AnimationClip.SetCurve

Parameters

Description

Assigns the curve to animate a specific property.

If curve is null the curve will be removed. If a curve already exists for that property, it will be replaced.

Note: SetCurve will only work at runtime for legacy animation clips. For non-legacy AnimationClips it is an editor-only function.

The following script example shows how a GameObject position can be animated using an animation clip. An animated curve is set onto the AnimationClip using SetCurve(). This example moves the x offset from 1.0 down to 0.0.

The SetCurve API can be used to animate a large variety of parameters. Some typical components such as Transform and Material have easy to access variables. For example the Transform has variables such as Transform.localPosition. The x, y, and z values of the localPosition can be animated using the AnimationClip API. View the Transform documentation to see the variables and how they can be animated.

The Material class also links to variables that can be animated. These come from the shader that is used for rendering. Using the "Edit Shader..." option from the material drop down shows all the parameters that can be animated. The material parameters are animated through the Renderer class that references them. All animatable material parameters start with the material prefix followed by the property name starting with an underscore. For example, color (material._Color) and scale (material._BumpScale) can be animated.

The example script below shows how a GameObject can be animated in two ways at the same time. In this example, the position of the GameObject is animated, and the Material color is also changed over time.

// This script example shows how SetCurve() can be used
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class ExampleClass : MonoBehaviour
{
    // Animate the position and color of the GameObject
    public void Start()
    {
        Animation anim = GetComponent<Animation>();
        AnimationCurve curve;

        // create a new AnimationClip
        AnimationClip clip = new AnimationClip();
        clip.legacy = true;

        // create a curve to move the GameObject and assign to the clip
        Keyframe[] keys;
        keys = new Keyframe[3];
        keys[0] = new Keyframe(0.0f, 0.0f);
        keys[1] = new Keyframe(1.0f, 1.5f);
        keys[2] = new Keyframe(2.0f, 0.0f);
        curve = new AnimationCurve(keys);
        clip.SetCurve("", typeof(Transform), "localPosition.x", curve);

        // update the clip to a change the red color
        curve = AnimationCurve.Linear(0.0f, 1.0f, 2.0f, 0.0f);
        clip.SetCurve("", typeof(Renderer), "material._Color.r", curve);

        // now animate the GameObject
        anim.AddClip(clip, clip.name);
        anim.Play(clip.name);
    }
}

Property names can be located by setting Asset Serialization to Force Text mode in the Editor settings. Use Edit->Project Settings->Editor to enable this mode. The text files that are then written by the editor will include the names of the properties. For example, the yaml file written for a Scene object will include the Camera settings. Looking at this yaml file will show:

m_BackGroundColor: {r: .192156866, g: .301960796, b: .474509805, a: .0196078438}
m_NormalizedViewPortRect:
serializedVersion: 2
x: 0
y: 0
width: 1
height: 1
near clip plane: .300000012
far clip plane: 1000
field of view: 60
orthographic: 0
orthographic size: 5
m_Depth: -1

This shows that the name for the FOV parameter is "field of view". If you wanted to create an animation clip to animate the camera field of view, you would pass "field of view" as the propertyName.

Another example is the access of Light settings. The scene.unity file (assuming a Scene called scene) will have a string for the light color. Script can access the light color by accessing m_Color. The Scene will need to have a light for this example to work.

Additional resources: ClearCurves function, and the AnimationCurve class.