Creating an appear or a disappear animation

If our game has monsters in it, there is a huge probability that we will need to use an appear or a disappear animation to introduce such characters in the scene. Often times, monsters spawn near our players to ambush them. This is where the appear animations come in handy.

Getting ready

Before we start, you should have a character with at least two animations: a looped Idle animation and an Appear animation. This animation should start below the ground (or high in the air if your character is a flying one). It should end with the Idle pose. See the following image for reference:

Appear animation key frames (the animation is done "in place")

You can download the provided example; open the project in Unity and go to the Chapter 05 Character actions and expressions\Recipe 01 Creating an appear or disappear animation folder. You will find a scene called Example. Scene there. When you play it, a Spider character will be spawned (instantiated) and it will...