Unity 3D + Playmaker - Trigger Animations in Animator

This is part 4 of a recording of my mini game jam I'll be triggering all of the animations using Playmaker. There are a lot of beginner game design tutorial elements in this. I'll be showing how to trigger animations using Playmaker inside Unity. This is a really great way to create a hyper casual

This part of the rocket game jam wires the animation triggers and the full launch-and-land sequence in Playmaker, driving an animator that already holds idle, launched, flip, land, and landing clips. The core idea is to skip authored animator transitions and instead fire each clip from Playmaker with trigger parameters, timing them with waits between phases.

Set up animator triggers

In the rocket's animator, you can move directly from one clip to the next without manual transitions, but you need control over when each fires. Add trigger parameters named launched, flip, land, and landing, and assign each to the transition into its matching clip. This lets Playmaker call exactly the right animation at exactly the right moment instead of relying on exit times.

Sequence launch and flip

In the game manager, on launch, use Set Animator Trigger on the rocket with launched. After a Wait of two seconds, transition to a Flip state that fires the flip trigger; tune the flip clip's length (around two seconds) so it does not snap by too fast. The ship rises, then rolls sideways, each phase gated by a wait so the timing reads clearly.

Hold sideways, then land

Add a timed wait (around four seconds) to keep the ship in its sideways view, then fire the land trigger to begin straightening, followed by the landing trigger. Make sure clips that should hold, like the sideways pose and landing, are set to loop, while one-shot phases are not, otherwise the ship either snaps back or freezes at the wrong frame.

Animate the world for altitude

Sell the climb by tweening the ground plane: on launch move it down and off-screen, and on landing tween it back from its current position to about negative 4.69 with an ease-out so it eases in slowly. For extra effect, tween the directional light's X rotation from 50 to 200 over about ten seconds so the scene darkens as the rocket rises into space, then reverse it on descent. The payoff is a full launch, flip, and landing sequence with the environment reinforcing the motion.