For this chapter, I am using a model mesh that I got from the Unity Asset Store. To use the same model mesh that I am using, go to the Unity Asset Store and search for Skeletons Pack. It is a package of four skeleton model meshes that are fully textured, propped, and animated. The asset itself is free and great to use.

When you import the package into Unity, it will come with all four models as well as their textures, and an example scene named ShowCase. Open that scene and you should see the four skeletons. If you run the scene, you will see all the skeletons playing their idle animations.

Choose the skeleton you want to use for your AI; I chose skeletonDark for mine. Click on the drop-down list of your skeleton in the Hierarchy window, and then on the Bip01 drop-down list. Then, select the magicParticle object. For our AI, we will not need it, so delete it from the Hierarchy window.

Create a new prefab in the Project window and name it Skeleton. Now select the skeleton that you want to use from the Hierarchy window and drag it onto the newly created prefab. This will now be the model that you will use for this chapter.

In your AI test scene, drag and drop Skeleton Prefab onto the scene. I have placed mine towards the center of the level, near the waypoint in the middle. In the Inspector window, you will be able to see the Animation component full of animations for the model.

Now, we will need to add a few components to our skeleton. Go to the Components menu on the top of the Unity window, select Navigation, and then select NavMesh Agent. Doing this will allow the skeleton to utilize the NavMesh we created earlier. Next, go into the Components menu again and click on Capsule Collider as well as Rigidbody. Your Inspector window should now look like this after adding the components:

Your model now has all the necessary components needed to work with our AI script.

To script our animations, we will take a simple approach to it. There won't be a lot of code to deal with, but we will spread it out in various areas of our script where we need to play the animations. In the Idle function, add this line of code:

animation.Play("idle");

This simple line of code will play the idle animation. We use animation to access the model's animation component, and then use the Play function of that component to play the animation. The Play function can take the name of the animation to call the correct animation to be played; for this one, we call the idle animation.

In the SearchForTarget function, add this line of code to the script:

animation.Play("run");

We access the same function of the animation component and call the run animation to play here. Add the same line of code to the Patrol function as well, since we will want to use that animation for that function too.

In the RangedAttack and MeleeAttack functions, add this code:

animation.Play("attack");

Here, we call the attack animation. If we had a separate animation for ranged attacks, we would use that instead, but since we don't, we will utilize the same animation for both attack types. With this, we finished coding the animations into our AI. It will now play those animations when they are called during gameplay.