Hi!,

I'm using unity as my game engine and it is mainly a 3d oriented game engine. I have seen some games that have been done with unity that use quads to render, but are animated with a 3D package (I have been reading about zombie villie doing this on iphone). They seem paint body parts (arms, head, etc...) in photoshop or whatever and then mount the "model/sprite" in a 3D pakage. Could anyone give any insights on how to do this?. Should animations be natural for a 2D game?

Thanks in advance,
HexDump.

Hi!,

I'm using unity as my game engine and it is mainly a 3d oriented game engine. I have seen some games that have been done with unity that use quads to render, but are animated with a 3D package (I have been reading about zombie villie doing this on iphone). They seem paint body parts (arms, head, etc...) in photoshop or whatever and then mount the "model/sprite" in a 3D pakage. Could anyone give any insights on how to do this?. Should animations be natural for a 2D game?

Thanks in advance,
HexDump.

Unity is as much a 2D engine as it is a 3D engine.

If you write 2D logic, then your game is 2D. If you write 3D logic, then your game is in 3D. You can draw 3D pictures to show the state of a 2D game. And vise-versa.

Also, you can use a series of textured quads bound to a skeleton to animate a 2D figure. You can also have an event on certain frames to toggle a texture swap if needed. If you don't understand the concept of skeletal animation, try watching the tutorials on http://www.BlenderCookie.com, they explain it very well.

'HexDump' said:

Hi!,

I'm using unity as my game engine and it is mainly a 3d oriented game engine. I have seen some games that have been done with unity that use quads to render, but are animated with a 3D package (I have been reading about zombie villie doing this on iphone). They seem paint body parts (arms, head, etc…) in photoshop or whatever and then mount the "model/sprite" in a 3D pakage. Could anyone give any insights on how to do this?. Should animations be natural for a 2D game?

Thanks in advance,
HexDump.

Unity is as much a 2D engine as it is a 3D engine.

If you write 2D logic, then your game is 2D. If you write 3D logic, then your game is in 3D. You can draw 3D pictures to show the state of a 2D game. And vise-versa.

Also, you can use a series of textured quads bound to a skeleton to animate a 2D figure. You can also have an event on certain frames to toggle a texture swap if needed. If you don't understand the concept of skeletal animation, try watching the tutorials on http://www.BlenderCookie.com, they explain it very well.

Hi!,

Thanks for the answer Daaark.

I'm programmer, I perfectly understand what a skeleton is. The poblem is that I'm so used to use or 3D meshes for a 3D game or textured quads (texturing with sprites from an atlas) for 2D games, that is a bit difficult for me to see if quads bound to a skeleton to get 2D animation will be satisfactory. The game I'm into at the moment is an arcade/platform 2D shooter, and was thinking about adopting this type of animation for it, so, I would like to hear from artists his opinion about doing this, if it gives good results, and if it could be possible, if there exist some example to check.

In the other hand, you are totally right about unity, just wanted to emphatize that it is more 3D game oriented because of its tools, etc... But again, a 2D can be done perfectly (without a bit more work).

Edited: I have been checking some vids on youtube and it seems it is perfectly suitable for my needs. What 3d package is better for this kind of animation maya or max? I have seen some minor editors that can be used, but having unity import this ones without any more work I will stick to this two.

Thanks in advance,
HexDump.

Any program that can edit skeletal animation and can export to a format that Unity can import will suit you just fine. Blender, Maya, Max, etc, will all work fine. There are lots of small programs that do JUST 2D skeletal animation, but I'm not sure what their compatibility with Unity is. Ask around the Unity forums first.

Hi again!,

Doing some research I have seen Zombie Ville uses this technique for their animation. They use maya, and more or less are using the skeletal thing. Have to dig a bit on the system.


Thanks,
HexDump.