Hello everybody i’m new in this forum. i’m graphic designer and have 2 years creating some stuff for videogames like sprites, tilesets, backgrounds and more so i decided it’s my turn to create something, i’m new using UE4 i read a lots of documentation and tutorials now i have doubts which i cant get correct answer searching on web.
What do i want to do and what is my doubt?
here can you see 2D (figure A) model i just want to animate my character using rigging like 3d models but on 2d (figure B) for now i read few tutorial but they recommended use other programs or plugins to make an animation (first doubt) what program or plugin would recommended?
second, i would like animate each of this assets with sprites for example on the figure B and C the helmet is a sprite which depend of a condition will change (figure D) what do i need to do this?
with the name of the process is enough for me because i don’t know the terms to do an effective search to my doubts
extra: if need help, recommendations or something else write me i would love to help, can see some of my work here and the pics of the project i’m working (sample figure) can see here
Well using any 3d application you can make backgrounds and sprite sheets easy as typically when you render out to an alpha based texture the area that is just the background will be masked for you but checking out your work it seems to me your current skill set should work just fine if it’s the look your going for.
But to get started using 3D > 2D for “free” this is a good option.
More or less ideal you would want a single sheet that looks something like this.
thanks for the info but i guess is not exactly create sprite what i need i want animate like this video also i want to know more about the topic
[video]https://youtu.be/lq_poAVeEd4?t=11[/video]
following the way which animate like the video i wish each part of the “puppet” if we can name it that, it be an animated sprite
Yeah that’s just a spline based IK but you can skin a 2d image using bones rigged up to switch between FK and IK.
I don’t know if UE4 would support spline IK but if your app can export to FBX and bake the transform data and you skin to the control nodes of the spline controller then the transform data would bake and play back as absolute animation.
The other option would to rig it up in the front orthographic view and animate from that perspective.
What application to use there are many but as long as the application you use can export to FBX with a bake animations setting you could just as easily animate using brute force so it’s this feature your looking for and not the process by which a ginve application creates key frames. I use 3ds Max so I know for a fact that Max can do this so if say Blender’s FBX supports baking, and since it’s free, that would be a good choice as well.
For that matter check your own tools and if it has FBX support then it could be assumed that it also has bake animations as it really is a common feature in general use.
William I think I understand what you want to do. I highly recommend you google both “Anime Studio” and “Spriter”. Those two programs use a methodology for animating 2D images like how you described. They use a ‘bone’ system that you can apply to parts of your sprite (or whatever) and then you can just manipulate those bones to generate smooth animations.
apart from those Bhanshee mentioned “Spine” is also a widely used tool (PS: I only have Spriter and have never used Spine).
A problem with these tools however is that I don’t think (not certain, correct me if I’m wrong) any of them has import support in Unreal. other game engines more widely used in 2D games do support these tools however so you might be able to rewrite an importer for unreal referencing those that are open-sourced.
As an addendum; you can however export the animation as individual frames and then import each frame into a UE4 flipbook. You will just need to plan ahead and pre-animate for every eventuality.
