Been working in Unity for a long time and find yourself owning many many awesome 3d animated models? Then you start working on a 2d sprite based game and all those models are seemingly worthless.
And you say,
“Gosh - I would really just like to generate some sprite sheets for some of these animations!”
or even
“I surely don’t have any 2D art skills, but I can model/rig/animate the heck out of things!”
or maybe:
“I know some of those expensive 3D modeling tools can do that for me - but I can’t afford them or don’t know how to use them”
and lastly:
“There are so few professional 2D spritesheet assets on the Unity asset store - how am I going to make my game awesome?”
Green Screen could be your solution.
Green Screen is a Unity asset that allows you to capture an animated model in a method not unlike what the special effects studios do, with a specially colored backdrop so that you can extract JUST your model and leave a transparent background.
In addition, it creates a nicely organized spritesheet for you for easy integration with Unity’s new 2D capabilities.
Once configured, the process is fully automated, capturing each animation frame into a unique image and then combining into a spritesheet.
I’ve got an alpha version running now - extracting spritesheets from various rigged/animated models that I own for an upcoming game.
For release to the Unity asset store, I am adding some configurable parameters (such as ability to skip frames and resize the 2d image results) and basically making it more user friendly.
I was really fretting over getting some good 2D assets for my game - but now I see smooth sailing going forward.
NOTE: the images shown are captured from an asset I own called “Skeleton Pack” by BITGEM. It totally rocks!!
Can anyone suggest a good price point for this tool?
Solving problems…
Got nice smooth/distributed (and configurable) capture going directly from the Mecanim animator.
Currently stuck on the code combining the individual animation frame captures into spritesheet. Trying to get asset to work on both Windows and OSX is a pain. For initial release, might have to provide a second command-line tool for the OSX folks for that piece.
Below image is capture of the built-in Unity standard asset construction worker running animation.
I have to walk before I crawl…
Besides - there are plenty of good texture packers out there already…
After I get a version 1.0 out there, we’ll see where things take us.
(thanks for the feedback - and btw, your games look awesome! - could only watch the vids as I am a mac guy - kudos on having them free!)
btw, what ever happened to your 2DPropsMaker tool?
It looked pretty slick…
It was sorta in this same vein…could probably turn it into a Unity plugin/package instead of a standalone (so the user could simply import/drag their model into the project and you could take over)
Thanks…
You’re right ! It could be a package… and especially the last version with all angles possible (for isometric games or others !).
But I actually have no time for that. I’m working a lot on cartoon textures.
Wait and see for your package…
6R
Maybe we can combine forces and create a super-asset.
The ultimate in 3D->2D conversion tools for Unity!!
I guess I should get my version 1.0 out there first…
Very interesting indeed. If these were to get released, I think you’d have yourself a very good product, I’ll be keeping an eye out on this. I actually may want this in the future and that’s a first on any asset I’ve seen and I’ve been with Unity for +3 years.
My version 1.0 will be released (or at least submitted to the asset store) by the end of this coming weekend.
It may be a little rough - so I will put it out there with a discounted price until I can pretty it up.
Excited about getting others to use it - I had been ‘avoiding’ the new Unity 2D stuff until this - as I really had no good 2D assets.
Using Unity Pro, there are more elegant and polished ways to implement and present this functionality…
I can (and am) doing it with Unity Free though - but it seems a tad hokey and less user-friendly.
I have ZERO idea how many of you out there are using Pro versus Free in the target audience.
Feedback?
Ok - nearly done with v1.0
Trying to make it more user friendly and less…well…utilitarian.
Also, because of the packing algorithm, I want to provide a supplemental image denoting where on the resulting spritesheet each frame is in the original order so it’s easier when/if you import back into unity as a ‘multiple’ sprite in the Unity 2d side of the house.
I REALLY want to add a separate mode for particle effects capture - (which will work differently because I don’t need to hook into the mecanim animation stuff). Maybe that will be a v2.0 item (or a separate asset). Any thoughts?
Also - I switched to a technique that didn’t require the ‘green screen’ background - but I’m ending up with an ever-so-slight semi-transparent ‘haze’ on each captured frame.
Still trying to figure out what that is - and if I can’t soon, it’s back to the green screen…
