Introduction to Unit 6

Get started with animation

Create your first 3D animations

Refine your animation

Control animation with an Animator

Import animation

Challenge: Bring the scene to life

Add animation to your game

Unit 6 - Animation

In this unit, you’ll learn how to create and control animations in a Unity project. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add animations to your own game. 

Welcome to the course

Install the Unity Hub and Editor

Get started with the Unity Editor

Create a balanced primitive structure

Introduction to Unit 2

Setting up the Game

Moving the Player

Moving the Camera

Setting up the Play Area

Creating Collectibles

Detecting Collisions with Collectibles

Displaying Score and Text

Adding AI Navigation

Building the Game

Fill out a Game Design Document

Introduction to Unit 3

Get started with audio

Create 3D sound effects

Add special effects to existing audio

Challenge: Your own soundscape

Add audio to your game

Introduction to Unit 4

Get started with VFX

Play around with a Particle System

Create an environmental Particle System

Create a burst particle

Challenge: Add some magic to your scene

Add VFX to your game

Introduction to Unit 5

Get started with user interfaces

Add a title to your scene

Manage screen size and anchors

Create a menu background with images

Add basic button functionality

Add toggles and sliders

Challenge: Make a worldspace UI

Add UI to your game

Introduction to Unit 7

Get started with shaders and materials

Explore meshes and rendering

Explore shaders

Simulate solid surfaces

Map materials with textures

Create translucent and transparent effects

Add physical texture with bump mapping 

Challenge: Create your still life composition

Add materials to your game

Introduction to Unit 8

Get started with lighting

Get started with lighting in Unity

Configure the Directional Light and skybox

Add light sources to your scene

Configure shadows in your scene

Bake a lightmap for your scene

Improve your lighting with Light Probes

Examine and complete the indoor scene

Refine and troubleshoot the indoor scene

Showcase your work with lighting

Add lighting to your game

Introduction to Unit 9

Explore the production cycle

Reimagine your game on multiple platforms

Iterate on the player controller

Source new assets

Unity pro tips

Prepare for the UCA Game Dev exam

Finalize your project

Unit 1 - Unity fundamentals

Unit 2 - Program a basic game

Unit 3 - Audio

Unit 4 - VFX

Unit 5 - UI

Unit 7 - Materials

Unit 8 - Lighting

Unit 9 - Iterate on your game

In this unit, you will create your first Unity project, get comfortable using the Unity Editor, and then design your first scene. 

Unit 1 - Get started in Unity

In this unit, you will create a simple game called Roll-a-Ball that will be the foundation for your personal game project, which you will work on for the entire course.  

In this unit, you’ll learn how to implement audio effects in Unity. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add audio to your own game. 

In this unit, you’ll learn how to implement visual effects (VFX)  in Unity. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add VFX to your own game. 

Unit 4 - Visual Effects

In this unit, you’ll learn how to create user interfaces (UI) in a Unity project. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add UI to your own game. 

Unit 5 - User Interfaces

Add physical texture with bump mapping

In this unit, you’ll learn how to add custom materials, including a repeating pattern and a normal map to simulate height and surface texture. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add animations to your own game.

In this unit, you’ll learn how to add lighting to your scene to make things more polished and visually pleasing. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add lighting to your own game.

In this unit, you’ll reflect on the process so far, iterate on the player controller, swap out the assets in your game, and then you’ll learn some Unity tips and tricks to take your skills to the next level.

Unit 9 - Iterate on your Game

In this unit, you’ll make sure you’re ready to take the certification exam and make any final adjustments to your game to make sure it meets the goals outlined in your Game Design Document.  

Unit 10 - Prepare for certification and publishing

This course is designed to help you prepare for the 

Unity Certified Associate: Game Developer

In this course, you will master the fundamental skills needed for game development with Unity, including programming in C#, designing immersive audio and stunning visual effects, crafting intuitive user interfaces, and applying unique animations, materials and lighting.

You'll start by creating a design document for your own game, then gradually build a working prototype. Throughout the course, you'll enhance your game using the skills you acquire, taking it from a simple idea to a finished product.

