I’m thinking about how to design a boss, and a thought just hit me. Is it possible to create a sprite that is basically made up of other sprites? What I am trying to ask is is it possible to make something that made from smaller sprites as if to form a skeleton?
To give you an idea, think of Seven Force or Pinky Roader from Gunstar Heroes. Think of everything from Gundam Battle Assault 2. These characters are all made from individual sprites that form one big sprite’s skeleton.
GDevelop doesn’t have a native armature system for sprites, but it can handle Spine characters.
In order to do this you’ll need to buy a Spine license, then design your characters part by part, and animate them in Spine.
An alternative could be to use Dragonbones instead of Spine, this software does pretty much the same than the standard tier of Spine, and it’s free.
However, GDevelop cannot handle the Dragonbones files and you’ll need to export your animations as sequences and load them as normal, losing all the animation-blending capabilities at runtime.
I’m working in a Dragonbones to Spine converter of my own. So I can use this free animation software and then convert the files to Spine format and load them in the engine.
That said, my current project is being developed in another engine, and even using my converter to produce Spine files from Dragonbones, GDevelop will force you to provide a valid Spine license in order to prove you bought it once you publish your project.
SUMMARY:
The only way to properly use skeletal animation in a GDevelop project (at least if you plan to do more than just play around with it in your own computer) is to buy a Spine license.
