Animating 2D Characters for Games in Blender

2D games are incredibly popular these days and are played on many systems, including desktop computers and mobile devices. But creating pro-level graphics for them presents many technical challenges for artists, animators, and programmers. In ANIMATING 2D CHARACTERS FOR GAMES IN BLENDER, Alan Thorn offers a complete, step-by-step workflow for modeling, rigging, and animating 2D characters that perform well for real-time games—all using the powerful free software, Blender. Learn critical preparation and referencing techniques, how to model and build meshes optimally with a 2D production-line in mind, how to UV map and texture for animation, and how to rig, weight-paint, and animate 2D characters for a professional-grade result. Finally, see how to export your animated character for use in the Unity game engine. By the end of this book, you will have mastered a solid start-to-finish pipeline for creating animated 2D characters for games.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Preparation and Modeling
Step 1: Drawing Your Character
Step 2: Importing Character References into Blender
Step 3: Modeling from References
Step 4: Optimizing Topology for Games and Animation
Step 5: Housekeeping

Chapter 2 UV Mapping and Texturing
Step 6: Removing Doubles
Step 7: Creating the Character Atlas Texture
Step 8: UV Preparation and Projection
Step 9: Creating UV Islands and Mapping
Step 10: Completing the Mapping

Chapter 3 Rigging, Bones, and Weights
Step 11: Creating Armatures
Step 12: Creating Bones
Step 13: Skinning
Step 14: Adjusting the Weighting
Step 15: Applying Inverse Kinematics

Chapter 4 Animation
Step 16: Preparing for Animation
Step 17: Blocking In the Walk Cycle