Cut the rope style animation

Unity Engine
,
1

Hey guys, I am working on a new game, which is gonna be 2d , anyway I am planning on buying Sprite Manager 2 when i get some money lol, and since i never worked with 2d sprites or games before, I wanna ask you experts :slight_smile:

HOW do you make a sprite animate as smooth as the animation in games like cut the rope or any other excellent 2d games out there

I mean how many “pictures” or “frames” do you need in your atlas for say a “running” animation to be as smooth as possible,and whats the frame rate you need ?

and LASTLY!! I do my drawings in this order :

1- Sketching (Photoshop)

2- Outlining (Illustrator)

3- Coloring (Photoshop)

in this way its very hard to make say a running animation where you have to move the legs in each frame …

is there another software or tool or technique I am missing?

thank you in advance guys :slight_smile: and I gotta say, this community has NEVER let me down! :hushed:

PS : If you made a game using sprite manager or know a game built with it please give me a link so i can check i out and probably buy it :smile:

2

http://www.anbsoft.com/middleware/sm2/

i did not use it but it seems to be the best PlugIn for animating for 2D Games in Unity. Next game i will use it.
Hope it helps

3

I used SM2 in my recent game, Ball Busters. It’s in review by Apple right now so I don’t have a link for it yet. Anyways, for simple animations I just did it right in photoshop. For more complex animations I brought my artwork into flash and animated it, then exported the movie as an image sequence.

4

Take a look in iTunes search “brainspool”

My game…

5

If you have Photoshop 5 there is this awesome new feature : puppet- warp (under edit) - it`s really easy to make e.g. a running animation. We also use sprite manager 2 and love it…

6

Hey Eaves, for animations, as long as you have a good understanding of the principles, you’re good to go. For a smooth “running” animation, 10-12 frames should be fine. Also, between your sketching and outlining, you can test your frames in either flash or toon boom.

Just a head’s up, but the more frames you have, the more memory it will take especially on the iPhone.

Oh yeah, I also bought SpriteManager 2 and it’s been good ever since. Mine is a simple app and you can find the link in my signature.

Best of luck.
-Hakimo

7

One Question, How is your workflow ToonBoom->Unity?