Creating a 2D Animated Character for Unity
In this Unity tutorial, we'll learn how to prepare and make an animated 2D character using a bone hierarchy. Software required: Unity 5, Spriter, Photoshop CC 2015.
What you'll learn
In this Unity tutorial, we'll learn how to prepare and make an animated 2D character using a bone hierarchy. We'll pay particular attention to issues such as scaling with respect to 2D physics, inverse kinematics in 2D, Z-orders and Unity's Animator component. We'll also write and assign character control scripts within Unity. By the end of this Unity training, you'll have learned animation techniques that you can start incorporating into your own game projects. Software required: Unity 5, Spriter, Photoshop CC 2015.
Table of contents
- Learning About Our Character 6m
- Breaking up the Character to Prepare for Spriter 11m
- Introduction to Spriter 10m
- Using Z Order to Build Character 11m
- Using Bones to Articulate Character 9m
- Planning for Unity Animator Logic 9m
- Preparing a Reference Clip in Spriter 10m
- Starting Walk Cycle in Spriter 10m
- Adding Swinging Arms to Walk Cycle 11m
- Finishing the Animation 10m
- Cleaning out Reference Sprites from Spriter 10m
- Importing from Spriter to Unity 11m
- Laying out Animations for Character 9m
- Setting up Parameters to Change Character Behavior 12m
- Creating a Behavior Script 11m
- Creating Placeholder Sprites in Photoshop at a Projected Angle 11m
- Slicing Multiple Sprites in Unity 10m
- Editing the Shape of 2D Colliders in Unity 8m
- Sorting Layers and Sorting Order for Unity Sprites 9m
- Scripting a Custom Character Controller 11m
- Facing Character Left and Right with User Input 12m
- Using Rigidbody2d Component and Animator to Move the Character 9m
- Updating Our Project 12m
About the author
Shane Whelan is a Game Design tutor at Ballyfermot College in Dublin, currently teaching in the Game Design and Animation degree program. He is also co-founder of Sneaky Vegetables, an educational games company, currently developing an untitled networked story-making game for children. He has also developed courses for Game Design that run internationally. Shane regularly works with Photoshop, 3ds Max, Unity, Mudbox, and Unreal Engine 4.