Towards the end of the course, there is dedicated time for a comprehensive review of everything you’ve learned to ensure you’re fully prepared to ace the exam

When you're done with the course, you will not only have the skills to pass the Unity Certified Associate exam and continue creating your own games, but you'll also have a fully realized game that you've designed and created from scratch.

2022.3

UCA: Game Developer - Certification Prep Course

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Overview

Review your skills

Use the keycode trigger script

Create your animations

Criteria

More resources

Next steps

Submit your project

Dance Party, Bouncing Lemon and Rotating Banana.

Basic Animation in Unity

Basic Animation Practice

Cheriewx

HoangLong_code

11.03.2025_19.08.57_REC.mp4

animation

dom567

great!

braedenfindleygmail

keerthan_5192

This animation challenge consists of a scene full of bananas! The bananas float endlessly, but pause as their leader, Banana Man, dances with his 5 long animations. (Each animation is cut short to preserve time)

Banana Man and the Floating Bananas.mp4

Banana Man and the Floating Bananas

JahZyrah_LaCroix

I couldn't get the normal animations to work due to not having the correct version. I animated a ball bounce and hitting a brick off a table.

Ball knocks off a brick

MagikShade

Just a couple characters dancing with bouncing lighting in background

Animations_TL.mp4

dancing with the times 

Tdlee05

Animation_4 - What are the greatest challenges when creating an animation-_V3.mp4

animatedcolor.mp4

Get started with animation in Unity

In this challenge, you’ll be tasked with creating at least five new in-editor animations, and configure at least one character to use three new imported animations that you source yourself.

 By the end of this tutorial, you'll be able to demonstrate your new skills in animation. 

Designed for post-secondary and K-12 educators at accredited academic institutions teaching Unity in the classroom, the Unity Educator plan provides you with free access to the same real-time 3D development tools used by professionals to support your students.

Included in this plan are Unity Pro, cloud-based collaboration, cloud build, free Unity assets, and much more!

Creative Core Pathway Facilitator Kit.zip

Creative Core Pathway Facilitator Kit (Google Drive)

Unity Educator Hub

The Unity Creative Core Pathway Facilitator Kit includes everything you need to successfully bring this Pathway into your learning context including a syllabus, complete lesson plans, standards alignment, teacher preparation guide, and more.

Games

Film

Automotive

Animation

Creative Core: Animation

In the previous tutorials, you learned how to create basic animations from scratch directly in the Unity Editor as well as how to configure and work with imported animations. These two animation skills cover the foundations of working with animation in Unity, and with them you can now create vibrant, lively scenes for your interactive experiences. Now it’s time to apply this understanding to a new challenge: bringing a new scene to life with animation. 

In this challenge, you’ll be tasked with creating at least five new in-editor animations. You must also configure at least one character to use three new imported animations that you source yourself.

This will be the first time you design your own animations, so before you begin planning, take a moment to hear from our creators about what they think the greatest challenges are when creating animation:

You’ve learned a lot about animation! Let’s review everything you know so far, and how it might be used in the scene:

Keyframed animation: You can create Animation Clips for any object in the scene, and those animations can control any component on an object. You’ve worked a lot with animating an object’s position and scale, but what about its rotation, material, color, or even its visibility? 


You can bypass having to add a property by just pressing the record button and making changes in the Inspector. So long as the record button is active, the Animation editor will automatically add the parameter. Keep in mind that this method only adds keyframes as you make changes to your object–it won't add ending keyframes for looping! 

Creating Animator Controllers: Objects can have multiple Animation Clips, and those animations can transition between one another when you create a State Machine in an Animator Controller. You also learned how to create parameters that can be activated using a trigger collider and a script.

Triggering animation: Animation doesn’t have to start playing as soon as a scene starts. In learning how to work with Animator Controllers, you discovered that trigger colliders and scripts can be used to change states within a Controller. You can reuse the script from the door animation tutorial in this scene if you like!

