Official 2D Animation 6.0 released for Unity 2021.1

Installing Collections will install Burst automatically.

Not only is it available but it's also enabled by default after the packages have been installed.

 

Hi,

I have a request. I recently reworked my textures mainly by reducing their size, making the limbs thinner and so on. On importing the new sprites, it appears that the geometry didn't update automatically in the Skinning Editor, I had to do it manually.

Is there any possibility we could have an update function that would affect only the outline, respecting the customizations we made to the geometry, once?

Thanks for the great work anyway !

 

"Inconvenient" question about SpriteSwap. Again.

I (and not only I) - have already asked about it, long ago
(#383 , #211)
when the 2D Animation package was still quite small.
Now he has grown to the 6th version, got a new feature and improvements of old, but ...

-Why still Sprite Swap still works like this?
(I really do not understand )


Despite the "answer" and the closing of the report in FogBugz and "Explanations" about Meshes, Bones and Pivots...

-Just look - after completing the import of PSB-file, the Importer had ALL information about all Layers - the exact location and size!
And the 2D Animation package itself, before Sprite Swap - can use this information!
But it is necessary to include this Sprite Swap - and everything shifts to hell.

Then how is it offered to use this functionality?
Does it really need to track the actual size in the pixels drawn on the graphics layer?
So for all interchangeable parts, this size was the same?

No, it can not be that you offer something as a real workflow of the artist and an animator!
-I do not believe...

-But then what is the advantage of using the importer in this case?

The information about ALL the layers and drawings on them - was relevant, but correctly automatically positioned the replaceable parts - it is impossible ... Why?

(and this is just one of many "why" that appear when trying to work with 2D Animation and PSB Importer)

P.S. About Reply on FogBugs:

"Relative" - yes, for sure.
And also - the location of all replaceable parts relative to each other and relative to the entire file - also known.
But this information is lost and not used.

 

Just upgraded 2D Animation and noticed that Sprite Swap related instruments were removed from Skinning Editor, so I have a few important questions.

1. What should I do with objects of the same category when I add Sprite Resolver components to game objects inside of a not unpacked prefab? Let's say I have a category "Hat" with 3 sprites, "Red", "Blue", and "Green". I have similar 3 objects inside of a PSB prefab. I add a sprite resolver comp to one of 3 objects, then what should I do with other two objects? Disable them won't brake the prefab, but it creates a lot of visual garbage in a hierarchy window if I have many such objects. I can't delete them without unpacking a prefab. Before 2D Animation was updated it was possible to convert groups into categories and the prefab you get would only contain one game object per category.
   
2. What we are supposed to do with manually added Sprite Resolver components when we update a PSB prefab now (reskin, edit layers, reslice, etc)? Will they persist? I did a few tests and it seems they persist when I edit the source, but I learned on my own mistakes that it's better to not add components to objects inside of a PSB prefab if I don't want to lose these components.
   
3. I guess there is no simple way to convert folders into Sprite Swap categories with the new workflow?

 

1. create one .PSB per outfit works well when your problem is just outfits. What about frame animations? Let's say I have 10 eyes, and 5 mouths, and 6 different hands. Creating a PSB per every state of every body part is just... not the best option.
2. Yeah, I store my components 'outside' now.
3. I can live with that. But please, let us reset groups converted into categories in a previous version of package. All my old PSBs stuck with undeletable Sprite Library Assets now, and child objects stuck with Sprite Resolvers.

Well, my workflow is mostly dictated by tools I have at my disposal. I just trying to minimize using of external software. I hate baking animations and for awhile I used Spine for rigging and animating my rig in Unity later. It was pure hell. If it isn't simple to make edits to a source file with 2D Animation package, you can imagine how hard it was with Spine and its runtime. Now I can work mainly in Unity and explore new options. First time I studied Anima 2D, I really enjoyed Unity chan demo. Since then, I started using complicated rigs with physics, transforms that deform rig's scale by inertia, etc. Most of all, I wish the Unity team would think of their end users as maniacs who create rigs with 100 sprite layers or more. As anyone, I prefer batching to manual work. And I prefer PSB metadata to be foolproof and package-upgrade-proof. Losing a huge rig of bindings is just straight painful.

