How to Create a 3D Flag Wave In 2D With Spine

Arman Harutyunyan shows how you can make a 3D looking flag wave in Spine with a few tricks.

Many of us have animated a flag wave animation in both 2D and 3D. While waving flags offer an excellent exercise for learning a few of the principles of animation, it’s a technical challenge to get it looking right without using dynamics. Check out this new tutorial from Arman Harutyunyan that shows how you can get a much more 3D looking flag wave while working with 2D style animation, using Esoteric Spine.

Spine, Bones, Keys, and Scale.

It’s really too bad that Spine isn’t expanded a tiny bit so that Motion Graphics artists could use its fantastic animation toolset for their workflow. Arman shows how to set up the bones and other deformations to create a rig that will facilitate the flag wave. If you work in Ae, make a note of how all the tools work together in Spine. Also, prepare yourself for a drool.

Esoteric Spine

Spine is an animation tool that focuses specifically on 2D animation for games. Spine aims to have an efficient, streamlined workflow, both for creating animations using the editor and for making use of those animations in games using the Spine Runtimes.

About Arman Harutyunyan

Arman Harutyunyan is a full-time game developer. Who also animates 2D assets for games in his free time.