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Top down animations

EvilEntity

Hi, Im working on a strategy game, something like Prison Architect or Rimworld. Its a top down view, perhaps slight angle.
In above games, various characters are basically 4 sprites, 1 per direction. I want to have something more substantial.
My current line of thought is something in the style of Hotline Miami, Im sure you are aware how that looks like.
What would be the best course of action to achieve something reasonable? I cant help but feel that bone animations is inherently more suited for side view. Buttt there are various things that would be very helpful in my case, skins mainly.
Alternative would be to make a gazilion animations in ps or whatever.

Heres a simple movement animation im working on.
Loading Image

Any idea? Tips?

EvilEntity

BinaryCats

Firstly, it looks pretty good. certainly better than your average schmo.

Games/media rarely use topdown view for people, for anything. The reason is we're not use to seeing people from a birds eye view, so it looks strange. most games that do a topdown view have the characters at an angle (as if they where lying on the ground) -see binding of issac.

There are a few posts of people using spine for topdown. so it is certainly possible. Also Skins are awesome! if you're targeting mobile devices, oh boy they're awesome, you save so much texture memory from not having a gazillion sprite sheets.

is the animation above in spine?

EvilEntity

The animation was quickly made in Spine. I have Pro version.

My main problem is that I use scaling for things like legs and arms. If i use bones like the are intended, scaling upper arm affects the rest of the chain. I can use compensation, but i still have to translate rest as well. In the animation above, upper and lower leg are single graphic (red), foot (brown) is separate. Both bones are attached to hips, in the middle. This is fairly awkward but sort of works.

The real issue is my lack of artistic ability. I have a lot of code to write and art to make. Using side view is probably better choice, but it means creating 3x the assets. Theres a dude up there. Obviously temp asset, but I need a lady as well. And fat dude, and skinny dude and a robot and an alien etc. Then i need various clothes for them. Pants jackets shirts HATS. A lot of them hats. Sweet, sweet hats. Thanks to skins i wont have to make a million different animations as well.

Im not 100% committed to top down right now, side few might be easier in the end, even with more

Either way, im definitely using spine for this. Im targeting desktop right now, but mobile is not out of question in the future. I have some experience in that regard: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... fg.android

Thanks!

Edit: Ive been reading some more, and Ive found out that you can disable scale inheriting per bone, that certainly solves some problems!