@alaslipknot You can keep the bones in to play the animations. You can play animations and also control parts of the mesh by using avatar masks. The link I provided demonstrates how it works with a human character but with a generic rig like you have, you’d have to specify the transforms that you want to block out from playing animations.
So with a human you get a fancy human layout to create your mask, but with a generic rig it just gives you a list of transforms you can use. I’ve never used them in a real time manner, but I have used them to block out parts of a rig that I want to exclude from animations.
Regarding the rigging, it’s usually easier to animate an object when it has a rig but you can also keyframe everything by hand and moving everything around. Rigging just makes it easier since you can move a lot of things simultaneously.
A rigging for games course is something I’ve personally wanted to see as well. Rigging in Blender can be a bit complex and sometimes it doesn’t always transfer over well to games. Rigging isn’t something I’m great at, but I understand the process.
If you have any specific ideas of what you’re trying to accomplish let me know. It’s a bit tough to give you real advice without knowing exactly what you’re trying to achieve. This is where I’d start first:
- Import the model into Unity
- Use Mecanim and an Animator Controller for a basic idle animation state
- Add a second animation state you can transition to (like a fighting animation)
- Add in a avatar mask to block out a part of the robot like the head or legs
Once you know how to do that you can expand upon it. If you have any other questions let me know.
