Spine Pro: A Complete 2D Character Animation Guide

Learn to create professional 2D character animations for Games!

What you'll learn
Creating professional 2D animations: idle, blinking and run cycle
Advanced Spine Pro techniques for animation enhancement and 3D feel
Including: Meshes, Weights, Paths, IK, Transform Constraints, and more
Preparing a character rig ready for animation
Useful practices to save time & increase animation process efficiency
Overcoming common issues
Requirements
Keyboard and mouse
Spine Professional Licence (purchased from Esoteric Software)
No prior knowledge required
Description
When it comes to professional looking 2D character animations for games with a 3D effect to them, Spine Pro is your go-to software. This course will show you how to use Spine and all its advanced practical tools for creation of pro-level animations you could use in your game.Starting off with basics, and quickly advancing to Pro techniques such as Mesh Animation, Path Constraints, IK and many more, this course sets out to grant you a complete understanding of 2D character animation process in Spine Pro.Why choose Spine for your game character animations?Spine 2D Animation Software has gained an immense following both from game developers and 2D digital animators in the past few years. In fact, it is one of the leading tools for 2D skeletal animation. The Pro licence is the ultimate form of this powerful software.The reasons to use Spine are quite straightforward:- Spine is easy to learn, and intuitive in use.- The software is fit both for beginners and advanced animators.- Spine Pro has all of the advanced 2D animation features a software can offer.- Spine game animations are easily integrated with most game engines.- Excellent integration with illustration tools for artwork import.In other words, with Spine Pro there is pretty much no limit to what you can do as a 2D animation artist. Even a 3D effect in 2D animations! All is in your hands.So, get ready to create animations like a Pro!What will you get from this course?This course offers a detailed review of Spine Pro 2D animation software. It will include preparation for animation process, best practices for animating a character, and enhancing the animations with various advanced tools.In this course we will:- Export a character from Photoshop (or other graphic redactor) into Spine- Create a character rig using Meshes, Paths, and Transform Constraints- Bind meshes to character bones using Weights- Add Inverse Kinematics Constraints, and deal with Draw Order- Create professional looking Idle, and Run animations with a 3D effect- Enhance our animations using Offset and Graphs- Learn how to export your animations from Spine- Fix some common issues along the way, and more…Throughout the course we will go over Spine Pro user interface, some useful shortcuts and best practices to make your animation process faster and more efficient.On top of all that, the course is planned to be updated in the future. Which means more fresh, up-to-date content for you, for the same price!Why choose this course to learn 2D character animation?Our goal with this course is to bring you all the practical tools of Spine Pro you might need for creating professional 2D character animations; Regardless of the level of your prior experience in animation.We strive to build our lectures in a clear and precise manner that is both highly informative and easy to understand. All of the practices that you will learn, were tested out in the field, and derive from personal experience with 2D animation.Moreover, we offer you:- Personal guidance and answer to any questions (within reasonable response time of up to 1-2 work days, depending on the day of the week).- Additional materials on the use of Spine Pro.- Quizzes at the end of each course section to fortify your knowledge.- Lifetime access to course materials (including any future updates in the course).We love games and adore animation. This 2D character animation course is a passion which we are looking forward to sharing with you. So, let’s get to work!Sing up to this course, and start animating 2D game characters like a Pro!

Overview

Section 1: Preparing Your 2D Character for Animation

Lecture 1 Introduction

Lecture 2 How Spine-ready Character Should Look Like

Lecture 3 How to Export a Character from Photoshop

Lecture 4 How to Import a Character Into Spine

Lecture 5 How to Fix Missing Images Issue

Lecture 6 How to Save Your Spine Project

Section 2: Rigging with Meshes and IK Constraints

Lecture 7 Creating Your First Mesh

Lecture 8 Creating Meshes for the Armor

Lecture 9 Creating Meshes for the Bending Parts

Lecture 10 Character Rig pt.1: Rigging a Leg

Lecture 11 Character Rig pt.2: Core Skeleton

Lecture 12 Character Rig pt.3: Cape and Hair

Lecture 13 Character Rig pt.4: Ponytail with Path

Lecture 14 Character Rig pt.5: Head Control with Transform Constraints

Lecture 15 Completing The Head Control

Lecture 16 Binding Meshes to the Bones with Weights Tool

Lecture 17 Binding Ponytail Path to the Bones

Lecture 18 Adding IK Constraints

Lecture 19 Adding the Second Leg

Lecture 20 How to Change the Draw Oder

Lecture 21 Adding a Missing Bone

Lecture 22 How to Color the Bones

Lecture 23 How to Change the Bones Icons

Lecture 24 Creating a Test Animation With a 3D Effect

Lecture 25 Download the Character Rig

Section 3: Spine Pro User Interface

Lecture 26 Spine User Interface

Lecture 27 Useful Keyboard Shortcuts

Section 4: Creating The Idle Animation

Lecture 28 Idle Animation pt.1: Core Movement

Lecture 29 Idle Animation pt.2: Secondary Motion

Lecture 30 [NEW - Spine 4.0 Graph Editor] - Enhancing Idle Animation with Graphs

Lecture 31 [OLD - Spine 3.8 Graph Editor] - Enhancing Idle Animation with Graphs

Lecture 32 Enhancing Idle Animation with Offsets

Section 5: Creating the Run Cycle

Lecture 33 Run Cycle pt.1: Core Movement

Lecture 34 Run Cycle pt.2: Completing the Core Loop

Lecture 35 Run Cycle pt.3: Secondary Motion

Lecture 36 Run Cycle pt.4: Creating a 3D Illusion

Lecture 37 Run Cycle pt.5: Completing the 3D Illusion

Lecture 38 Enhancing Run Animation with Graphs

Lecture 39 Enhancing Run Animation with Offsets

Lecture 40 [NEW - Spine 4.0 Update] - How to Change Animation Length

Lecture 41 [OLD - Spine 3.8] - How to Change Animation Length

Lecture 42 Small Fixes to the Run Cycle

Section 6: Creating the Blinking Animation

Lecture 43 How to Add a New Image to Your Spine Project

Lecture 44 How to Add a New Slot

Lecture 45 Blinking Eyes Animation

Lecture 46 How to Use Preview Mode

Section 7: Advanced Features

Lecture 47 How to Export Animations from Spine

Section 8: Course Conclusion

Lecture 48 Conclusion

Beginner to advanced level 2D digital animators,Game developers looking to create professional 2D character animations,Anyone passionate about 2D animation for games