2D games?

[JeannotLandry]

Currently, both Unity and UE4 have 2D game tool sets and physics.

I know 2D games can easily be faked with cut out style but it would be a neat idea to try to implement 2D tools to make this add-on a much more feature rich engine.

Just a thought!

[zauberparacelsus]

I think that's probably well outside the scope of this project's goals. You may want to instead look at learning Haxe and using the HaxePunk or HaxeFlixel libraries.

[JeannotLandry]

I am no coder, just an artist :P so It was just a suggestion that I think would make this addon even more popular and powerful, plus I don't think it is that hard to implement. Currently working on a 2D game (BGE) course and thought it'd be cool to have that ability in Armory (although my course is fake 2D with cut out style , which I am sure will be doable in Armory).

[luboslenco]

3D is priority + depends on Blender capabilities in this area, as the goal is to (only) implement Blender features usable for real-time content. But I am curiously looking at grease pencil stuff:)

https://vimeo.com/155635261 (we have all seen this)

[JeannotLandry]

Lubos, actually, Blender is already capable of animating 2D sprite sheet in the BGE (Used for animated textures that loops non stop), the only thing missing is control over it, which I believe could be done with nodes. (Use it for two things in this video https://vimeo.com/115701836 the water and the birds that flies in the BG, the characters are 3D and environments 2D, so its a 2.5D game :P )

Btw, I still have that .blend (was made in Blender 2.72, so certain things may not work in the newer versions, but those 2 animated sprite sheets do work) if you want it to study it and see how you could implement that in Armory let me know...

There is a few scripts for that as well. But again, with nodes, all you really need is control over the UV offsets to animate the sequence or grid.

For 2D physics, it is really easy to just lock rotations and translations globaly (which Is how I do it in BGE). So that can easily be done with nodes as well. Its a restriction/constraint or in BGE you can simply do so per objects in the Physics tab.

I really believe that by having also 2D abilities, you'd get a much broader audience. A lot of peoples like to do both and by having both possibilities (which BGE has), you'd get even more people interested in this. Also the fact that it is already cross platform is a huge plus.

I am not sure if the grease pencil is the way to go for this though. I do use it a lot to plan maps (lvls) and take notes, even plan animations. But I don't think it is meant for games (its resources hungry).

There is also the Animall addon that provides UV animation for rendering. It allows to key UVs. They used it in Cosmos Laundromat (on the caterpillar eyes).

[luboslenco]

Sounds good! Right now I can not add any more features as the release is already a year behind, but please keep the issue open.

(PS: Dark Platformer is beautiful!)

[JeannotLandry]

Roger that, I'll leave it open, especially since I would also like that ability with Armory ;)

Thanks for the Dark Platformer compliment, it was done in only one weekend.
It isn't a finished game, but rather a test game, its full of flaws but was super fun and fast to do.

It is actually all 3D, but with simple planes and images with transparency for the most part, the water and bird is a plane with animated textures, except the characters which are 3D with flat shaded materials, and there isn't a single line of code either, its all BGE logics. There are no lights (all flat shades) and there is a one camera which is locked on one axis.

So I think something like that can already be done in Armory given that animated textures would be supported ;)

[bibleuspro]

@luboslenco where would you even recommend those of us that might be able to work on such things begin? Some of what you are doing in 3D is beyond my pace, but I might be able to help the engine by helping 2D, and thus draw more interest to the project.

[luboslenco]

@bibleuspro I think the first step would be just a workflow plan, ie. what interface would one need to push in Blender, how to place/animate sprites around,.. Then we could implement the underlying code to make it work.

[luboslenco]

There is now some basic sprite functionality:
https://github.com/armory3d/armory_examples/tree/master/tilesheet
https://github.com/armory3d/armory_examples/tree/master/tilesheet_walkcycle

Not perfect, but will keep improving on specific issues that arise!

[wb3d35]

Hi I’m new to armory. And interested in 2d platform games. Are there any tutorials on doing 2d platform games in armory 3d ?

[zauberparacelsus]

@wb3d35 Better to ask on the armory forums, as this is a closed issue report.