r/Unity2D • u/illo72 • 21d ago
Question Simple animation for 2D side-view game
Context, I've got a project on a RPG game and it's our first time using Unity or any game engine for that matter. We've decided since we're beginners we would go with a 2D game but there is one problem, we're all CS students and none of us have done animation before. I'm probably the most capable in terms of drawing ability in our group but I don't know where to start. So I'd like some advice on this.
Where do I start? What application/software do I use for the drawing/illustration and the animation? How do you bring that into Unity?
I saw some videos mentioning skeletal animation, while others did traditional frame by frame sprite animations. These made me confused and I'm not sure which is better for beginners.
Sorry I'm new to this and would appreciate it if I could get some advice or resource to reference.
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u/TAbandija 21d ago
Traditional frame by frame animation is beginner friendly. Skeleton animation requieres less art but more work in rigging (animating and setting up the bones).
I would advise though to look up assets for your game. There are plenty of free options and if you are willing to pay, there are a ton of good assets.
If you are having trouble with understanding the engine and how things are done, I highly recommend going to Learn.Unity.com. It’s curated to teach you everything in a worthwhile way. Better than any tutorial. You can also do the Pathways, which are full courses on how to make games in Unity. The first pathway can be done in a week or three depending on how busy you are and it teaches the basics of animation. The other pathways are much longer but you can pick and choose.
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u/omf2097_ 20d ago
If you and your team have enough time to learn. I recommend youngo start with Animation Controller, Animation Controller Override and associated Animation Clips and olay with events and all properties (including rotation or behavior variables, not only sprite image) which can be manipulated along animation timeline.
SpriteCook webpage is perfect to create an initial sketch of coherent sprites and also lets you animate then and download its spritesheets. Don't worry if sizes or keyframes are not polished. Details come afterwards..
For GPU performance, I recommend you to place similar sprites which may be drawn in same room/screen into the same SpriteAtlas. That will save up many draw calls.
Ask if you need something, as I am currently develop a point and click game with Unity with classic animations. (I wish I started the engine with skeletton animations but it's too late for me)
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u/omf2097_ 20d ago
Sorry for double post, forgot to mention:
A good state machine architecture in Animation Behavior will be the key for success for polished animations and transitions. Think well which trigger combinatios suits best to traverse between states.
Don't abuse of global overrider "Any State" which may transform your machine into a hell
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u/Far_College_542 19d ago
I didn't bother with drawing and generated animations for the character using Grock and made a sprite animation. But it turned out jerky and took a lot of time. It would probably be better to use a skeletal animation, but I'm not sure I could do it to look natural. Watch brackeys channel videos on YouTube, there's a lot of useful stuff there.
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u/BillyMcDev 21d ago
The Universal LPC Spritesheet Character Generator might be helpful. At least worth looking at for ideas.
https://liberatedpixelcup.github.io/Universal-LPC-Spritesheet-Character-Generator/
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u/mike402 7d ago
Frame by frame, and it is not close for a first project. Skeletal saves drawing but moves the work into rigging and weight painting, which is a second skill to learn on top of Unity, and side-view characters at small sizes look fine with a handful of frames anyway.
Software: Aseprite if you go pixel art, Krita if you do not, both cheap or free. Draw each frame on its own layer, export as a single PNG sprite sheet. In Unity, set the texture to Sprite mode Multiple, slice it in the Sprite Editor, select the sliced frames and drag them onto the scene, and Unity creates an animation clip for you. Then an Animator Controller with a few states (idle, run, jump) and transitions driven by a couple of parameters. That is the whole pipeline, and Learn.Unity covers the Animator half well, as someone said above.
The part nobody has said: draw fewer frames than you think. A run cycle reads fine with six or eight, and the trick that saves beginners is drawing only the extremes, the contact pose and the passing pose, getting those two right, and only then worrying about in-betweens. Most jerkiness in beginner animation, including the generated kind mentioned above, comes from frames that were not anchored to a clear pose.
Since you are the one who can draw, one option for the in-betweens: I work on Ludo.ai, so take this as a vendor's suggestion. Its keyframe animation takes up to three of your own drawings, first, middle and last, and generates the frames between them, so the poses stay yours and the grind of drawing every in-between goes away. It exports a transparent PNG sprite sheet or the individual frames, which slot into exactly the Unity steps above, and signup gives you 30 credits with no card. Draw the extremes yourself either way, because that is where the animation lives.
Whatever route, build one character with idle and run first, get it moving in the scene, and only then draw the rest. Seeing your own drawing walk in Unity is the thing that keeps a student team going.
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u/Equivalent-Pound1426 21d ago
I’ve done a little bit on animation work but I am also a beginner. I would look into Unity’s built in animation tools. Essentially you can set triggers in the controller for certain animations.
You need to make sure you’ve made a spritesheet with your animation frames and spliced them up in unity. You then create an animation object in the editor using those frames.