How to minimize animation work for artist in 2D graphics game for creation of characters with different items gear?

Question

I'm really sorry about this question, but I have trouble that I don't know how to google right. I belive, that there is a lot of topics about this, but I can't find any (because of don't know what words to put in my search string). To cut a long story short - I want to know, how to realize "item changes" in classic Action-RPG game (for example like Diablo), for 2D graphics. It's obvious how to work raster graphics and animations, but I still can not belive, that for EVERY combination of gear (armor, weapons etc) artists draw different animation. Where I can read about this problem, and ways to solve it? Also, it's obvious for me how this works in 3D graphics - the models of gear simply linked with character position coords and "travel" around with them - so the only old animation applies.

In my game players can "create" their own types of troops. And for example one type of soldiers wears heavy armor and have maces, while another wears light armor and have swords. But any combination for player is available. How I should to build my work with 2D artist/animator to minimize his work?

Thanks! And sorry again for stupid questions, but I really don't know how to google it.

Answer 1

It is not common to animate all combinations :) Try to think of your character and weapons as layer that you put on top of each other. Even though you are creating a 2d game, your engine surely will support a 3rd z-axis dimension which you can use to place items on top of each other.

I think you would have to rig your characters (even though they are in 2d), so you can give them skeletons to move along, and 'hands' to hold things into. And all items should have some sort of 'snapping' point (and pivot point), that you can attach to one another.

But even though your users can select any sort of combination, you should try to categorize the available options - for example you should group all melee weapons, all firearms, etc. As I guess they should/could be handled in the same way by your engine.