Unity 2D - How to play death animation prefab

Question

I have created a prefab with animation from sprite sheet, which I want to be played when the Player dies. I checked if the prefab is working by dragging it in the Scene, and it is correctly playing every frame of the sprite sheet in a loop endlessly.

Now I want to play this prefab when the Player dies, and after it ends to destroy it, but so far I am only able to place it where the player dies, and it stays there forever. Also there are some errors when that happens.

Here is the death script:

 public class DmgByCollisionEnemy : MonoBehaviour {

    public GameObject deathAnimation;

    void Die() {
        deathAnimation = (GameObject) Instantiate(deathAnimation, transform.position, transform.rotation);
        //Destroy(deathAnimation);
        Destroy(gameObject);
    }
}

I set the deathAnimation by dragging a prefab in the Unity interface.

The error I am getting when the Die() method fires is

UnassignedReferenceException: The variable deathAnimation of DmgByCollisionEnemy has not been assigned.
You probably need to assign the deathAnimation variable of the DmgByCollisionEnemy script in the inspector.

So how can I do that properly?

Answer 1

You can try to add simple destroy script to Your death animation object that destroys object after time or trigger it in animation (Unity Manual: Using Animation Events). When you instantiate object it will appear on desired position and it will be destroied regardless to "main" object.

Destroy Script like this:

void DestroyMyObject() 
{ 
   Destroy(gameObject); 
}

Script to run after time:

void Start() 
{
    Invoke ("DestroyMyObject", 1f);
}

void DestroyMyObject()
{
    Destroy(gameObject);
}

Spawn script:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

   public class SpawnExtra : MonoBehaviour {

   public GameObject deathAnimation;

   public static SpawnExtra instance;

   void Start () 
   {
        instance = this;
   }

   public void SpawnDeathAnimation(Vector3 position)
   {
        Instantiate (deathAnimation, position, Quaternion.identity);
   }
}

And you can use it when you want to spawn additional object like this:

SpawnExtra.instance.SpawnDeathAnimation (transform.position);

Now you have to add gameobject e.g ExtrasController, add script on it and you can spawn whatever you want. Remember to drag&drop animation prefab in inspector.