Umotion 2D - Easily Create 2D Animation for Unity

EDIT: We are sorry to announce that we have interrupted the development of UMOTION 2D and we consider it an obsolete software.
If you are using UMOTION 2D in a current project, please PM me for the support.
We are impressed by the upcoming Unity Native 2D Tools and the 4.x GUI and we plan to use them as soon as they will be available.
Instead of developing an external tool, now we are focused to develop native Unity Extensions.

 

EDIT: We are sorry to announce that we have interrupted the development of UMOTION 2D and we consider it an obsolete software.
If you are using UMOTION 2D in a current project, please PM me for the support.
We are impressed by the upcoming Unity Native 2D Tools and the 4.x GUI and we plan to use them as soon as they will be available.
Instead of developing an external tool, now we are focused to develop native Unity Extensions.

 

Hi! we are thinking of buying this- all our animations are currenrly in after effects/flash, and we are thinking of writing an exporter so that they won't have to be redone- does Umotion2D have an open format that we can export to?

 

With Umotion 2D you can only load the graphic elements ( different dimension too) that you want to use in .jpg or .png format.
In fact you can load image folder on the top menu bar then point to the folder containing your graphical works and select it.

In our workflow we usually use Flash to create the graphic elements, so you have only to export to .PNG or .JPG format in a Folder.
With Umotion 2D you can also combine skeletal animation and sprite sequence. In fact for every keyframe you can assign a different graphic element.

Of course you can export from Flash to Umotion 2D the whole animation frame sequence but Umotion 2D is optimized to use less graphic memory possible.
To test this workflow with AE or Flash you can download the demo version:

EDIT: removed obsolete link.

PDF documentation :

EDIT: removed obsolete link.

 

This is a great addition to unity!!

 

Does Umotion2d recognize SVG files?

 

Thank you!

 

No. We have developed Umotion 2D especially to animate our 2D projects from raster graphic elements.

 

Darn, I was thinking of purchasing Umotion2d if it supported SVG's. I really like your solutions to creating animations and creating texture atlas' all in one plugin. Any chance it will support SVG or other file types in the future? If it does I'll be interested. I like SVG's mainly because they are huge time saver for developing a game cross platform and not dealing with multiple file resolutions.

 

In Umotion 2D you have a tool to resize the graphic elements. You can also anim the dimension of the graphic elements.
In fact Umotion 2D is coded with BlitzMax using MiniB3D modules and it exports the 3D animation data and texture Atlas optimized for 2D projects in Unity ( or other video game engines).
Obviously if you increase the dimension of the original graphic elements you will lose quality.

Our Workflow: We export from Flash High Res Graphic elements for iPad project and we use the same Graphic elments for iPhone Project.
Then Umotion 2D will export automatically the optimized texture atlas.

To work in this way just load the iOs graphic reference from menu( or load your customized reference).

In any case i suggest to try the demo version.

 

Hi! our team would be happy to create a flash/after effects->umotion importer if you can provide an open format that Umotion can load

 

Umotion 2D can load only Raster Graphic and not Vector Graphics because Umotion 2D is coded with BlitzMax using MiniB3D modules and we project Raster Graphic textures to planes in a 3d environment.
It's like working in Cinema 4d or Maya but constrained in 2D and we import only .png or .jpg as textures to simplify the animation process.
We should transform SVG to Raster graphic format before to use it.
In any case If it was possible to use vector graphics in Umotion 2d we would be pleased to accept your support.

 

Do you have an example of how you would create run/jump/shoot animations for a platformer game? Can all this be done it the umotion tool?

 

All run/jump/shoot animations can be done with Umotion 2D. You can also realize GUI with Umotion 2D.
One of the our next action games ( with run/jump/shoot animations) will be realized with Umotion 2D.

At the moment we don't have a complete video tutorial to realize animations for a complete game.
But we will update as soon as possible new video tutorials with english dubbing an more.

 

Hi Andrea,

I have been testing the UMotion demo and I want to share my experience and views I've gathered over the past few hours.
First of all, I am pretty excited about UMotion because I haven't found a simple 2D animation program before this. I do believe you may have found a gab in the market, so to speak.

Second, I have a list of things that bothered me a little while creating some animations with a stickfigure, on a Windows 7 PC.
Some are small, some are huge but I do believe this will only make UMotion better.

- Create a programm icon
- Show a * behind filepath in titlebar when any modification had been made
- Deselecting: I would expect clicking on empty space would deselect. Also, CTRL+D would be deselecting for me, not CTRL+F. I do understand there would be a conflict with Duplicate/Clone
- Change pivot controls are very weird and awkward, its like its mirrored when I move my mouse when changing the pivot.
- Sidebar on the right: No number but filenames please! Working with a stickfigure is a pain in the ass right now, all I see is rectangles of roughly the same size
- CTRL+D duplicate/clone: Doesn't duplicate hierarchy but only the parts?
- Visual order misses some items, it didn't grow larger then 11 items. So I couldnot animate some parts of the stickfigure
- Do you support pen tablets (as a mouse)? If I hold spacebar and move my character and the global pivot move at a different speed/scale.
- Can I delete a keyframe, other then just undo?
- Copying keyframes kinda sucks right now, it screams for a right click menu

Then there's one really really big issue for me:
The use of your own animation system instead of being compatible with Unity makes it very limiting and unusable for me. I would highly recommand you write an importer or export to an other format like fbx so the animations are really animations inside Unity instead of just textfiles with a bunch of Vector3s. Not being able to use the native Unity Animation system is killing and makes it a lot more time consuming for devs. Just an example; We can't do animation blending or use the locomotion system of Unity right now.
Also, programming wise, I just want to use gameObject.animation.Play() Queue() Stop() etc instead of having to use your scripts to do that.