Configuring humanoid animation: Any character setup to use Unity’s Humanoid Animation System can share animation. This gives you access to hundreds of animations online and on the Unity Asset Store. You learned how to configure it and add it to an Animator Controller, either as a default animation or part of a State Machine. You can reuse the dance party script from the previous tutorial or you can use a new script, which will be discussed below!


What should you animate? We’re leaving that completely up to you! When you’re exploring the scene, try to come up with a narrative around why things are set up the way they are (or feel free to change up what’s happening in the scene if you prefer!). Can you tell the story of the scene with animations alone? 

A screenshot of the challenge scene you will be using to create your animations.

In the Scripts folder, you’ll find a script called AnimatorControllerTriggers. This script was designed for you to edit so you can trigger animations to occur for your characters and objects based on keyboard input. 

1.  Open AnimatorControllerTriggers in Visual Studio by double-clicking the script in the scripts folder.

2.  Scroll down to the Update method and find the section that directs you to duplicate the code block.

3.  Select the code block, being sure to highlight the closing curly brace ( } ), and copy it with Ctrl/Cmd+C

4.  Paste your new block several lines below the existing code block, but still inside the Update method (stay inside the second to last curly brace in the script).

5.  Replace the A in Keycode.A with whatever key you wish. You can see a full list of available keys here.

6.  In the anim.SetTrigger line, replace YOUR_TRIGGER_NAME_HERE_INSIDE_THE_QUOTES with the name of the parameter you wish to have called when the keyboard key is pressed.

8.  Add the script to the object that the Animator Controller is attached to.

If you don’t feel comfortable with editing a script, you can always use the dance party script for this challenge! As a reminder, it’s mapped to use the Q, W, E, R, T, and Y keys only. To review how this script is configured and how to set up your Animator Controller to work with it, refer back to the previous tutorial.

1.  In the scenes folder, locate and open ChallengeScene_Animation.

2.  Review the scene and consider the narrative you might be able to communicate through different animations.

3.  Identify several items that you can animate. You must create a minimum of five keyframed animations, but multiple animations can be on the same object, so long as you create an Animator Controller that will allow someone to see them all.

4.  Identify a character in the scene that you wish to animate. Source a minimum of three animations online or on the Unity Asset Store.

5.  Use either the AnimatorControllerTriggers script or the DanceParty script to control the animator with keystrokes.

6.  Create your keyframed animations and configure the Animator Controller as needed.

7.  Configure your imported animations for the humanoid animation system and add them to your selected character’s Animator Controller (they’re all using the SharedController Animator Controller from the previous tutorial).

8.  Once you’ve completed your animations, record a video showing them all off! 

9.  If you’d like to share your hard work with the community here on Learn, submit your video! 

You should expect to spend at least one hour and 15 minutes on this challenge.

You’ll know you’re successful if you’ve met these criteria:

You’ve created at least five keyframed animations (again, they don’t all have to be on different objects!) and have imported at least three externally created animations.

You’ve created or customized Animator Controllers as needed to ensure all of your animations run correctly.

You’re able to communicate some kind of narrative or story with the animations you create.

If you find your imported animations online, make sure that if you need to, you credit the source. A text file that lists the creators, the website you got them from, and any other requested information is a good way to handle it!

Check out the below Unity YouTube video with one of our established creators to see how far you can take animation in Unity!

Congratulations! You have completed the learning required for Core Animation.

You have the core skills and knowledge for one of the primary creative domains within the Unity Engine.

Now you’re ready to apply these skills in other projects! We can’t wait to see what you make next.

After you’ve fulfilled the requirements, please submit and share your project! 
Follow these instructions to submit your project:

1.  Take a screenshot or screen recording of your project in Play mode.

2.  Add a submission title and description.

Make sure to include the image or video of your project. If you have additional details to share about your process or the project that you have created, you can share them in the description too.

5.  Check your submission preview and then complete the CAPTCHA test and select Submit and continue.

We highly recommend that you comment on at least one other creator's submission. Did they successfully complete the challenge? What do you like about the project?


Challenge: Bring the scene to life

1. Overview

2. Review your skills

3. Use the keycode trigger script

4. Create your animations

5. Criteria

6. More resources

7. Next steps

8. Submit your project

Please login to submit