Hi guys!

I'm pretty much lost. I've researched plenty and plenty of tutorials, sites and whatnot today and I just couldn't find the right solution, so please, don't send me back to Uncle Google :(

Anyway, I need to find a way to make an animation for a game in isometric view alike those from Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale.

I know it should work with frames, I know there should be 8 angles. My problems are as follow:

1. How to make such an animation without drawing gods know how many frames 8 times?

2. I've tried Blender, I've tried Adobe After Effects - are they any good for this sort of thing? I mean, the models I need will be really small (100pcx high)and it doesn't seem like such an amazing idea to animate something like that in Blender

3. I need them at 30 angle. I mean like this: http://www.posemaniacs.com/?cat=15 and for the life of me, I would never be able to tell when does that happen in the Blender.

4. There will be a need to make them able to be dressed in various items later as well as wield weapons - how could that possibly be done?

5. Can those be made in .pngs or do they have to be in bitmaps with a chosen color as background that program will read as transparent?

I'd obviously have plenty more questions about texturing or lightning, but I guess that is pretty pointless without even knowing what kind of software or technique I should be using for that.

Thank you in advance for a reply! I hope there were not 10k of similar topics in these forums, I've checked first pages and I saw none that would answer my questions.

All the best!
Equi

Those games used 3d models with a set camera angle. Using 3d assets is the most efficient way to create isometric characters, especially when you're wanting to be able to swap clothing, weapons, etc.

Oh I see, that does sound reasonable, but I have no idea how to start doing something so small and with a set angle and all else. Could you please tell some more?

At least I know I'm looking at 3D now, a progress in a regress I guess (since I'm such a 2D girl) :)

But know this: Baldur's gate doesn't have 3d graphics. It's 2d for sure.
Now those 2d graphics may be rendered into sprite-sheets using a 3d software and all that but they don't process actual 3d models.

It's fairly easy to setup rendering in a 3d software to produce 8 different angles of objects with animation and all that. All you need is a way to handle sprite animation from sprite-sheets or similar.

Now if Baldur's gate DOES have 3d graphics, it sure as heck isn't the Baldur's gate I'm thinking of. xD

Oh. But maybe you didn't mean to produce graphics like Baldur's gate, just the isometric view. In that case, ignore me. :)

Nono, I think we both meant that BG was done on 3D models that were then turned to 2D frames and put together :)

My problem is - I have no idea at all how to render a 3d model at 8 angles and 30 degrees to the ground thing (no idea how to name it proffessionally) like in the posemaniacs link :(

Hehe there you go. ;) My mistake.

Well if you do want to use 2d sprites for the characters then you'd have to learn some things about a 3d program, like Blender, to position a camera such that it produces 30 degree angle (or whatever) in an orthographic projection (so depth doesn't exist, in case you didn't know.)
And as for 8 angles, you'd just rotate the camera to view it from a different angle.

But even so, you'd need animated characters and stuff.
As for different clothing, you could easily use the same 3d model and dress it up differently and render that into a set of 2d images so you'd produce a bunch of, essentially the same, sprite-sheets only they have different clothing.
But with a lot of different items such as armor, clothing and weapons, that are no less equippable in any order. Well. The amount of sprite-sheets to produce could easily sky-rocket.

Edit: I removed the stuff about using actual 3d models, I can almost assume from your first post this isn't what you're after. xD
Extended the 2d part a little.

Baldur's Gate and even the original Diablo's characters are 3d models that were rendered out to 3d sprite sheets. There are a few camera setups that you can use to get the same effect.

At the very least you need your character, your animations created, and a camera. You set the camera at the height and angle you want, and then render the animation, rendering each animation frame that you want in your sprite sheet. You then move the camera to the next direction you need and rerender. Optimally you'll setup a script for controlling the rendering and your camera so you don't have to do this manually every time - just run the script once to positions the camera, render, reposition the camera, etc. until your have your animations rendered from all 8 directions.

Well yeah, I definitely cannot produce ready-dressed sprites that will be replaced each time another item is put on the character xD That would be insane. I just fail to find the reasonable solution anywhere or even where to write what to set angles in Blender and all... argh, confusing! Makes me wanna cry... ;(

Thank you for your replies nonetheless ;(

Well it IS awfully finicky. But only in the very beginning when the concepts about things are spread about and you don't know what to make of things.

If you really want to do it though. I recommend you learn some basics about Blender and soon enough, when you learn about cameras and stuff, things should fall into place pretty quickly.

My two cents I guess. xD

For making 8 directional sprites you don't really need a script. I started out making one but found if you just parent the camera to a point at the center of the scene its just as easy.

EDIT:

Also you can reduce the combinations quite a bit by making the sprite in pieces, its fairly easy to separate the lower body, upper body, arms and head.