier said than done
As I have no Unity experience, nor animation experience…I was totally clueless about how to import the video so that it could play
I watched several youtube videos and read tonnes of forums, blogs, articles, manuals, etc. to understand how on each I could possibly achieve this
Proved a little help in understanding multiple aspects of the programs
Attempts with researched links:
These are the most impactful videos/links but just know that there were hundreds more searched
I first thought I could just import the animation as a video file, however, whenever I did this it would always come up with a background and obstruct the view of the image target— something I did not want at all
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/VideoTransparency.html
Starting simple I looked at how to get videos with background transparent in Unity (above manual article)
This would’ve been probably helpful and simple if only I was using a Mac/Apple product; however, I have a windows laptop which didn’t help the situation
However, this article did help me understand Alpha Channels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7iXEZGx2Mc&t=76s
Video on how to import videos into Unity using the Video Player and having to ensure the video had a texture, creating a new RawImage and then sort of overlaying the video to that texture
This did work however still had the issue of the opaque background obscuring the ImageTarget
Did some more research into how to get rid of the background for animations/videos
This search was irrelevant as none of the new video files worked →all still having the background when implemented the same way using the RawImage Tut
After that sort of failed attempt, I tried searching a different route going straight to “How to import animation into Unity” This turned up a few good explanations for animation within Unity but was still a bit confusing
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/unity/unity_creating_sprites.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61huQ4UHocI
This seems to be a lecture that I found relating to how to import an animated Sprite into Unity, by splicing the Sprite into a PNG Sequence
Leading me in the right direction
I found this video really helpful…until it wasn’t
For some reason my PNG Sequences wouldn’t have the play simple next to them, differing from the video. I also couldn’t easily drag my animation/frames into the Scene as easily as the demo did
Only realising that I needed to do was make a new project but on a 2D Core rather than a 3D Core
From there I just dragged and dropped the entire animation file that worked on the 2D core (with all the script to make it work) into my 3D Core project and it worked
All that was left was for me to resize and rotate the sprite so the camera could clearly see it
Overall a simple easy solution to a problem that felt way bigger and more complicated than I initially thought
Extra Links:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/AnimationsImport.html
Importing Animation from Other Sources
https://answers.unity.com/questions/674367/how-to-use-this-gif-in-animation.html
Looked into how to get a Gif animation to play within Unity with transparent background
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