koobas.hobune.stream
How can I animate a 2D sprite without using sprite sheets?
Basically, I have a 2D sprite of a face (in flat design style) that I want to animate in slow motion. But I can't do it in sprite animations because it would take probably 200 sprites to make.
Is there another way of animating a face, other than sprite animations? Maybe using meshes?
I feel like those very smooth 2D flat design animations I see in popular games are not made of sprites, but rather something else. How is it done?
What you are probably looking for is either bone animation or mesh deformation. You can animate 2d sprites by cutting them into pieces and animating their anchor points like a puppet. This can be also done with a tool like Spine. For a face, you will probably want to deform the mesh, which you could also do with the pro version of spine. Not sure, if there are any free alternatives. If you're just starting out, search for Spine Animation to get a feel for how it works and maybe somebody can suggest a free alternative.
As far as I know you can't. You will need a sprite sheet. Another way to do that is the create a 3d character of the 2d sprite and animate that using mechanim. I may be wrong. A 2d sprite is an image and as far a I know you can't alter the image to animate. So my answer is no, you can't
This is true, if you only consider the built-in Unity tools. However, there's third party software to do exactly the kind of deformation wanted. See above (e.g. Spine).
I realize this is a bit late (haha)... but...
Some games use 3D models that are cel-shaded. The technology of cel-shading is getting better, and today some games have done a very good job of generating flat cartoon graphics using it. Here is a list of some cel-shaded games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cel-shaded_video_games. The latest Broken Sword game does a pretty good job in my opinion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Sword_5:_The_Serpent%27s_Curse.
One of the bigger differences with cel-shading is that you can achieve a very high frame rate that would be very hard to achieve using just a spritesheet(s).
If you search the Asset Store for: toon shader, you'll find a few such technologies you can use in your project. Your model should be designed and created with toon shading in mind. For example, I went and took a regularly textured 3D character and tried to toon shade it but the results were less than stellar. I think you'd need a model with simpler textures or something, but I haven't invested much time to look into it.
Good luck.
