Animation in Maya is simple. Put an object in one position, save the key frame, put it in another position and save that key further down the time line, and it will give you EVERY IMAGE, not one file containing a compiled animation. I need something like that for 2D. I have Ink Scape and Pencil already downloaded, could I use those? If so I need an explanation on how to make a speedometer needle(which I made in photoshop) start pointing down and to the left at 0 MPH, rotate all the way around to the right side at 120 MPH, with 25 images. Pencil seems like I could do that, but I couldn’t figure out how to rotate the image. The attached file is the needle.
I used to use Game Maker back in the beginning of my game dev Journey, and 2D animation was super simple.
Make the image, and apply a rotate animation of a certain amount of frames. I’ll probably download Game Maker just for this purpose if no one has any suggestions.
You can also create position/rotation/scale animations with the new Unity animator. You can use an empty game object as a pivot point and put the needle inside as the child. Put an Animator component on the parent and create a new clip in the Animation Window. And set your keyframes just like Maya. Hope that helps
I have a motion graphics background, and use photoshop, illustrator, and After Effects for all my sprites.
After effects is nice because I just export a .png sequences with alpha and import those into texture packer, I’m not sure if you have a budget for a program or not, but Ae is a little expensive
wait wait wait … whyt exactly do you need here? Do I understand that correctly that you want to use game maker just for a sprite rotation? That’s overkill and unncecessary. For a plain rotation you should consider scripting, because it’s not only smaller in size but also way more flexible. For a mph needle this is even better because you can simply map the rotation value to the speed your vehicle is driving. In this case it’s the preferred approach, IMO.
For complex sprite animation there are so many different approaches …
Animate in Maya and render out every frame independently - then generate a spritesheet from it
draw every frame by hand and generate a spritesheet from it
draw independent bodyparts and rig them in maya - then import as animation (think of southpark style animation, here) - or even animate those in Unity with the integrated animation editor (of course this has less animation tools)
… and (while I still don’t recommend it) if you need to have a needle rotation in fixed animation you can also create this in Unity’s animation editor or in Photoshop against a transparent background and render it out as independent frames from there. This is not the preferred method for your problem, though.
A Hint
if you not want or can animate by hand , you can try Crazy Talk Animator 2 Pipeline Version.
It is a 2D animation Tool that help to develop 360 degree 2D Character
Also you can animate them with 3d mocap Data.
A Example here with a free dance motion from mixamo.
