Unity animation

Static art reads as a prototype. AAA games are defined by motion — an archer that draws, holds, and looses; an enemy that walks with weight and flinches when hit; a coin that bobs and pops on pickup. Animation is a first-class deliverable for every asset that acts, not optional polish. A perfectly-rendered but static archer fails the bar exactly like a flat-fill background does.

Core rule: every asset that acts in the game must be animated, and any action that has a gameplay effect must fire that effect on the correct animation frame. A shoot animation that doesn't release the projectile on the release frame is broken, not decorative.

Pixel-art motion → PixelLab anchor-first. Non-pixel motion → Tripo/Animator. Gemini → concept/reference. Pixel art must be generated at native canvas with unity-pixel-art; do not render Tripo/3D and downscale into pixel sprites. For non-pixel/high-res 2D, Tripo3D rig + pre-render still holds identity across frames. Gemini frame-by-frame generation drifts and is fallback/concept only.

When to use which track

• Pixel-art sprite animation (PixelLab via unity-pixel-art) — the DEFAULT for pixel-art games. Lock one anchor/base sprite, then drive motion with PixelLab's skeleton animation (estimate-skeleton → author per-frame poses → animate-skeleton), rotate for directions, and inpaint for fixes — then slice/build Animation Clips here. Every PixelLab call carries the palette lock (color_image: master palette for anchors, the anchor's extracted sub-palette for derived frames) — a call without it is invalid. Skeleton-driven frames stay structurally consistent (identity, clusters, palette, baseline, silhouette); PixelLab animate-text and image-model frame strips drift and are fallback only.
• 3D skeletal animation (Tripo) — the DEFAULT for runtime 3D and non-pixel/high-res 2D pre-render. Tripo auto-rigs the model and generates animation cycles; for 3D/2.5D assets import the rig and drive it with an Animator, and for non-pixel 2D/top-down/side games pre-render the rigged + animated model to sprite frames (../unity-3d-generator/references/prerender-2d.md).
• Frame-by-frame 2D sprite authoring (Gemini frame strips) — FALLBACK only. Use it when Tripo is unavailable (TRIPO_API_KEY MISSING/quota-blocked) or the motion is trivial (a simple bob/tween). Independently generating each frame with an image model drifts — identity changes between frames — so it is never the first choice for real motion.
• Procedural / tween motion — squash-stretch, bob, anticipation, screen-shake, hit-stop — layered on TOP of (or instead of, for simple props) authored animation. Owned by unity-gameplay-systems game-feel; use it for pickups, button presses, and juice.

Pick per asset: a bobbing coin needs only a tween; a pixel-art archer needs PixelLab anchor-first idle + aim + fire sheets with frame events; a non-pixel/3D archer needs authored idle + aim + fire from Tripo/Animator (pre-rendered to a strip only for non-pixel 2D).

Animation requirement catalog (per asset role)