So if your game has 2D character illustrations and you want to kick it up a notch with the least amount of extra resource, this is what Live2D offers you:
Pros:
- Uses 2D images as material, a 1024 x 1024 px texture material (like a UV map) can build you a ready-to-animate mock-3D interactive model.
- Has SDK for Unity (and AfterEffect)
- Highly retains the 2D art quality, your 3D model will result the same as how your 2D artist drew it
- Your 2D artist can learn it in a week (or your 3D modeler can probably learn it quicker)
- No need for rigging or modelling, no need for 3D settings or lightings. No need for pipe-lining, just Live2D > Unity
- Animations and Expressions are recyclable; build up one model, apply to all others, and tweak from there if needed
- Is not restricted to human characters, let it be a tree, mech, particle effects, or pug.
- The free version is sufficient for indie game usage (generally speaking)
Cons:
- Currently limited to +/- 30 degree horizontally, cuz its not a full-3D model
- Small user community (English technical support from the official is sufficient though)
Here's a link to download and try:
http://www.live2d.com/cubism2-1/en.html
Here's a link to their retail product showcase, most games are on PSP/PSVita and mobile:
http://www.live2d.com/en/showcase
The reason why I'm sharing is because I'm probably the only existing Youtube tutorial maker in English. The user community is small and I could learn faster and further if there are more users to exchange experience with. Also I'm starting to get invitations to indie game projects, and me alone can't participate in that many, so I hope to reach and help new learners to help with the demand.
My tutorial channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/imst
For the remaining of this post, I'll share some showcases.
This is a short intro from DigInfo 3 years ago. Note that a lot has been improved since then.
This is more recent from DigInfo, showing Live2D Euclid (full-3D) along with Oculus:
The official teaser video for Euclid:
This is my WIP, working with a voice clip:
One and only indie game in English that i know of using Live2D:
Someone else's example:
Official example of a mobile game featuring Unity-chan (official Japan Unity mascot character):
Or check out the official game:
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.cybernoids.shizuku&hl=en
tldr: a software that magically turns your 2D character into animated-3D, easy to learn, quick to make.
If anyone's interested (or your team's artist) to learn Live2D let me know, I'll help with the best I could.
