Approach animations

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:bust_in_silhouette: Asked By Deathibrylator

Hi there, I’m gonna make some projects in Godot and I’m wondering about animations, Sprites in fact. Is it better to have e.g Knight Idle or Run animation in one big sprite and then split it in Godot in inspector or the way that I recenly heard of, having cutout sprites of Knight (seperate legs, hands, head) and then… make something with this.

How do you guys solve this problem in your game and why do you take exactly this way?

:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: RazorSh4rk

Depends. If you are good at art, draw up the spritesheet, if not, use the built in animation tools.

You mean, if not, draw each limb separately?

Deathibrylator | 2020-06-01 14:47

:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: kdenning

It depends on how complex your animations are.

If just have a few (i.e. idle, run walk, jump) then you can use a Sprite with an AnimationPlayer or just an AnimatedSprite.

If your animations are more complex (i.e. holding items, various emotes) then using a 2D Skeleton will make more sense. 2D Skeletons are a lot of work to make so you only want to use them when you need to.

In my opinion, 2D Skeletons are a “you know when you need them” situation. I start with basic animations. If while I’m planning them out I realize I’m making a ton that could be covered by individual pieces moving, then I’ll create a 2D Skeleton for that sprite.

The best example I can think of is when your character is holding an item. If you only have one or two items, it makes more sense to create separate sprite sheets of your character for each item. If you have a lot of items, it’ll be less work in the long run to create a 2D skeleton for your character. Then, you would only need to animate the hand/arm of the character.

Wow thanks for great answer C: Tbh I didn’t learn about Sekeleton2D and i was curious if it’s a better option but it seems Sprite sheet is good as well. I was thinking about game where player can have diffrent weapons but the animations of attacks would be diffrent as well so I guess multiple sprite sheets is more appropriate.

Anyway big thank you C: I will check Sekeleton2d out soon C:

Deathibrylator | 2020-06-01 15:32

You’re welcome! I mention Skeleton2D because it’s Godot’s implementation of “cutout animation” (separating a sprite into parts). You can do cutout animation outside of Godot but there are many advantages to use Skeleton2D inside Godot. I recommend checking out the page in the docs about Skeleton2D. 2D skeletons — Godot Engine (stable) documentation in English

Good luck!

kdenning | 2020-06-01 17:43