I guess I’m not the only one who was blown away by the animations of Ubisoft’s upcoming game Rayman Origins. If you haven’t already watch the trailer check it out here.
When I afterwards watched this little footage I wanted to use this tool called UBIart right away.
Imagine you had a tool were you could import all kinds of images and bind them together using bones and animate them. Saving the animation for Unity will create a model along with a single material holding all images placed next to each other, just like SpriteManager 2 by Brady handles packed sprites.
I’m aware that the technique is already being used by many, e.g. Mika Mobile’s incredible Zombieville and Battleheart. But using Maya or other 3D tools is very complex and requires a lot work to get to the same result.
This post has no other purpose than inspiring some smart people to create a tool like that. Cause if you, like me, loves the style of old school 2D graphics, you’ll know that a tool like this would be priceless.
The only part I don’t get from it is how they cut the original artwork up into it’s component parts without having hard edges (each part looks like it was drawn independently).
Otherwise it definitely looks reproducible, if UBIart either isn’t released or it’s not usable with Unity.
Yeah, I’m aware of that, but a more streamlined workflow would be great. For me personally, the most fun in making games is being able to throw ideas and graphics into the game as fast as possible to decide whether works and what does not. In general Unity is great for trying things out quickly, but a tool like ubiart would really be a dream come true for us 2D people.