Animate with Unity

Create your first animated short

Join 3D animator Nathan Thomas as he takes you through his animated short, “Big Friendly Killbots.” Aimed at beginners, this guide will help you learn how to set up an animation workflow, create a new project in Unity, import assets, and even shoot scenes with the Unity Virtual Camera.

Elevated storytelling

This new 11-part series walks you through everything from setting up a Unity project to importing your animated character from Maya or Blender, all the way through to shooting your final scene with Virtual Camera and adding special effects.

Episode 1: Project overview

Welcome to the first video in our Elevated Storytelling series, “Elevated Storytelling”. Over the course of the next 11 videos, we’ll take you through an entire animation production workflow in Unity.

Episode 2: Getting started

In this episode, Nate and Marc will show you how to install the Unity Hub and Editor (2022.1), as well as explaining a little more about real-time tools. Already have Unity installed? Skip to Episode 3.

Download Unity 2022.1

Episode 3: Preparing assets in an asset creation tool

Learn more about the process and workflow of animating a character in Maya and Blender, and meet Nate’s Big Friendly Killbots.

Episode 4: Setting up a project in Unity

Learn how to set up a brand-new project in Unity 2022.1.

Download Unity 2022.1

Episode 5: Importing assets and blocking out a scene

Learn how to take your animation out of Maya, import it into Unity, and block out your scenes.

Episode 6: Setting up a timeline with Sequences

Nate demonstrates how he made the timeline for his animated short, “Big Friendly Killbots.” Discover Unity Sequences, see how to make creative choices on the fly, and learn more about layout shot structure and nesting.

Discover Sequences

Episode 7: Camerawork

See how you can create complex, beautiful camera shots in real-time, and experiment with some pretty cool camera animation using dollies, tracking, shake, and post-FX.

Discover Cinemachine

Episode 8: Audio for animation

In this episode, Marc and Nate demonstrate how to bring in and sync audio for your animation. Nate will take you through what he typically does with audio in his workflow, but then Marc will show what you don’t do with audio in Unity.

Episode 9: Developing your look in HDRP

Marc and Nate are joined by our first guest, Pierre Donzallaz, a senior manager for technical art at Unity and our resident High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) genius. Here, you will learn how to develop the look of your animation using HDRP.

Discover HDRP

Episode 10: Exporting your movie with Recorder

Marc and Nate are joined by special guest Vlad-Andrei Lazer, senior software developer and leader of the Recorder team, who will take you through how to get your movie out to video.

Episode 11: Wrapping up

You made it! We hope you enjoyed learning more about how to create your own animated movie within Unity over the past 10 videos. We’d love to see what you came up with, so tag us on your social channels with #animatewithUnity

Make your first animation

Now you’ve seen the basics of Unity’s animation system, follow along with Nathan to build a basic example of “looting a chest”. 

Use your own assets, or, download what Nathan uses here: 

POLY STYLE - Medieval Village
Hyper Casual Chests
Magic Circle Fx Pack

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Additional resources

Community

If you’d like to chat to other members in the community, join our virtual production forum, and for additional free learning materials, visit Unity Learn.

Beta Group

Already in the industry? Join our beta group for early access to our latest tools, and help us shape our roadmap.

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