New to Unity - 2D Skeletal Animation

Hey everyone! First post on the Unity message boards.

My question is relatively simple, and it has been asked on here before, but I suppose as the software is always being updated the answer can change. So hopefully a new thread will give me a little clarity.
I'm choosing to use 2D Skeletal Animation as the focus of my university dissertation. It's an area I've been keen to enter for a while now, but I've been hesitant since I've had a lot of other projects to work on, this is the first time I can cut loose and use it.

I'm looking to closely replicate the art style of Vanillaware games such as the recent Dragon's Crown, and Muramasa before it. For this I will certainly need a kit that allows for sprite/texture deformation, as the way a lot of the clothing and hair on the characters are handled by this way (Example).
There's a strange '3D' look to a lot of their animations, though I assume this is them simply switching out the sprite at certain points during their animations while they're being warped (Example), so It'd be great if the software can also switch out the textures are certain points in their animation cycle (which I'm assuming most can, but I'm not sure).

I've taken a look at (and been impressed by) Uni2D, though in a thread I've recently read people are concerned that there may be 'too much' going on in it for one package. Has anyone here used this software, and if so, can they confirm it's quality?
Puppet2D is one I've looked at, but it doesn't seem to have that deforming ability, not from what I've seen anyway. I've heard of a couple more, such as Spriter, but I really don't know a lot about them!

So yeah, what's the best of the best when it comes to Skeletal Animation software?

 

spine... esotericsoftware.com

 

Goes to show the unfortunate side effects of playing with magic. Both of them are very hard to miss.

I would be very surprised if the example above was done in 2D. The shading and movement have all the hallmarks of 3D.

I think you might want to look at animation applications that are not Unity plug-ins. The already mentioned Spine is one option. Adobe Flash and Toon Boom Animate both support skeletal animations and deformations as far as I know. Pick the one that you hate the least.

You can also use 3D applications if you're already comfortable with those. Maya was used in Broken Age, and it's all 2D. I have experimented a bit with achieving the same effect with Blender, and it is definitely doable, particularly if your characters has slender limbs.

 

You probably wont achieve that 3D look without some seriously good shading but may I recommend Spriter? http://www.brashmonkey.com/spriter_features.htm

Also, what you are going for may be MUCH more easily achieved by just using a 3D model or if you wanna go more SNES maybe you could animate the 3D model, save each frame as sprites and import them into Unity?

 

Thanks for the replies guys, I really appreciate it.

Have you seen Dragon's Crown in action? It uses 2D sprites which are being deformed by the skeletal animation method, I can see why it's easy to mistake it for 3D though, it's *really* impressive. I likely won't get it looking that good, but that's where I'm aiming (aim higher, achieve more).

As appealing as it sounds, it'd be *great* to be able to work within Unity, as I've been getting to grips with it over the past year, and have been working alongside people who intend to use the software after university in a couple of their own projects, which I'd love to involve myself in.
Does Sprite allow for texture/sprite deformation? I take it nobody here has used the Uni2D, which is a shame, it does look interesting.

 

Yes, I do remember seeing a YouTube video of the bouncy boobs game before. And I'm familiar with the 2D animation using skeletal deformation. To clarify, here are the examples you posted earlier:



The above is obviously done in 2D and for all I know it could be done using skeletal deformation and cut out animations. Although I'm more inclined to think it was more traditional cell animation.

As to your second example:

It would be a great waste of time and talent to do the animation above in 2D since it looks so much like 3D, but I'll take your word for it. I have also seen someone paint the Mona Lisa in MS Paint. And while it was definitely an impressive flexing of the artist's sizable artistic muscle, it would still be a daft idea for one to commit one's self to doing all natural media art assets using MS Paint just because someone else did it.

TL;DR: If it looks like 3D, then just do it in 3D.

If you can find an animation tool that works for and runs inside Unity then by all means, go for it. But you're not doing yourself or your team any favors. If your aim is to bolster your Unity experience, then the ability to create 2D animation inside of Unity will probably come very low on any potential recruiter's list of wants.

But if your aim is to shore up you 2D animation skills, then only the end product will matter and not how it was made. So you might as well find the tool that best fits the task. And I think it's safe to say that a standalone application that is dedicates to animation will probably be more effective at the task than a Unity plug-in.

 

just so you know... there is a technique that was created by RARE for the game donkey kong country on snes. that was called 3D Rendering ! basically that figure above is done in 3D given a shape depth and all that 3D detailing. but then once its completed, it separated into numerous 3D parts. then rendered into 2D images that they can then animate thru skeletal animations.

thus it gives 2D that 3D feel.
its much better to do it this way then trying to do it all in 3D and then try to give it a 2D look. because 3D is well 3D and it will always look like 3D. while 3D transformed into images, gives you 2D very detailed animations. to many it seems like a waste of times... but to those who want their games to look right and not look like grand chase fake 2D. its just that much better. exemple of that animation.

its just a question of preference.

 

Hello!
You might want to consider Creature:
http://creature.kestrelmoon.com/index.html

It can produce results like this:

And this:

Unity integration and demo:

Cheers!

 

Hello friends I will suggest you try Anyportrait from the asset store. If you want to make the characters this would produce amazing results!