Checking Animator on Unity script only work on first Object

Question

Let me explain the question first :)

I have a hero and an enemy. It is a fighting game. Both hero and enemy have idle, block, punch and getHit animations and states in the Animation Controller. The hero and enemy have scripts attached to them. The hero is controlled by player and then enemy is controller by AI.

Now I attach the script to hero first and then the enemy. Now when the enemy punches and if hero is not defending the hero takes a hit. But if the enemy is not blocking and the hero hits the enemy doesnt take the hit. This is because the script was attached to hero first.

Now if I remove the script from both and attach the enemy script first to enemy and then attach the hero script to hero. The wiseversa is true. In the enemy the hits will be registered and on the hero the hits wont be registered.

I am not sure why this is happening and I have tried different things and still the problem persists.

I also tried looking everywhere online for solution but none of them addressed my concern.

Thanks :)

below is the enemy script that checks is enemy can take hit

void Update () {

    myTick++;
    currentTick = myTick;


    GameObject player = GameObject.Find("theDude");
    Animator pAnim = player.GetComponent<Animator>();

    //Getting Hit
    if (pAnim.GetBool("tIsPunching"))
    {
        if (anim.GetBool("bEnemyIsDefending") == false)
        {

            Debug.Log("enemy got hit");
            anim.SetTrigger("tEnemyGotHit");
            anim.SetBool("bEnemyIsDefending", true);
        }
    }
}

And here is the hero script that checks if hero can take hit.

void Update () {

    totalTime += Time.deltaTime;

    GameObject enemy = GameObject.Find("Enemy");
    Animator eAnim = enemy.GetComponent<Animator>();

    //Getting Hit
    if (eAnim.GetBool("tEnemyIsPunching"))
    {
        if (anim.GetBool("bIsDefending") == false)
        {

            Debug.Log("player got hit");
            anim.SetTrigger("tGotHit");

        }
    }
 }

Instead of get object I used to have a public GameObject and attached the hero and enemy in the respective classes. But It doesnt make any difference.

Answer 1

I think your problem lies in your use of the triggers tEnemyIsPunching and tIsPunching. Triggers get reset whenever they cause a transition to occur

(see: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/AnimationParameters.html).

In your case tIsEnemyPunching or (tIsPunching) is getting reset in the same frame as it gets set. Here is an example of what one update loop may look like in your game if the hero script is added first:

Hero Update()
    Check if enemy is punching
    He is not, so don't do anything

Enemy Update()
    Punch! Set 'bIsEnemyPunching' = true

Animation Update()
    bIsEnemyPunching is true so transition to the punching animation
    reset bIsEnemyPunching = false

On the next update let's look at what happens in the hero update:

Hero Update()
    Check bIsEnemyPunching
    bIsEnemyPunching was reset in the previous frame, so it is false
    Since the enemy isn't punching don't do anything

So Hero never sees the punch because bIsEnemyPunching got reset before Hero had a change to check it.

This is why the order of adding the scripts matters. Whichever script updates first is able to punch because the second script will see the trigger before it gets reset. However, the second script to update will never be able to punch because the trigger gets reset before the other scripts gets a chance to update.

One solution is to check the name of the animation state instead of the trigger value.

static int punchStateHash = Animator.StringToHash("Punch");  
AnimatorStateInfo enemyState = eAnim.GetCurrentAnimatorStateInfo(0);

 if (enemyState.nameHash == punchStateHash){
      //The enemy is punching!
 }

Alternatively, whenever a punch is triggered just call a function on whichever character is getting punched. So when the enemy punches the hero the Punch(...) function on the enemy should call TakePunch(...) on hero (or whatever you want to call those functions). The hero then checks his own state to determine if he is blocking.

Additional Note

You should avoid using the following code in an update function:

GameObject player = GameObject.Find("theDude");
Animator pAnim = player.GetComponent<Animator>();

These functions are very slow because Unity must search all objects for the one called theDude and then search all it's components to find the animator. Do this once and save off the result.