Character Setup and Animation (Coursera)

Welcome to Character Setup and Animation, the fourth course in the Unity Certified 3D Artist Specialization from Unity Technologies. The courses in this series will help you prepare for the Unity Certified 3D Artist exam, the professional certification for entry- to mid-level Unity artists. 3D artists are critical to the Unity development pipeline. They are a bridge between the programmers writing the application code and the designers or art directors who define the application’s aesthetics and style. In these courses, you will be challenged to complete realistic art implementation tasks in Unity that are aligned to the topics covered on the exam.

In courses 4 and 5, you will work on a sci-fi themed 3D adventure game. You’ll import assets and create effects that are more stylish and cartoony than the realistic kitchen in the previous courses. For this course, you will first import the assets for the main character, then get her animations working with an Animator Controller. Next, you’ll create a procedural camera to follow her movements using Unity’s Cinemachine system. Finally, you’ll learn how to use Unity’s Collaborate service for effective version control, and you’ll wrap up the course with a peer reviewed project.

This is an intermediate course, intended for people who are ready for their first paying roles as Unity 3D artists, or enthusiasts who would like to verify their skills against a professional standard. To succeed, you should have at least 1-2 years of experience implementing 3D art in Unity. You should be proficient at importing assets into Unity from Digital Content Creation (DCC) tools, prototyping scenes, working with lighting, and adding particles and effects. You should also have a basic understanding of 2D asset management, animation, and working with scripts. You should have experience in the full product development lifecycle, and understand multi-platform development, including for XR (AR and VR) platforms.

Syllabus

WEEK 1

Setting Up a Character Controller

Welcome to the course. In this first section, you’ll be introduced to the Challenge/Solution format of this course, then start work implementing complex character models into a 3D adventure game Unity project.

WEEK 2

Creating the Player Animator Controller

Next, you'll create an Animator Controller for the game's swashbuckling main character, Ellen, and set up the appropriate animation states to get her moving in the game environment.

WEEK 3

Creating the Player Camera

In this section you will use Unity's Cinemachine tool to create a camera system that will automatically follow the main character and can be rotated with a mouse controller.

WEEK 4

Working with Collaborate

Now that you have your project working correctly, it's a good time to share it with your teammates so that you can work on it together, seamlessly. In this section, you will upload your project to Unity's Collaborate version control service.

WEEK 5

Course Final Project

For the final project in this course, you will import and configure the animations for the “Chomper” enemy, and share you work with your peers.

Course Auditing