Simple and Advanced Topics of Animating 2D Characters

Making a 2D platformer game is a nice way to start learning about Unity game development. In this course you will learn how to create so-called “bone-based” 2D characters - characters that are made out of separate body parts. The material in this course is divided into 3 Sections. Section 1 features a short introduction to the course.

In Section 2 we will focus on making a simple bone-based character from scratch. We`ll go through the whole process of character creation from setting up an empty Unity project and importing sprite sheets with art to assembling a bone-based character the right way and animating it using Unity`s built-in mechanim animation system. By the end of this Section we`ll have a simple bone-based character that can walk and jump on our improvised level.

In Section 3 we will talk about some advanced techniques of working with 2D animated characters. For bone-based characters correct sorting order in the scene is very important, so in our first couple of lectures we`ll talk about resolving all the sorting order issues. Then we`ll discuss how to apply different looks and different clothing items to your character. This approach is very convenient, because you can have all the characters in your game made from a single character prefab, but they can all use different outfits and look differently. It`s also much easier to dress your characters or re-skin your game if you need. We`ll also talk about displaying some unique items on your characters such as bracelets, necklaces, belts, other decorations. The same approach can be used to display other clothing items. We`ll finish this section by making a more complex character that will have “joints”. Joints will allow us to use the same animated model for characters that are differently shaped (wider shoulders, shorter legs, longer arms, etc…).

• Create custom bone-based animated characters in Unity 3d
• Work with sprite sheets in Unity. We'll cover importing, slicing and setting up the pivot points.
• Assemble bone based 2D characters, organize all the body parts in Hierarchy and prepare for animating.
• Create Idle, Walk and Jump animations for your character. We'll make a Jump animation with an interesting technique that involves Blend Trees.
• Configure transitions between animations in the Animator component.
• Write a simple controller script that will let our character move on the level and jump.
• Use ScriptableObject assets to store outfits of your character.
• Apply outfits from your custom-made assets to your character changing the way he looks.
• Display extra clothing and decoration items like bracelets, necklaces as a part of your character's outfit.
• Make characters with joints that will be able to “turn into” differently shaped characters while using the same animations.

• This course is very beginner friendly. We spend most of the time working in Unity Editor. All the scripts that are used in the course are pre-made and explained line by line in lectures. We do not use any paid assets, all the art is free and allowed for commercial use. You will get access to a couple of projects that I've saved during development as well as the final project with all the advanced features.
• You should install the latest version of Unity3D to work on this course and open example projects that are provided with this course (the final project was saved in Unity 5.5.1f1).