2D Character Animation (Cut-Out / Skeleton Style)

Engines, Libraries and Tools Tools Discussion
#1

I’m looking for a 2D character animation tool, and as the title says a cut-out / skeletal system would be cool. Via Google I came up with:

commercial tools:
TweenMaker
Toon Boom Studio
Anime Studio (Ex-Moho)
The Tab

open-source and free tools:
Synfig
Stickman
Skeleton 1.1

And the one here in the forums, but it seems dead:
http://www.java-gaming.org/forums/index.php?topic=17380.0

The problem is that all of those programs (except Skeleton 1.1 and the forum-one) seem a bit oversized to me, as you can do huge animation-film-projects with them, and I would just need to create some animated game-characters. Sekeleton 1.1 in contrast is almost feature-less and only runs on windows.

Nice-to-have features are:

  • small API to include the skeletal animations in the game
  • Open-Source

Does anyone know a tool like that? :slight_smile:

Thanks in advance - Noya

#2

I’ve got my project at 80% dev’ stage that is now beta-testing. I’m currently completing the javaDoc for those interested guys that want a simple API for Java gaming. I’ve just reecntly released the RC2 of the JIGAXtended API which features the following functionalities, and I’d be glad if you try it :

  • JAI/JIIO implementation for high-end 2D graphics
  • JInput for gamepad and sticks support
  • gathering the main gaming targeting components, there are :
    - Sprites, that support both hardware and software graphics alg’s
    - Animations, that extend Sprite-class and integrate a SoftCache
    - Models and InteractiveModels, that integrate anther SoftCache to store Animations and Sprites
    - Rendering Scene, that gets the best of all the Swing and AWT APIs to render graphics on Window and Full-screen
    - Console, to make easy logging
  • coming up soon in 0.9, network multiplayer

you can download the whole API at sf.net/projects/sf3jswing :smiley:

#3

Sorry, but how is this related to a 2D character animator? Seems more like a game-engine…

#4

I use it for my characters in my game. hence using InteractiveModel can be more attractive than looking for youself. if you have some more informations about what you want to bring on your screen, tell me more ! :-\

#5

Basicly I’d like to have something like this: http://crimsonlegend.marctenbosch.com/manual/screenshots.html

#6

nice shot ! well this is what I’m having thought for nights, now building the documentation I can suggest you to try with v0.8 RC2 and see what happen. ;D

#7

If more people want this Ill finish a simple 2D skeleton animator I made. I have all the main classes working for the most part:

//Computational classes
Bone (Basic structure of any skeleton)
Skeleton (Made up of a hierarchy of bones)
Frame (A single animation frame that keeps the angles and distances for each bone)
Animation (A list of frames that can be animated in different ways (LOOP_FORWARD, ONCE_FORWARD, LOOP_BACKWARD, ONCE_BACKWARD, PINGPONG))
//Graphics Classes
Limb (Holds all the different options for positioning/orienting/stretching sprites between to bones)
Character (A list of limbs and contains the main skeleton and a list of animations)

This seems like what you need. I want to get Inverse and Forward kinematics to work some time, but they don’t now.

The animator loads/saves animations/skeletons and does frame-based animation. It’ll take sometime to port the animator from VB.NET to java so I can’t just give it to you right now.