• Please give us a way to edit PSB layers names in Skinning Editor. Expecting you (or your artist) can name everything right from the beginning is too much. And, when mapping is done by layer names, you can't just edit the source without suffering.
• Let us to flag layers we want to see converted into game objects inside of a PSB prefab. Please? It's going to solve the visual garbage problem. All rigged layers are still going to be available for Sprite Swap workflow, but only those layers you marked as visible should get to the scene when prefab is instantiated.
• Consider resetting the Reslice toggle to false in PSB importer after reslice is performed. It gives me anxiety every time I see it ON after changes were applied already.
• Please give us an option to decide how much we want to trim our sprites in PSD importer. It doesn't matter how much you extrude your edges, automatic slicer will always trim sprites. Edges around sprites in atlas are not only good against bleeding, sometimes you want to create vertex outside of visible sprite, but sprite bounds won't let you do so. Sure I can edit sprite bounds manually just to be overwritten again after reslicing.
• Binded vertexes could show pie charts (optionally) when you edit weights.
• Auto Geometry outline detail 0 is still too detailed. Sometimes you have just one bone per mesh and auto geometry creates tons of vertexes when it's cheaper to have just two or four triangles. I don't use Burst and in my case every additional vertex costs me FPS. Even if most of them are bind to one bone. It'd be great If you could give us a way to limit a total vertex count for Auto Geometry generator.
• I wish I could have FFDs to speed up my workflow. Instead of binding 999 version of different eyes and mouths I can parent them to a rigged FFD mesh named 'Head' and forget about their existence. The easiest way to implement them is... to let us create empty meshes without sprites or convert PSD groups into such meshes. Every child mesh can be binded to its parent, maybe optionally. FFDs should be controlled by bones, potentially by pins, and vertexes.
• I also want something like a rotation weight slider for bones. A way to limit bones' influence to movement only, without rotation. Or with some amount of it. The reason is that when you animate a bone, sometimes you get unwanted deformations depending on how far influenced vertexes located from the animated bone. A small rotation of a bone can result in far away vertexes moving trough the whole screen. Well, I can combat it with hacks to a degree.
• I also wish we could have pins. Pins are basically... same bones but with weighted tangents controlling how straight the bone connection is. Having option to decide if bone's connection should be linear or curved will be a big help for artists.

That's what comes to my mind first and what is related to 2D animation package and PSB importer.

 

I tried to install it once when I still used Unity 2020 or may be even 2019, but it didn't work. I had some errors which content I can't remember and I decided to wait for awhile.
Thanks to your comment I just did installed Burst and Collections successfully. I should say it really improved the performance of rigs. The more characters I have rendered at the same time the more effective it is. I got about +40 FPS for spending 2 minutes. Thank you. Now I probably can stop wasting my time on editing meshes for every small thing.

 

I was about to ask for this.

 

I only use the 2D animation package for the sprite swap features. What would I need burst or collections for? I'd rather not take on those dependencies not necessary.

But I have a question related to the Sprite Resolver and Blend Trees. Is there anyway to have 2d blend tree only use the animation node with the highest weight so it doesn't interpolate the sprite key variable?



I have some ideas on how to fix this code wise where I pass in animator parameter values that perfectly align to the x and y positions for each motion as seen above. Can anyone think of any alternatives. Maybe some flag that can be passed to a blend tree of animator. Maybe some way to change the weighting system used in blending between nodes?

Thanks!

 

Also I'm getting this warning. Not a huge deal but having Unity generated warnings is super annoying.

No script asset for SpriteLibCombineCache. Check that the definition is in a file of the same name.

