Animating a character with multiple pieces

So, how can I animate a character built with multiple pieces?
For example, the British Bean character used in the 2D platformer demo. Instead of being built by a series of sequential images, he is built with a collection of individual parts that are animated together; like the feet move back and forth as separate objects from the body.

I'm thinking a particular character I am building would look better if I animated him like that, but I don't know where to begin. Sure I could create a gameobject with several children to be each part, but how do I animate those parts so that they move around as I need them to?

 

The process is mentioned in 2d platformer project (Tower Bridge Defence - the one with a spaceship , bridge ). the most important thing to watch out for multi part animation is pivot. Place your pivot properly and then you can animate the sprites easily.

https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/2d/2d-overview?playlist=17093

Simply put. Add a empty game object to the scene. Add your multi sprite to empty game object as child.
Add an animation to the empty game object (its a parent of all) in animation , add property , by selecting the desired sprite and working on it.

 

In my (fairly limited) experience you'll mostly use rotation to animate more realistic (i.e. all body parts are connected) sprites, while a Rayman-style sprite you can probably use the position transform option. Try to make sure all the pivots are in the right spot, as otherwise the rotation can result in disconnection of limbs from the primary sprite.

 

Hi,

I know it's easy to miss (as it's pinned right here in this sub forum!), but did you check this thread by zombiegorilla?

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/2d-puppet-rigging-tips-tricks.245564/

Then there are tools like Spine and Spriter that have export path to Unity.

 

So wait, there's an in-editor system for creating key-framed animations? Where is a tutorial on how to use it?

 

Marscaleb: