AssetStore Price down information

beta

The Crowd Animations extension enables high-performance animation support for Skinned Mesh Renderers by leveraging the GPU Instancer Pro framework.Supports Built-in RP, URP, and HDRP for the following Unity versions:Unity 2022.3 LTS (2022.3.32 or later)Unity 6000 LTS (6000.0.23 or later)Unity 6000.1 SupportedPlease refer to the Technical Details section below for information on Minimum Requirements and Known Limitations.Support | Discussions | Documentation❗Crowd Animations is an extension for GPU Instancer Pro, and requires it to work.Crowd Animations applies GPU skinning based on bone transform data, significantly boosting rendering performance when rendering many animated instances that share the same mesh and material. Each instance can play different animation clips independently, with full support for variation in behavior and logic.Animator WorkflowsThe system offers multiple animation workflows, allowing you to balance performance and flexibility on a per-instance basis. Draw calls remain batched even when different workflows are used across instances.Compute AnimatorUses compute shaders to calculate bone transforms directly on the GPU using pre-baked animation data. This workflow offers the highest performance and significantly reduces CPU usage. However, it requires a custom setup and does not work out-of-the-box with standard Animator Controllers. It also supports No-GameObjects usage via the API.Bone TrackerDirectly reads Transform components in the bone hierarchy. This workflow offers maximum flexibility and supports runtime modifications such as Inverse Kinematics (IK), Ragdoll physics or Procedural animation. It typically involves higher CPU overhead due to frequent transform reads.Mecanim Reader & Legacy Animation ReaderReads animation state from Unity’s Animator or Animation component at runtime and plays pre-baked animation clips accordingly. This allows integration with existing Animator Controllers while still benefiting from GPU skinning.Custom WorkflowsThe system is fully extensible. You can create custom workflows that supply bone transform data to Crowd Animations, allowing for unique animation systems or runtime behaviors.Hybrid Workflow SupportYou can assign different workflows to different instances in the same scene. Draw calls remain batched even when instances use a mix of workflows. This makes it possible to apply the most efficient workflow (e.g., Compute Animator) to most instances, while switching to more flexible ones (e.g., Bone Tracker) only where needed—without increasing draw call counts.Runtime Animation BakingAnimation clips are automatically baked at runtime when needed. If a used animation has no pre-baked data, the system will bake it on first use for workflows that require it (e.g., Compute Animator, Mecanim Reader). No manual setup or edit mode baking is required.Bone Read/Write ControlCrowd Animations provides per-instance control over which bones are read from or written to:Write Mode:Baked animation data is written to the selected bone transforms. This is useful for bone attachments, running bone-based physics, or syncing bone motion with other systems.Read Mode:Bone transforms are read from the hierarchy at runtime. Ideal for cases where bones are modified during gameplay (e.g., IK, procedural animation), while still allowing the rest of the skeleton to use GPU animation.See the Technical Details section of GPU Instancer Pro for information about minimum requirements and known limitations.See the Animator Workflows documentation to learn about limitations based on the workflow used.