Best Method for Characters?

Unity Engine
1

Hello! I’m working with a wonderful artist who will be doing some characters. However, I’m not sure what method we should be doing.

First we were going to be doing straight drawn animation, frame by frame for each action. This, however, would result in a lot of sprite sheets and less variety/smoothness.

So now I’ve made a simple animation using the other method – I’m not sure the name, is it “Springs”? – and that may seem to work better.

What I’m looking for: Advice on what the “best” method is, or another method that I’m not aware of? It seems the “spring” method would be more versatile, and then animations could be retargeted to other models. It’d save on textures and on artist time drawing (but then an animator would be needed).

Here’s the demos I have – very simple:

  1. http://sfbaystudios.com/KnightTestWeb/KnightTestWeb.html

  2. http://sfbaystudios.com/KnightTestWeb2/KnightTestWeb2.html

Left/Right arrow moves. In #2, space will “punch”.

Thanks!

2

Have you seen this?..

3

I had not – is this yours by any chance?

I see the bones, which isn’t something Unity has built in with 2D. (I’ve looked all for 5 seconds before replying now, but I’ll look again in a bit!) Looks promising – have you used it, if it’s not yours?

4

Nope, not mine, nor have I used it.
But here’s a long thread discussion about it with its creator…
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/220203-Puppet2D-An-advanced-skeletal-animation-tool

5

Cool, thanks – I checked out his website, went through the docs and emailed him some questions.

6

Also check out Smooth Moves, and Spine.

The animation method you’re referring to is called skeletal or bone animation.

7

Here is an open source solution http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/219915-Release-Free-Unity-Sprites-And-Bones-2D-skeleton-animation