you can create 2D flipbooks of 3D animated characters by Fragmotion easily. I found the best to save an animation in a row (use uniform distances), and to assemble the different character directions and resize with Gimp. (not tested yet with UE4 but should work with it too)
http://s26.postimg.org/kjvv54yit/Fragmotion_flipbook.jpg
http://s26.postimg.org/71oysumdh/Fragmotion_flipbook2.jpg