Green Screen - a 3D Model Animation to 2D Spritesheet Converter

Been working in Unity for a long time and find yourself owning many many awesome 3d animated models? Then you start working on a 2d sprite based game and all those models are seemingly worthless.
And you say,
“Gosh - I would really just like to generate some sprite sheets for some of these animations!”
or even
“I surely don’t have any 2D art skills, but I can model/rig/animate the heck out of things!”
or maybe:
“I know some of those expensive 3D modeling tools can do that for me - but I can’t afford them or don’t know how to use them”
and lastly:
“There are so few professional 2D spritesheet assets on the Unity asset store - how am I going to make my game awesome?”

Green Screen could be your solution.
Green Screen is a Unity asset that allows you to capture an animated model in a method not unlike what the special effects studios do, with a specially colored backdrop so that you can extract JUST your model and leave a transparent background.
In addition, it creates a nicely organized spritesheet for you for easy integration with Unity’s new 2D capabilities.
Once configured, the process is fully automated, capturing each animation frame into a unique image and then combining into a spritesheet.



I’ve got an alpha version running now - extracting spritesheets from various rigged/animated models that I own for an upcoming game.
For release to the Unity asset store, I am adding some configurable parameters (such as ability to skip frames and resize the 2d image results) and basically making it more user friendly.

I was really fretting over getting some good 2D assets for my game - but now I see smooth sailing going forward.

NOTE: the images shown are captured from an asset I own called “Skeleton Pack” by BITGEM. It totally rocks!!

Can anyone suggest a good price point for this tool?

 

why not free

 

Yeah...dumb of me to ask.
I'm trying to raise money for some assets for my game

 

Solving problems....
Got nice smooth/distributed (and configurable) capture going directly from the Mecanim animator.
Currently stuck on the code combining the individual animation frame captures into spritesheet. Trying to get asset to work on both Windows and OSX is a pain. For initial release, might have to provide a second command-line tool for the OSX folks for that piece.
Below image is capture of the built-in Unity standard asset construction worker running animation.

 

Cool .Bookmarked.

 

Very very good idea...
And why not several animations on the same sheet ???

6R

 

I have to walk before I crawl....

Besides - there are plenty of good texture packers out there already....
After I get a version 1.0 out there, we'll see where things take us.
(thanks for the feedback - and btw, your games look awesome! - could only watch the vids as I am a mac guy - kudos on having them free!)

 

btw, what ever happened to your 2DPropsMaker tool?
It looked pretty slick....
It was sorta in this same vein...could probably turn it into a Unity plugin/package instead of a standalone (so the user could simply import/drag their model into the project and you could take over)

 

Thanks...
You're right ! It could be a package... and especially the last version with all angles possible (for isometric games or others !).
But I actually have no time for that. I'm working a lot on cartoon textures.
Wait and see for your package...
6R

 

Maybe we can combine forces and create a super-asset.
The ultimate in 3D->2D conversion tools for Unity!!

I guess I should get my version 1.0 out there first.....

lol!

 

Very interesting indeed. If these were to get released, I think you'd have yourself a very good product, I'll be keeping an eye out on this. I actually may want this in the future and that's a first on any asset I've seen and I've been with Unity for +3 years.

 

My version 1.0 will be released (or at least submitted to the asset store) by the end of this coming weekend.
It may be a little rough - so I will put it out there with a discounted price until I can pretty it up.

Excited about getting others to use it - I had been 'avoiding' the new Unity 2D stuff until this - as I really had no good 2D assets.

 

Using Unity Pro, there are more elegant and polished ways to implement and present this functionality...
I can (and am) doing it with Unity Free though - but it seems a tad hokey and less user-friendly.

I have ZERO idea how many of you out there are using Pro versus Free in the target audience.
Feedback?

 

Very interested. I have pro.

 

Sadly Free.

 

I'm definitely interested in this. I've bookmarked it. I use pro.

 

Very interested...I use free.

 

Ok - nearly done with v1.0
Trying to make it more user friendly and less....well....utilitarian.
Also, because of the packing algorithm, I want to provide a supplemental image denoting where on the resulting spritesheet each frame is in the original order so it's easier when/if you import back into unity as a 'multiple' sprite in the Unity 2d side of the house.