 

So they are optional packages that, when installed, will yield performance benefits for sprite deformation?

Cool. Good to hear. Animating the sprite key took a bit of getting used to. The closer the workflow is to animating sprites the better. Having said that its really not a big deal once I read over the docs explaining the workflow.

It ended up being pretty easy to solve in code. I'll play around with this this idea a bit though.

Also, thanks for the work on the sprite swap functionality. It's seriously going to save us a ton of time. You rock.

 

Can we have an extra solver for IKManager2D which is a simple Controller that only controls one bone (effector)? Its position + rotation + scale to be precise.
We're able to animate any bone directly, so why we need a solver for that? The reason is simple. Bone structure is ever changing and unreliable because animator depends on object's paths to find animated properties. For example, once I move leg bones from 'torso_1' to 'pelvis', animation stops working. Once I rename any bone it also brakes everything. The more complex your bones structure the more you suffer. Different paths of animated properties also the cause of visual confusion for me during animation. It would be nice to have all animated objects in one place. My solvers are stored like that, but I don't really need inverse kinematics to control every bone.
Most of other mesh animation programs and assets are featuring such controllers, they indicate them by square gizmos.
I've attempted to add my own solver for that by extending from the class Solver2D, but it won't show up as a new solver under the solver menu no matter what I do so I gave up trying. Currently I have a simple script that is copying transform values for me, but it doesn't work in editor well because it conflicts with IKManager2D. Undos and default pose restoring is problematic.

 

I drew a simple illustration of what I mean.
Bonus points for ability to chose between override mode and inherit mode. Extra bonus points for choosing which transform property controller is going to override (position, rotation, scale).

 

I know we can edit animated properties' names in the Animation window. Though I don't think it's easier than to edit the animation files directly in any text editor of your choice. Especially when you have to edit many properties at once.

Yeah, it's useful, but you can't reset pose easily with constraints components. The problem is not how to manipulate bones with something outside of rig prefab, but how to befriend your solution with IKManager2D.
Last, I don't have a code to show, but my problem was that IKManager2D was ignoring my class for some reason. I did a test by fully copying the Limb class and renaming a few parts, but nothing. A simple code example of extending Solver2D would help a lot.
Anyway, thanks for always helping.

 

Hello, can I ask a question?

When I use 2D Animation 6.0.3, Sprite Library Asset is not created automatically. Is there a way to create Sprite Library Asset manually?

Status:
Install Unity 2021 1.11 f1 in Windows 10 environment.
→ Import PSB using 2D PSD Importer 5.0.3.
→ Edited with Skining Editor of 2D Animation 6.0.3. Bone, mesh , and weights work fine. Visibility > Sprite doesn't have the ability to set categories and can't be tagged.
→ Apply in Skining Editor.
→ Sprite Library Asset was not created.
→ Place the PSB Prefab in the scene and manually set the Sprite Library and Sprite Resolver.
→ Sprite Library Asset is left blank.

Due to the above situation of Sprite Library Asset, I cannot prepare the asset to replace.

Also, the imported PSB data cannot be overwritten on Unity, so data that is not easy to use will be created.
When I manually create the Sprite Library, it's full of plus marks.
When I manually add the sprite resolver, the layers aren't automatically grouped like in previous versions, leaving some layers that I want to hide.
(I think it is very important for work efficiency to be able to modify the PSB Prefab while keeping the package.)

The new category setting method is easy to understand, but I would like you to keep the function of setting categories in Skining Editor and the function of grouping layers in Sprite Resolver.

I'm using Google Translate. I'm sorry if it's hard to understand.
Thank you for your cooperation.

 

I'd also love for this to be implemented. We're wanting to make our character sprites a bit bigger (increase their resolution since we are now zooming in the camera at times), but it breaks all of the rigging we've done. It would be an infeasable amount of work for us to go through and re-rig, and even more time consuming re-weight the geometry for all of our characters.

