[Stupid Question] If I knew NOTHING about Unity3D, how many hours would it take to...

Make a 2D game with...

1) A character has two animations, Walking Idle. While moving, he walks. While not, he idles. Using SM2.
2) Movement- The character just walks around and the camera follows them.

And where would I begin? The hardest part I assume would be making the character display the animations during movement or non-movement.


I only ask because I am curious how much time it would take, as Torque2D can do this rather quickly...BUT...it is quite annoying putting in spritesheets, editing the Horizontal x Vertical numbers, editing the names, doing this for all 8 directions...multiplied by 2...and then adjust framerate, rename every animation file, etc.
All just to see a single character animate. It's a headache, even if it's fast.

So I wanna animate and see this guy move!
How fast could I do it, and how long would it be to add in a new sprite each time to test out different animations and sprites?

Also... would Unity's 3D lighting work well with 2D plane characters (I understand I couldnt make shadows for them, but torch-lights and dark dungeons or bright sunlight is more of an interest)

 

two!

 

I'd suggest watching 2D Mechanics tutorial http://unity-tutorials.com/#2D-mechanics its pretty cool, but isn't using SM2 though.

It sounds to me that torque takes a bit more setup from what your describing.

 

hmm using SM2 you and Packaged sprite you just drop your picture (individual frame ) in timeline and it does all the sprite sheet for you , you just need to name your anim set your frame rate, but don't need to set any XY number, at first with a lot of anim ( i have a game also containing a bunch of animation ) this take a bit time but once you are set update your animation sprite sheet is quite fast and easy

for the light on plane 3D I am not sure it will look really good but you could trick with other plane or simply render out your shadow in your sprite ?

 

I'll have to find a way to render out shadows on sprites, since something like Ethanon's engine is a bit beyond my capabilities.
http://www.asantee.net/ethanon/

 

Less than a day if you have good programming and animation experience.

 

It depends on your existing experiences in the game development field.

I didn't know a damned thing about Unity itself when I first used it (back in its v1.5 incarnation!) But I already had over 25 years' experience as a programmer and games developer during the 8-bit and 16-bit 'eras' of the industry. I.e. I knew how to write various assembly languages, C, C++ and more. (I'd also written the user guide for "Renderware 3" (a.k.a. "Renderware Graphics" some years before, so I was reasonably familiar with how 3D graphics worked too.)

If you're coming from a background of using "2D Game Maker"-type applications, you will still have some applicable knowledge you can bring with you, such as an understanding of sprite sheets and the concept of 'sprites' in general.

Ultimately, Unity, Torque2D, Unreal and even BlitzMax all have very similar underlying features. It's the user interfaces you need to learn, but that's true of any new tool you obtain. For example, Unity's "virtual film set" approach is also found in damned near every 3D modelling application ever built, as well as every other 3D game engine I've ever used. So that much should be familiar.

I know I can get a 2D sprite flying about a bitmap playfield in Unity in, oh, about 1-2 hours—most of which would be spent building the assets, rather than getting them working in Unity itself. (I'd also spend far too much time digging through my library of music and sound effects. But that's not important!)

If you have absolutely no clue at all about game design and development, and haven't even written a simple script, then we could well be looking at a day, or even a week or more, depending on how good you are at this. Computers have no way of working out what it is you want them to do unless you spell it out, step-by-step, in truly anal detail. Some people invariably have trouble with this and fall at the "No! NO! STOP! Do what I MEANT, dammit! Not what I SAID!" stage. Many of these people just give up at this point, but others have enough willpower, cussedness and that pig-headed desire not to be beaten by a tiny lump of sand and plastic, to get themselves over that obstacle. After which they find that the rest is, frankly, a walk in the park.

In summary: how long is a piece of string? We cannot possibly answer your query with any degree of certainty.

 

When I just started I made a simple 3d walk around game in like 5 hours.
Just read wiki and documentation.

It's even easier in js(I used c#) because there's already third and first person controllers to use as examples.

 

Thanks! It's quite obvious it'll only take at most a few hours for me. I've been working with computers in depth for over a decade, so even strange or complex subjects in gaming I'm familiar with.

I also already have the assets, so maybe it will be even less than that
From what I've gathered from the more experienced here, it'll be about an hour or two (maybe more remembering Unity's UI)...however...I was actually asking more along the lines of... "Would it be faster loading new sprites in Unity/SM2 than it would be Torque2D's annoying, needlessly complicated system?"

Honestly, if Torque2D simply allowed you to select multiple images/spritesheets and apply the same edits to them, it would take merely seconds to add a new sprite. Unfortunately, you are forced to do all images into spritesheets and sprite sheets into animations with needless number input several times per stage along the way.

 

It should be easier using the Unity / SM2 combo.

(Personally, I had no problems just using simple planes for each element, but my project wasn't particularly demanding. I had a simple dogfighting-type 2D game running in about two hours.)