Hey everyone! I recently came across the Demo Teaser of a project called “EthrA” on YouTube, and I was really impressed by it. The techniques used in the game caught my attention as well. I’m curious to learn more about them. Does anyone know if they actually created pixel art animations for each 2D character by calculating 24 frames for a full 360-degree rotation at 15-degree intervals? Or is there a different method involved? Would love to hear your thoughts!
From what i can see, and the comments on their videos, they craeted 2D sprites for each body part and how it should look for all the different directions (at least for the head and torso), but they also added those sprites to a 3D skeleton - skeletal mesh.
Quote from StonelabStudio:
“As this generated more questions than answers Im leaving this comment to clarify:
The character is neither a 3d model or voxels. He is still made out of pixelart 2d sprites. Each bodypart is a sprite. Some people believed that only the head was a sprite but that is not the case. The whole character is made of sprites.
We can say that it is actually closer to a 3d model as the sprites are billboarded on top of an armature. This armature is rigged and is what we use to animate the characters.
We handmade a full rotation of the character representing a 3d model. Some characters or mobs also have vertical rotations if required.”
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Thank you for the detailed explanation! That makes a lot of sense. It’s fascinating to see how they combined 2D sprites with a 3D skeletal mesh to achieve such a unique look. This approach definitely adds a lot of depth and flexibility to the animations. I appreciate the insight!