As always, I may sound a bit negative here but I'm just being honest and more importantly I do like the idea of a simple 2D animation program which supports Unity. UMotion could definitly be something but for now, not using the Animation component is an issue which I cannot overcome.
I will be following the developments closely though

 

Thank you

We will try to solve all as soon as possible.

Ok, we will add it.

OK, we will work on it.

In the next release ( not in the demo available now) we have a new selection and deselection system.
We cannot modify CTRL+D this for the conflict reason.

To set the position of the pivot point move the mouse pointer into the image component on the right bar then press and hold the right mouse button. Alternatively press and hold the “Alt” key and press and hold the left mouse button to move the graphic element’s pivot into the working area.

We will add the filename.

It's a Bug, we will correct ASAP.

You can use the mouse wheel to see all elements.
In the In the inspector Windows under Prefs you can change the number of the items visualizable

We need to test it with our Wacom tablet.

Just click on the keyframe with right mouse and select "Delete"

You can alternatively Press and hold “C” key, press and hold left muse on selected the keyframe and move it to another place.

Create a .FBX exporter was an option but with FBX we were limited with Umotion export features like Alpha animation, RGB animation, UV animation and more.
Umotion 2D is very powerful but i agree that is not very well documented now to use all its advanced functions.


In any case, thank you Lukas for all your suggestions.

 

Hi! what I meant was, we'd like to have something like this as the end result:
raster graphics, animated in flash which could be imported into umotion

 

Umotion 2D can't import directly animation from Flash but with Flash you can export animations as frame sequences .png or .jpg to Umotion 2D.
In our OLD workflow we used Flash exactly in this way.
In particular look at the frame sequence animated with Flash ( page 5 of the OLD workflow in the "ancient_vampire_164.pdf" ) :

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/24352-Ancient-Vampire-Design-Document

But we have developed Umotion 2D to optimize speed performance and memory usage:

EDIT: removed obsolete link.

We use Umotion 2D as internal tool not only to realize our 2D games but also to realize animated GUI for our 3D Games.

 

Hi! to clarify, I didn't mean a image frame-sequence, but rather that the bodyparts are raster images. We already have an exporter from Adobe After-Effects that can export in a format, an example of which I have attached. If you can write an importer for this type of format we will share the exporter and you can "Import animations from Adobe After Effects" to your features

 

That's so cool, you gonna love it
http://www.flydolphin.com/teclast-p76ti-tablet-pc-7-inch-android-23-new-12ghz-cpu-4gb-2160p-hdmi-white_p4934.html?utm_source=forum.unity3d.com&utm_medium=forum&utm_campaign=HL

 

Thank you for your example, we are valuing a possible solution.
We could also share Umotion 2D format but we need time to document it.

 

Hello yuriythebest,
you have a PM and we have uploaded the Umotion 2D Open Format
( Log-in to see the .PDF )

EDIT: removed obsolete document.

 

Important News!

We have realized the .FBX exporter directly from Umotion 2D ( with animated bones) !
In these days we are testing it with great results.
As soon as possibile we will update Umotion 2D with this really important function to help the workflow from Umotion 2D to Unity.

Now now can really think Umotion 2D as a 3D Package optimized to realize 2D animations.
Stay tuned!

 

Is there any downside to using the FBX -> Unity Animation System route instead of your native scripts for playback?
Seems like a killer feature.

 

Yes, if you want to export RGB Color animation, Alpha animations and UV Animations you have to export script data instead of .FBX
And this is an advanced, more powerful workflow.

But with .FBX export Umotion 2D will be an optimized alternative of 3D package ( like Maya) to realize 2D animations for Unity.
And this is a faster and easier workflow to Unity if you want work with bones.

 

That sounds great! This was the main reason I haven't looked at purchasing yet. I assume if you export via FBX your object comes into Unity as a single skinned mesh correct? If you imported with your advanced workflow do you see an increase in draw calls vs importing from FBX?

 

Yes, a single mesh, single material with bones.

No, we have similar performance.

We will update Umotion with .FBX export as soon as possible.

 

Umotion 2D tool recently used to develop Doctor Numbers, an Educational Math game for Andorid or iOS, built with Unity3D using Umotion 2D tool to realize all 2D animations and GUI.

 

HI, ive downloaded the demo, works great

Gratz.

Im just wondering how many draw calls per object using some texture swaps (replacing legs,face, etc) per animation

 

Hey I bought this and how do I export my animation as an image sequence?
I guess by image sequence you mean it will export out a png per frame?
Thanks

 

We are sorry to announce that we have interrupted the development of UMOTION 2D and we consider it an obsolete software.
If you are using UMOTION 2D in a current project, please PM me for the support.

We are impressed by the upcoming Unity Native 2D Tools and the 4.x GUI and we plan to use them as soon as they will be available.
Instead of developing an external tool, now we are focused to develop native Unity Extensions.