Puppet2D - An advanced skeletal animation tool

Puppet2D

Introducing Puppet2D - a new skeletal animation tool that makes animating 2D characters easy and fun!

1468751--80596--$introducingPuppet2d.png

This is a tool that makes it really easy to animate your 2D characters in Unity - in a similar way to how Rayman does it!

Features

  • A fast bone creation tool
  • Create easy to use controls
  • IK (Inverse Kinematic) keeps feet on ground, and great for animating
  • Convert Sprites into Mesh for skinning
  • Skin meshes to bones, for subtle deformations
  • Ability to edit skin weights
  • No need to commit to a new animation workflow or external program, animation itself can be done using Unitys standard tools.

If you want to know more check out the website:

www.puppet2d.com

And let me know what you think?

2 Likes

Seems interesting. Link to store on site goes to frontpage, though, so I can’t tell the price. Also, the demo video and feature list don’t really show me why it’s better than the existing options, other than that you do it completely in Unity’s interface.

Definitley intersted in this. Right now I have uni2d to do this sort of thing but it’s not perfect and since I don’t really use any of it’s other features I would consider picking this up depending on the price. As wccrawford states I can’t get to the store page for it.

Thanks for your interest -

Its currently going through Unity’s Submission process, I’ll let you know when it makes it through.

The price at the moment is $30 TBD (Subject to Unity’s final decision)

Essentially its a tool dedicated to creating easy to use puppets. It works in a similar way to how you would rig a character in maya - directly animating bones can get messy, using custom made controls makes the whole process more intuitive. As an example- you can quickly zero them to reset them to their initial pose.

This looks intriguing; I’m a nut for animation tools. The mesh deformation is the thing. Will definitely want to take this for a spin when it’s released.

Very very interesting and interested…
Very professional editor ! Great job !!!

(Unfortunately I can’t see a lot of things on the video because it’s unsharp on vimeo and I don’t know how to select a better quality like on youtube !?!)

6R

Thanx!
Im uploading it to youtube now - hopefully it won’t compress too badly…

Ok thats done, its a youtube vid now, thanks for letting me know

This looks very interesting. Similar to Esoteric Software’s Spine, but built inside Unity.

Some of Spine’s upcoming features are detailed in the following link and the full feature matrix is listed on the their website;

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/esotericsoftware/spine-features?ref=users

How would you say the two products compare?

Unlike spine, Puppet2d is only for Unity. It makes use of Unitys already well developed animation editor, its also useful working directly in unity without having a different pipeline. The puppet control side of the tool can also make animating feel easier. Spine has some great features - like ffd, I’d like to get them into puppet2d in the future.
I’ve made puppet2d mimic the way I rig and animate in maya. Check out the tutorial to see if its for u:

http://www.puppet2d.com/#!tutorials/c1kqr

Looks like a great tool. The tutorial video links to a “private” video - so we can’t see it:|

Woops! Its public now - happy new year!
Tutorial

Thanks ! Now I can see the different buttons and texts…
I like your very well done video and especially the animations of the characters : very dynamic and funny !
Very attractive work.

For the programming, is it the usual way to code the animations ???
How long do you need exactly to make a skeleton ?

6R

Yup, animations can be done in the usual Unity way. Making the skeleton can be done in a few clicks. The whole process for setup could be done in a small time - the tutorial shows the whole process starting with the spritesheet and ending with a run cycle, its only around 20mins, and I stop to explain somewhat.
Hopefully should make animating much easier so u can concentrate on the acting and performance :slight_smile:

Looks really cool. Think I’ll be picking this up when it hits the store.

Would be great if you could add free-form deformation (with the ability to define internal mesh vertices)

Would definitely love to get ffds into it in the future :slight_smile:

Definitely a “must have” tool for people who are doing skeletal animations.

Spine, actually, can’t animate IK and doesn’t have controllers. It doesn’t have animated FFD too or skinning. So this tool is more similar to the Ubisoft 2D framework or the vanillaware one.

Now what you have to add are:

  • Possibility to switch skinned sprites
  • animated FFD

I will definitely be picking this up when its available in the Asset Store.

Agreed.

I’m ready to buy. Looks awesome!

I’m also ready to buy. Get it up on the store ASAP :slight_smile: