My personal advice, if the characters are already created and animated in 3D. Just use them directly in a game engine that support 3D like Unity. Don't waste time do render the 3D into 2D frames and use spine or any other 2D animation software to animate it. Its just a waste of time with very little gain and could cause you more problem especially mixing 3D VFX with 2D characters. All the questions you ask, the answer is possible but it may not worth it. That is, unless the rendered 2D frames are just for pose reference and you expect an artist to remaster the character in a much better attractive 2D style. It main question is, what is your main reason to turn those 3D characters into 2D? Do you want to spend a lot of time and resources for a visual upgrade or do you just don't know how to import the 3D character into a game engine?

KaramSPN wrote

we actually don't have the 3D characters/models themselves

I see. In this case, spine is suitable for your project. Not only the animation will be smoother, it also save file size and memory when the game is running.

The general workflow in your case for the animator is to evaluate the 2D renders and pick the key frames for every animations. Based on that, the animator would need to extract/recreate the parts such as legs, arms and weapons, etc. The rest of the work is just normal rigging and character animation based on the original design. That's a lot of work comparing to frame based animation you already have. However, in the hand of an experienced animator, you can expect much better result than the result in your youtube videos.

You can check out the Networking section for finding animators:
http://esotericsoftware.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=10

KaramSPN wrote

Luckily, the weapons are something we already have on their own, so they don't need to be recreated on their own luckily.

Since you already have the visual, if you are not looking for a 2D stylized upgrade, just having the parts extracted is not really that much work.

KaramSPN wrote

But since I am curious about the detailed process, would a usual Spine animator be able to use references like these; https://imgur.com/a/rT3IBxU, as a reference for almost completely recreating the visuals while doing it to a T/making it look the same?

It really depends on the animator. A good one with a little photoshop skill should have no problem.

KaramSPN wrote

Also, what about cases of 3D? Idk if you answered that already, but as in, if we had a 3D character artist do stuff like this: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mDDmva. How would that be interchangeable/workable with a Spine animator and how would that process look?

Unless your goal is to mimic the exact 3D look and feel in 2D instead of have a stylized 2D characters, it is not a recommended approach to create and animate a 3D model then convert them to 2D style because of the extra works involved. Some projects do use this approach because they have their visual created in 3D in very high detail which is impractical to run smoothly in the game so they turn them into 2D to lower the system requirement. If you want the characters to look like 3D like you currently have but actually saved in 2D. The answer is yes, you can do things like you said. The workflow is the same as I mentioned.
However, if you are looking for a stylized 2D style and the 3D renders are just temporary for design and animation reference, its better to do the character design and pose design in 2D in the first place to save a lot of works.

Nick has done a great job fielding the questions! Thanks Nick! He nailed it. If there's something else we can help with, please let us know.

Nick has done a great job fielding the questions! Thanks Nick! He nailed it. If there's something else we can help with, please let us know.

No problem. Just an indie trying to help another indie.

KaramSPN wrote

I feel like I'd assume you're meaning to literally redraw the whole character in 2D, in Ps, but then again, after seeing videos on how animators work with/prepare parting out a character's/image's parts, in photoshop (like this one presumably did, drawing out the parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d1lr_sL1B0&) for the rig in Spine afterwards, I got a bit unsure of what was meant. Especially since it seems like you're making it sounds very possible with the 'little photoshop skills' as we're very passionate/serious about the art and appeal we'll potentially get made, which is why I am double-checking for confirmation on this bit.

Its a redraw only if you expect to have style change. ( e.g. more 2D stylized). If you want to preserve the current look and feel of the 3D character, the process is simply cutting the character renders into moving parts as seen like the Youtube you just posted. (Maybe I should use the word "cutting out" instead of "extract "? I am not a native English speaker so please be mercy on my wordings.) Since some of the parts are overlapping with each others in the 3D render, a little editing work is need to fill in the missing part (the region covered by other parts).

I describe it as "little photoshop skill" because it is not really something very difficult. It is not drawing a new character from nothing. It is also based on the style and complexity of your characters. (based on https://imgur.com/a/rT3IBxU you posted) As for the "good one" I mentioned, I would suggest you to evaluate a spine animator by looking at their portfolio. See if it has similar works that turn boring 2D drawing into 3D look and feel with nice depth and perspective presentation when animated.

The general workflow in your case for the animator is to evaluate the 2D renders and pick the key frames for every animations. Based on that, the animator would need to extract/recreate the parts such as legs, arms and weapons, etc.

It ties together with the above, but what exactly do you mean with extract in the mentioned case? Don't be afraid/I'd actually really appreciate to have a whole detailed description on the process/those 2 sentences. Sorry! I just really wanna be aware of everything in advance if I can!

Its just what you see in the youtube you mentioned. The difference is that you have a bunch of image sequence instead of just a single still image. Thus the extra work is to have the animator evaluate all the image sequence and pick the key frames (the most important and representative snapshots such as parts in different perspective) to break apart and reconstruct the character in Spine.

I think I try my best here. :lol: For further discussion, I better leave it to spine team. 8)