That being said, do you have any tips on how to achieve this? Or any tips on where I can look in the code or even in the .meta files to be able to resize the rigs and weightings programmatically?

 

Doing this has less on the image clarity than reducing it in an image editor anyway.

Changing the ppu doesn't affect the bones rigging but it completely destroys reverse IK. I've learnt it at my expense.

 

We're using PSBs for all of our rigged characters.

I tried this, and as @APSchmidt noted, this doesn't solve the problem.

So, I created a temporary solution by reverse-engineering the meta file. It's a simple javascript file that scales up/down all bone and vert positions in the metafile according to a specified scale. I would have much rather done it by editing the package code, but to be honest, after looking at the code it felt simpler to just edit the meta file. It took longer than I'd hoped due to the Unity yaml format not being standard (I thought Unity exposed a yaml API for this but couldn't find it).

It was several hours of work, but will save days if not weeks of re-rigging/weighting/animating.

This feels like a very pretty common use case. My suggestion for the Unity side would be a scaling tool in the sprite editor similar to the move tool that already exists: being able to scale group-selected bones and group-selected verts.

Anyway, thanks for the replies and info @Ted_Wikman and @APSchmidt !

 

You can't say it better!

Almost all changes that I see in the 2D Animation package since 2017 - lead to the fact that more and more should be done manually. No automation. Only manually. Only hardcore!

A last Update and removal of the Sprite Library from the Sprite Skinning Editor - is already apotheosis...
-Many many monotonous drags&drops, as well as assignments of names manually (potentially leading to errors and typos) instead of one operation "convert groups to category" - It is strategically wrong.

I am glad for you that you have found a solution to the problem, and with your own way!

P.S. Sorry for google-translate

 

Actually I don't mind that one. Storing sprite swapping-related stuff inside of PSB metafile was the main source of most problems for me. Can't see, can't batch edit without writing code, corrupts data when handled roughly, etc. Dragging and dropping might be longer but external swapping gives me more confidence in data's safety.
What I really need now... is a Spriteresolver manager to store resolvers outside of PSB prefab. That will make it more comfortable to animate resolvers (you can see every resolver at the same time). And also will give me a way to see if any of animated (by resolvers) objects were destroyed after PSB source editing.
And maybe we need a way to feed PSB into the Sprite Library to auto generate the library data from folder's structure.

 

Is there a way to call ResetBindPose programmatically? I've once again run into the issue of not being able to do a simple thing with SpriteSkin due to the rampant use of internal scoping. If not for that, it would be a simple matter of using SpriteSkinUtility to call ResetBindPose on all children of the rig root. I'd really rather not have to go through all of them and individually click the ResetBindPose button. Surely there's a way to do this that I'm missing.

 

Tell me, please - in the description of the beta 2021.2 it is said:

"* Please Note That At Time of Writing, The 2D Packages for the Unity 2021.2 Beta Are Not Yet Publicly Available. This Is a Temporary Situation and Will Be Rectified Shortly. Several URP / 2D Renderer Improvements Can Be Found in This Release."

And I do not quite understand... -Changes in the packages about which is described below - are it included in this version of the beta, or it is just that "not yet"?

"2D PSD Importer has new UX improvements, better control over the Photoshop layers, and Sprite name mapping. There’s a new option to flatten layer groups in Unity, and the tool can now autogenerate physics shapes, which can be convenient when you import scene elements that are not characters.

2D Animation updates include bone colors, which can now be set in the visibility panel. This setup can help you to better differentiate colors or organization. UX improvements include shortcuts visible in the tooltips of the skinning editor’s tools, and a new tool to see sprite influences over bones."

A little funny question I understand...
-Install Beta and see everything yourself! But...
Something I'm slightly tired of the permanent reinstallation of every new version of 2021.1
(and I still have no benefit from them yet)
And this time... -Can I find out what is waiting for me there?
(and what not to hope)

GoogleTranslate... sorry

UPD: Hmmm...
-Ok. I installed it. And, it does not even start... Error editor at startup...
Well, - "beta", what else to say...

