Animating for 2D games

Tree/hierarchical bone structure for 2d.

check out this video for a decent example.

[media][/media]

Tree/hierarchical bone structure for 2d.

check out this video for a decent example.

[media]

[/media]

Aha, interesting, thanks for the response.

This seems kind of limiting though dont you think? This seems like it would work for a game like limbo with their simplistic character design but by doing this I would lose alot of the fluidness of my animation. Say I wanted something along the lines of Castle Crashers where each limb wasnt necessarily affected by physics?

Perhaps I dont understand enough about 2d game engines to be asking these questions, just trying to have some kind of foresight before jumping into this

You don't have to use physics at all.
I think with castle crashers they had body, head, arms, and legs.

Then they had predefined animations for given actions that would play out from the animation script.

(Sorry I tried to find a reference link there was an article someone wrote about how they managed to do the animation in Castle Crashers but google is failing me today)

If you don't need a skeletal system it is actually quite simple. The easiest way is to build a sprite sheet with something like Texture Packer or Zwoptex and then you just change the texture region over time based on the animation time. You can think of it almost like a flip book where you are just presenting slightly different images to show motion.

Check out Spriter. I'd suggest watching the videos, and checking out the alpha/beta build available to understand it, but it basically allow you to draw pieces of an animation (arm, legs, head), and it create animation scripts for you (no physics required). It's pretty cool actually, and you really need to just play with it a minute to see why.

You don't have to use physics at all.
I think with castle crashers they had body, head, arms, and legs.

Then they had predefined animations for given actions that would play out from the animation script.

(Sorry I tried to find a reference link there was an article someone wrote about how they managed to do the animation in Castle Crashers but google is failing me today)

Yeah I remember reading about it on Newgrounds, I know it was made in flash but I believe they used an in house engine and transferred it over. Also I just found out you can make sprites quite easily with the newest version of Flash so I think ill go that route, thanks for all the replies guys!


Also: I want to get a bit of coding under my belt and start down the surely long and rigorous path of creating a 2d game engine. Even though Ill be handling the art department once my code buddies come up to work on the project I would still like to have a fundamental or a bit more understanding of the code thats going into the game. Basically, where should I go once I understand the whole hello world/ if statements/variables deal? As in can someone give me some fine tutorials thatll point me in the right direction? (would rather not spam by making this a new topic)

Thanks in advance guys and gals

We use an inhouse system to separate out 2D parts from a larger image and then specify the translations and rotations we want per frame using an animation tool similar to spriter.

Whilst I can't give out the tool yet, I can give out the C++ and wxWidgets library with a few sample animation files if you would like. (Send me a PM).

The code should be quite easy to modify to fit in with the output from most other tools.

Animate2D Lite is available for free without ads on Google Play

A mobile 2D cutout animation tool for game developers and hobbyists.

Animate2D Lite is available for free without ads on Google Play

A mobile 2D cutout animation tool for game developers and hobbyists.

I'm thrown-off at the fact, that the sample animation, is an Asian girl dressed like a stripper...

The model used to be full nude to demonstrate that a simple flat cutout structure of a few pieces can have better smoothness and more refined look than a low poly count 3D model found in many of todays mobile games. I have a set of full nude man cutouts too but nudity is not allowed so bikini is necessary. I truly wanted the characters nude like an art anatomy book.

The girl is not asian. She's a red headed european girl from estonia i am guessing because that is where the photographer lives. The original pictures were full nude. You can find the images on masterfile.

Great 2D animation example.

What is the name of the app in the you tube video?