This is my first post on here so i give a quick introduction.
I am a traditional animator having worked on titles such as Skullgirls within the games industry and the Amazing world of Gumball for Television.
I would like to enter the game assets market, but first I thought it a good idea to ask you guys for opinions and knowledge in this area.
I have seen that there seem to be no high quality HD traditionally animated sprites and would like to fill that hole in the market. Before I dive into these projects my questions are:
Would people be interested?
Considering that the packs would be traditionally animated it would prove difficult to swap out elements to create characters. Would that be a problem and if so would animating alongside the character, a base, like a naked bald character be useful for those who would like to optimise?
Would it be worth all that work? Seeming as you can imagine animating the more complicated character sprites from scratch would take a tremendous amount of work, would there be enough people purchasing the assets to be worth the investment?
Those are my main issues and it´s nice to meet you all in this creative comunity!
Welcome! Really you should be asking this in the Asset Store forum, I think, but I’m happy to provide my $0.02 here for what it’s worth.
By “traditionally animated” do you mean that, instead of dividing the sprite up into pieces and animating with something like Spine, you’re going to just provide a large number of images (i.e. a separate image for each frame of animation)?
The trouble with this, particularly with regard to character animation, is what happens when you need something else? For example: I was working on a little game a couple years ago that was mostly a fighting game, except that at some points, you grab a goat and run with it. “Run while carrying something heavy over your head” is not an animation you’re likely to find in an off-the-shelf asset. We were able to deal with it because it was based on Spine, and so we just made a new animation based on the existing run. But with traditional animation, that wouldn’t be possible.
Of course I totally get how the traditional approach allows the animator to produce a higher-quality result. But… it seems like the sort of thing you need to do for a particular game/character, with animations designed to suit. I don’t see how it’s going to be worth it as a stock asset, at least in most cases.
Thank you Joe Strout, your 2 cents were very much appreciated. That´s why I am inquiring into this before taking any action. I will ask if a moderator can possibly move this thread to the correct part of the Forum.
Yes, by traditionally animated I did mean having sprite sheets composed of individual images and not using the cut out approach like Spine.
I was thinking of creating traditionally animated assets that would work with specific types of games like a street fighter style fighting game or a rpg with a number animated elements that could be used in different situations.
This does indeed limit it´s use, but I do already see a great number of cutout characters on these asset stores and sites.
I guess I could make complex, but clear and organised cut-out puppets, like the Wakfu or Dofus games and add a load of pre-made move sets so they appear more traditionally animated, but still have that ease of adjusting more than traditional sprites have. It´d be a huge investment though, so there´s the fear that it might not work out.
Another question would be:
Would making the character puppets and move sets in Adobe Flash or Animate as Fla files and SWFs be usesable or would I really need to learn the cut-out software for Unity?
I guess a good idea would be to test the waters by creating some simpler assets to see what sort of sucess I may have on the asset store.
Thanks again
I am still interested to hear other opinions so please keep them coming.
Fair point. I think these off-the-shelf characters have great value in prototyping, and for hobbyist developers who want to make something cool but don’t have the resources to make (or have made) custom characters. And there are a lot of Unity developers in that boat, so maybe this could work.
It’s tough, though — with 3D humanoid characters, you need only provide a well-sculpted and rigged character, and users can mix & match these with animations from other sources. With 2D, obviously that doesn’t work. So you have to try to anticipate what sort of motions are needed, and cover those as thoroughly as you can.
I’m not certain, but I think that Unity can’t read such Flash assets.
I will follow your advice. I will start small then if that proves to be beneficial I shall invest in some “off the shelf” (I like that term) charafter animation. If I start with a fighting game I will add a lift and throw movement where people can have the possibility of frankensteining the torso onto the legs walk cycle if they choose.
I will have a go at thinking up some other odd, but useful movements that devs may find necesary and try to cover more bases.
For any puppets I guess I’d have to learn something more Unity friendly.
