In case anyone missed the post in the 2D forum
Skeletal Animation - Anima2D Blog post
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Maybe you guys should sticky this.
I was surprised when I came to this section and did not find any mention of this.
I thought there would be info, for instance, is the Anima2D guy gonna be working with your team?
In fact it would be nice to know how things are structured, are there two 2D teams, like one for stable and the other for experimental features?
It’s nice to see this added anyways, Unity is making strides in some very exciting directions.
Stickied.
As was mentioned in the blog post, Sergi is part of the 2D team. 
There is one dedicated 2D team. There are currently 12 members in the team.
While we are developing the 2D skeletal animation feature, this is a great alternative to use in the meantime.
We too are very excited in the direction we are headed, but we are also equally excited that we can work with you, the community to help keep us heading in the right direction.
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I know it’s a bit soon to ask, but any update on this? I know it’s to be released in January sometime but… eager haha
Fun fact: Experimental client breaks anima’s examples:
That’s Unity-chan.
It works perfectly on generic 5.5 client tho.
Remove the tag from multiple sprites
Breaks once you hit “play”.
Also, look at generated assets.
That’s arm_1 sprite mesh, normal and experimental:
I’m the same as you, but as soon as I delete or rename tag it works, but it does not show the play mode.
Working well done:), soon the video trailer or something more)
PS: Its native and have fully functional simply no less than Spine)
Sounds great! Is there a way to get into experimental releases for the new features? I ask because I’m creating a kit for the store and it sounds like the some of the features I’m adding are going to overlap stuff that will be built into Unity soon so I would prefer to integrate into those directly and support mainstream features instead.
@LaneFox What do you mean “get into experimental releases for the new features”?
As in getting the experimental release or being part of the experimental?
Is FFD (free form deformation) or, essentially, vertex animation of individual points on a sprite’s mesh currently in development for Anima2D or the final build in Unity?
This feature is sorely lacking from Unity AND Anima2D, and is a make-or-break feature for me as a 2D animator to avoid that stupid/cheap/rigid “cut-out” look animation tends to have these days.
PS:
I’m assuming you guys aren’t animators, but if you take Rayman Legends into account, you’ll see they make heavy-use of vertex animation on their body parts to give it that hand-drawn look that makes it feel rubbery and cartoony. If done a little more subdued, it can make more realistic stuff look nice as well.
- 1 for FFD
And vertex animation is also welcome as a standard feature so I can import animated vertexes from maya.
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I was referring to this
I would like to start digging into the new built in feature(s) [skeletal animation] asap as I seem to be creating overlapping tools that Unity is already building and would prefer to integrate the official tools instead.
Ah got it!.
The 2D skeletal animation feature is in prototype stage at the moment. Unfortunately I can’t give a time at the moment as to when it will hit the experimental preview.
Apparently my post was overlooked.
No mention of any FFD or vertex features so far, but am I correct in assuming there WILL be FFD (free-form deformation) and/or point/vertex animation features included in the final release of Unity’s Anima2D replacement?
I recall seeing these features were in the works for Anima2D, but then Unity swooped in and those expectations all went to hell. Can I get a clear answer from someone at Unity that this is in the works? Once again, this feature is ESSENTIAL to animators, and hopefully I shouldn’t have to explain why again.
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I have been asking for vertex animation support about ten years ago, so to see that it still has no priority is a bit of a miss for me. hope someday an animator starts to work at unity who can prioritise this feature.
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Sorry but thinking about that type of stuff just infuriates me.
No idea why nobody at Unity seems to think this type of (commonly-needed) stuff is important.
Stuff like animation exists in ALL games. Game environments do too. For example, streaming textures and terrain is present in some form in almost ALL the biggest-selling modern titles these days, and yet Unity makes us jump through hoops to make stuff like this happen, and/or instead refers us to either some subpar workaround OR the Asset Store.
Something as common as moving vertexes around in an animation should NOT be something a developer has to fight with, nor should he have to buy an extension to the editor he uses to be able to do it. As far as the animator goes, I feel like they should either give us the source-code to the animator so we can do it properly, OR do it for us (properly!) instead. But no matter what they want to do in the end, they should NEVER make it necessary to have to beg for features like this for years on end.
That’s just my two cents.
With indies pretty much competing with AAA studios these days, you’d think they’d take us a little more seriously and develop tools to help us do just that – especially with as much gusto as they seem to be approaching making Unity into a new movie-making software-hybrid, right? It’s not a bad direction to go graphics-wise, but why start something new when you haven’t even finished the framework of what you’ve already started first? You’re abandoning your core fanbase for greener pastures – and that never ends well.
