Unity Animator.Update Hogging CPU

While getting the framerate back up on my Mac I noticed something odd. Animator.Update was taking over 20 msec, which was weird since, like Tony Hawk, there's only one character in the whole game.

So I looked at it in some different scenes:

Turned out, the more complicated the scene, the more ms Animator.Update took. What?

Then I remembered - Unity by default (in fact, I can't figure out a way to stop it) attaches an Animator to imported meshes. I wrote a quick script to remove them ALL, added it back to the character, and now Animator.Update is back to taking almost no time at all. I'm going to have to go through and fix my prefabs, but it's a good start.

Here's the script, in case you want to do the same thing.

/*

This file is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.

Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or

distribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled

binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any

means.

 

In jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors

of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the

software to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit

of the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and

successors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act of

relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this

software under copyright law.

 

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,

EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF

MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR

OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,

ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR

OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

 

For more information, please refer to <http://unlicense.org/>

*/

 

using UnityEngine;

using UnityEditor; 

using System.Collections;

 

public class RemoveComponents : ScriptableWizard

{

 

[MenuItem("Custom/Remove Components")]

 

static void CreateWizard ()

{

 

ScriptableWizard .DisplayWizard <RemoveComponents> ("Remove Components", "RemoveComponents");

 

 

}

 

void OnWizardCreate ()

{

Animator[] components = GameObject.FindSceneObjectsOfType (typeof(Animator)) as Animator[];

foreach (var component in components) {

DestroyImmediate ( component );

}   

}

 

}

 

 

Comments

[Derreck Newman]

Thanks for the info. I've been having this same problem in the scene I'm making. The Animation.Update is taking up a whopping 36m before any characters are added.

[Happionlabs]

My pleasure! I've heard that they're fixing the problem - in fact, it may have already been fixed in the last update.

[Michael V.]

I was having this exact problem while profiling for iOS. thanks for the info, this really helped.

[PipeGames1]

I've encountered what sounds like the same problem. I've gone through and removed any unwanted animator components from my prefabs, but it doesn't seem to have changed anything.

As for my .FBX imports (which are from Blender), I noticed they include an animation component called "Default Take". Unity won't let me delete this, and I suspect having it there could be the source of the slow-down problem. Any suggestions?

[Happionlabs]

Sorry, PipeGames1, wans't able to reproduce your problem. Just to show I really gave it a shot, though - and you can look and see maybe I'm doing something different than you meant? - here's a clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGO9-zgDMKk

Also, I've been assured that the Animator overhead problem is fixed now, so if you're seeing some kind of slowdown it might be something else.