I REALLY want to add a separate mode for particle effects capture - (which will work differently because I don't need to hook into the mecanim animation stuff). Maybe that will be a v2.0 item (or a separate asset). Any thoughts?

 

Also - I switched to a technique that didn't require the 'green screen' background - but I'm ending up with an ever-so-slight semi-transparent 'haze' on each captured frame.
Still trying to figure out what that is - and if I can't soon, it's back to the green screen....

 

Fixed

 

Because unity's new 2d sprite import (with multiple sprites per image) doesn't offer option to read file containing uv information, I am creating a secondary spritesheet as output that gives the user a visual representation of where each sprite is on the resulting sheet. This will hopefully help when manipulating in Unity for animation - as when I pack the sprites into a single atlas, the texture packing algorithm could place them in non-ordered sequences (as seen in image)

 

and yes - I'm working on optimizing the packing to avoid wasted space....

 

Looking for anybody interested in beta testing Green Screen before I submit to asset store in order to help find bugs or missing critical options/features. You will (obviously) receive a free pre-release version of Green Screen for the purposes of the beta (yeah - you can certainly continue to use it post-release )

Only looking for those
...ready to provide valuable feedback (good or bad)
...willing to extract sprites from 3d model animations and apply to Unity's new 2D workflow to ensure it provides value there (sharing 2D animated results hopefully)

Please reply (or PM) with Unity version # (and free/pro designation), workstation type (windows/mac), and a brief blurb on how you intend to use Green Screen in a future project.

 

Very interested in beta testing...
Unity 4.3.4 free and Windows...
Able to use nice3D fbx models from asset store as 2D characters is very good. Especially for characters with unity toon shaders...

6R

 

I would like to be able to capture what the camera is looking at, which could include particle effects as well as model animation. I would like to see this as part of the same product.

I would be happy to beta test.

cheers

 

Thanks - Unity version number and is it free or pro?
Anything in particular you want to use the product for?

 

Unity Pro 4.3. I am interested in this for a 2d platformer. I had been thinking about making this sort of tool myself to, so very glad to see something like this appear on the store.

cheers

 

Almost ready for Beta - 3 things left

1. Quick sizing algorithm to not create the atlas too big based on number of frames captured.
2. Add a couple of options (and tune a bit) so can capture a scene that is NOT driven by a mecanim animated model (including particle effects) This is kinda tricky because of the unique performance of each computer - making settings adjustable to get best capture possible. This option is NOT recommended if you want to capture the animation of a single model - I have MUCH tighter control of the spacing of the frame captures using the original technique.
3. Documentation (partially done)

Going to work late tonight and get 1 and 2 done at least....

 

Note that there IS an option to capture each frame as an individual image instead of creating a spritesheet/atlas. I realize people out there might be using other texture packers and want to include other images as well.

 

Cool asset!

 

Grumble -
While working on adding non-animation based capture (particle effects and such), I determined that the techniques I am using have issues when certain shader types are used (even when capturing animated models)
I had a couple of backup plans in case that became an issue - but they strike me as a bit gimpy....I'm going to experiment a bit to try to salvage original technique before I fall back......

Kinda funny - I was cruising into the finish line....almost ready to put a bow on this, and two of the features that my potential beta testers told me they are interested in (toon shader and particle effects) both failed miserably. ha ha.

That's why we test...

Probably going to re-do the texture packing stuff also - just not happy forcing a second pass just for the 'helper' sprite sheet (that's mostly because of trying to support unity free)

 

Ok - I've got a working technique that can deal with the transparency issues generated by some shaders (like the toon shaders)...
...for the 3d animated model mode only at this point.

I need to get this finished and out there to beta and then I will circle back around and figure out a way to apply the technique to the non-animated model technique (so people can use to capture particle effects and such)

 

Have been waiting for something like this for long time

 

Ok boys and girls....Zerano beat me to the punch with this asset.
Another week or so and I would have had all the functionality I wanted in place - but his asset does everything I wanted to do - with a couple of bonus extra features.
So I intend to stop working on this and let his asset represent the 3D->2D conversion tool of choice for us Unity folks.
Thread discussing his asset can be found here

 

very cool idea! So where can I download this from. I tried searching on unity asset store but no luck

 

hello there, so the thing is that im super super dumb, and i cant find where can i download this Green Screen thingy , if someone will tell me ill be werry thankful