Need advice for importing Spriter SCML format (2D skeleton animation)

Development Character & Animation
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1

Hi,

I’m pretty new to UE4 and I would like to use my Spriter projects here. Spriter is a tool created by brashmonkey which allows to make cool 2D animations using bones.

The idea is use an atlas wich contains all the parts of the animations instead of using flipbooks. Then render each part in the correct position with correct rotation. So each Sprite would be composed by several sprites which should be tweened on a time basis (ie. 15fps whatever).

I have already implemented a prototype in C++ using SFML (pretty simple and buggy) and I would like to make something similar in UE4. As I’m a beginner in UE4 (and game programming in general) I would like to hear some advice on this, I have thought of creating a “SCMLCharacter” or “SCMLActor” which would contain several sprites. Then tween manually all the stuff and render each sprite with a different depth for ordering. (I guess Unreal Engine will take care of all the batching and optimizations for me if using the same texture / material).

Does it make sense? anything better?

2

Hi Dredok,

We do not currently have anything in place to support this kind of functionality, but we do have plans to allow the use of skeletal sprites in the future. You can certainly create your own functionality using the Engine’s source code in the meantime.

3

i hope we will get this soon :slight_smile:

4

@TimLincoln

Hey I’d like to know if there is any ETA? I would like to have a 2D Skeletal animations as soon as possible. If its between 1-2 months time scale i can wait but i could implement Esoterics Spine run-time as well.

Thanks for helping me out :slight_smile:

5

Hi Azarus,

Unfortunately we do not have an ETA for skeletal sprites at this time. It is still currently set as a “wishlist” item. I would definitely encourage you to vote for the feature on our general Trello board, as well as on the Paper2D-specific Trello board.