Changing clothes and holding objects in hand with Anima2D

Klabautermann

Hi everbody!
I am new to adventure creator and before I start planning my game any further, I want to find out if a couple of things I want to do are possible or not.
First, I want to have 2D characters, created with Anima2D.
Is it possible (using AC only) to display currently selected Items in one of the characters hands?
I think about creating an additional bone or some kind of placeholder where the objects sprite can be inserted. So they move as a child of the hand or are automatically attached to a special Item-bone.
I found the "hold object" action in the manual, but it says that it only works with Mecanim or Legacy animation System. Any chance to get this running with Anima2D as well?

Second thing I want to do is change a character's clothes in the same way it is necessary in the Deponia series a couple of times. That means having different outfits in the inventory and when the player equips them, the character's appearance changes. In theory, that should work by changing the character's sprites while keeping its skeleton and the animations. Can I do this with AC only or do I have to produce custom code? (which I am unable to do, unfortunately)

Thanks!
Klab

ChrisIceBox

Welcome to the community, @Klabautermann.

Even without the 3D-only Character: Hold object Action, you can still use the Object: Set parent Action - so you could feasibly have a sprite attach itself to the player's hand.  You may get scaling/rotation issues when the character turns, however, and will also need to have an "in-scene object" for each item that the character can hold - which will make it tough to manage.

If you insist on not scripting, then you can add a new layer to your player's Animator controller which - through a series of animations - is able to change the 'held item' sprite that's already in the player's hand (and set to an invisible sprite when nothing is held).  An integer parameter could be then used by the Animator to control which animation is played (and hence which sprite is shown), and this in turn could be controlled with the Object: Animate Action.

A custom Action to dynamically set the player's "held object" sprite to one supplied in the Action could be easily written, however.  Help can be given if you think that would be the better option.

Changing your character's clothes could also be done through animation.  A further Animator controller layer could control which sprites your character's body / leg SpriteRenderers display, which could be controlled by another parameter - and in turn, another Object: Animate Action.

Klabautermann

Thanks for the extremely fast response!

I bought AC now and started fiddling around with it. Looks great so far. Whenever I think "This would be cool" I somehow find that feature already integrated.
I might come back to the initial questions later on, but first I have to get the basics going^^

ChrisIceBox

You're welcome.  Indeed, I recommend getting to grips with AC on its own before attempting an integration with Anima2D.  The Making a 2D game tutorial is the best place to start.