 

We have sprite resolvers to help us animate, right? That's the whole point of the 2D animation package. So as I stated before, once we have a completed rig, everything that is used by animation is better to be kept in one place. For example, I like how IKManager2D is looking right now, it helps you to keep things organized and always at hand. It also makes it easier to copy-paste my IKs between characters. I wish it could do more, but the core idea is right in my opinion.
Now, the sprite resolvers aren't quite what I expect. The downsides are as follows:

• I have to attach them to random places in the rig. After that, I can't have them visually organized for animation workflow (I can search by components but still...).
• There is no way to know if something broke in my rig. Misspelled category name? Broken animation key? Wrong library? Something else? I have to dive into my rig to check every sprite object with sprite resolver one by one.
• I can't share my resolvers with other rigs. If I have animation that depends on resolvers, there is no way to share it until the other character has the exact same sprite structure and resolver IDs. There are common animations between vastly different creatures. Like blinking. There are more. And no way to share them without hacks.

When I tried the updated workflow for the first time I was kind of disappointed to find that, after attaching a sprite library component to instantiated PSB rig, I can't control sprite resolvers inside of the rig trough it. I can't even debug them, it just isn't aware of their existence. Despite having interactive buttons (kind of useless and misleading on the instantiated rig). Though I can understand the reason, it's impossible to animate array of components inside another component. But it's not impossible to do the same thing you did for IKManager2D, right? Just give us a way to create a bunch of empty objects, let's call them... sprite resolver relays. And a way to reference rig parts in them. We will be able to animate these components the same way we animate IK components.
The easiest solution I see now is to alter a sprite resolver component a little. Instead of always working with object it placed on, give us an option to chose (to reference) a specific object with mesh renderer we want to animate. Then we'll be able to have a number of empty objects with sprite resolvers parented to an object with a sprite library component anywhere we want. All we have to do is to manually reference mesh renderers from somewhere for each of them, just once. Even when we forced to update a PSB prefab, we are not going to lose anything besides some references.
Also, if you feel generous, consider making a sprite library component more useful for debugging. For example, it can show which sprites are currently in use by resolvers.

 

Hi Everyone, I just installed 2DAnimation, 2DIK and PSDImporter bu ı got this errors.
- I use 2020.3.10f1 version of unity.
- 2DAnimation 5.0.6
- 2DIK 3.0.2
- PSDImporter 4.0.2
SS is here.
Thanks advance.

 

Unfortunately, I could not even go through this quest even further than the first step
-Beta 2021.2 is simply not started. Popup window with: "Error starting editor" without any explanations and details.
It is impossible to send a report to the standard way. - Nothing started.
At the same time, 2021.1 - worked perfectly.

While I postponed it ... Maybe the next version of the beta will correct everything by itself
If not - I will write to the support.

 

Yes! -New beta...
But even if I could launch a new beta version...

"Known Issues in 2021.2.0b3

• 2D: 2D Animations crash when entering Play Mode (1338523)"

Well... Not today ... (c)

 

Good to know! I won't waste time and bandwidth then.

 

Hey, I'm having this weird behavior when destroying a GameObject that uses SpriteSkin and using Deep Profile, so after destroying the GameObject the profiler show this and never stops showing it after that:



And this behavior is also present when using Profile Analyzer





I'm using Unity 2021.1.11f1
2D Animation 6.0.4
Burst 1.5.4
Collections 1.0.0-pre.5

 

3x performance increase. thank you very much

 

Hello, I am still having this issue. Unity 2021.1.24 / 2D Animation 6.0.7.
But in 2021.2.0b16 / 2D Animation 7.0.0, it works without any problems.

[6.0.7] - 2021-09-21
Fixed

• Fixed an issue where IK Solvers would not be updated when previewing an animation clip. (1364313)

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