I’ve been researching some 2D animation programs for a project, and looking for as many options as possible to find something that does just what we need it to. But a lot of the most popular recommendations don’t quite measure up.
The problem is that the game is going to include a lot of music based animations, including dancing, lip synching and other rhythmic animations for upwards of 30 characters. I’ve been hard pressed to find a game-focused animation tool that incorporates sound well enough to be functional. I’ve looked at Spine and Spriter, both highly recommended, but without the ability to scrub through audio in the timeline or even preview the animation with sound in-program, they just don’t seem usable for something of this scope.
Are there any programs out there that might fit the bill? Something intended for longer cinematic animations instead of short character animations like running and jumping, perhaps. At the moment it looks like the animators will need to use something like Flash to do the bulk of the work and then find some other way to export to Unity. (Any luck with using 3dsMax for sprite-based 2d work? Could that be a decent workflow or am I barking up the wrong tree?)
Have you looked at the Animation features of 2Dtoolkit?
2Dtoolkit showed up in my search, but I got the impression it was designed for animations made out of frame sequences rather than characters built out of moving parts. The animation style uses large characters split up along their joints and animated puppet-style, with only facial features and other small details made with sequenced frames. Spine was ideal for my purposes, and it’s the lack of audio integration that killed it, unfortunately.
I think 2Dtoolkit allows for animations built out of moving parts because it allows for anchor points along joints in the animation… for example you can create an animation of a person walking and then later choose to put a gun in their hand. The gun will stick to the animated hand and move with it. Regarding the audio portion, I’m not sure. You can post a question in the 2Dtoolkit forums.
Info about animations…
http://www.unikronsoftware.com/2dtoolkit/features.html#animations
2Dtoolkit forums…
Adobe Flash, as of CS6, and with the latest CC version, can natively export sprite sheets. It is the solution I have selected as being the most able to fit the most of my requirements.
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-flash-professional-cc/exporting-sprite-sheets/
Puppet2D looks like it’s got potential. Although it also appears to be missing the crucial audio tools.
Has anyone tried using Tagarela for use with 2d character anims? Just got referred to this one recently, but it seems to be morph-shape focused.
It is for 3D only.
There is actually no tool that include the audio part you need, so you can develop that yourself or ask to the puppet2D dev