I’ve seen this post about importing Maya animation files in a Cocos2D project. I noticed that some game developers have already used this or a similar technique to use Maya files in their games, see for example Mortal Skies.
I am freaking out because my games requires a lot of animations and by far I invested all my money in getting a 2D designer to draw them.
Considering I would like to deliver my product in the next 4 months, I guess, if I wanted to use Maya files, I should hire a Maya animator and change all my character’s code. How time expensive is that? Do you guys usually work in team to achieve this?
Also (this is a Maya related question), once I have 2D graphics (sprite frames) is it possible to apply them to Maya objects as textures or should those be specifically crafted for 3D use? (I guess that the texture map is totally different, as far as I remember for a small 3D project I did time ago..)
Thanks a lot for reading..
Maya is a 3D design tool. I don’t know much about Mortal Skies but I’m guessing it uses the same approach as many 2D games. The models are designed in 3D and animated in 3D in Maya.
Maya then exports a series of numbered 2D bitmap images (TGA, PNG, JPG). Those image files are then used in the 2D engine, normally putting them into a texture atlas (ie using TexturePacker).
Usually the Maya export is not automatic but scripted using Maya’s own scripting language to setup the model in a certain way for rendering, for example changing the camera rotation, lighting, etc. before each 2D frame is rendered. That gives you the animation, for example the sideways rotation of an airplane, as a series of rendered 2D images in the image format you desire. From then on the 2D animation work continues as usual and has nothing to do with Maya from this point forward.
Using Maya source files directly in a 2D engine like cocos2d is not meaningful, since those files store the 3D model data.
For a 2D animation tool with direct support for cocos2d you might want to look into Spriter.