2D Animation Services

Bring your game to life through a comprehensive and seamless 2D animation! As a 2D animation company, we animate your assets, creating smooth and stylistic movement for your characters, environments, and items. We dive deep into your project, exploring the visual style and project requirements to match animation with the gameplay logic and game’s style, taking it to a whole new level of engagement.

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What we do

We provide top-tier, high-quality 2D game animation services for clients, contributing to their projects with our creativity and professionalism. Before executing your needs, we thoroughly explore your project requirements, gameplay, and visual style to come up with the best-fitting animation solutions for your project. Throughout the 2D animation pipeline, we apply comprehensive animation frameworks, like Spine, After Effects, and in-game animation and visual effects in Unity and Unreal Engine.

2D animation services Covering All Types of Game Assets

Whether you need to animate your characters, in-game items, or an entire environment, we can take your animation burden and execute all your needs. As an end-to-end 2D animation agency, we provide clients with a wide spectrum of 2D animation outsourcing services, including character animation, environment animation, props and UI animation, and also VFX implementation into your game.

  • 2D Characters Animation

    Our artists animate your 2D characters, giving them personality through the unique and realistic movements. 2D characters animation includes walking, running, fighting, jumping, interactions, and idle cycles that align seamlessly with the gameplay and game’s visual style.

    2D Characters Animation Design
  • 2D Environments Animation

    Bring your static environments to life through our animation production. Our artists add dynamic motion through element animation and background animation. We can make trees sway, clouds float, stars blink, and animate previously static objects in the game. Our comprehensive 2D environment animation services create a unique and immersive atmosphere and mood in your gaming locations.

    2D Environments Animation Creation
  • 2D Props Animation

    Animate your 2D assets and in-game props, making the game detailed, alive, and realistic. Our 2D animators give movements to all elements of your game, including chest openings, spinning coins, animating fire, weapon shaking, and other item animations. We pay close attention to your visual style to match it with every movement and every animation.

    Animation for 2D assets and in-game props
  • User Interface Animation

    We animate your UI elements to add another layer of engagement to the game and improve the interactivity of the gaming experience. By animating static interface elements, like menus, icons, buttons, and HUD, we guide your players, entertain them, and bring your visual style to a whole new level.

    User Interface Animation
  • VFX

    We develop for your game mind-blowing 2D visual effects, such as explosions and smoke, fire and laser visuals, lightning and rain, magical effects, and sci-fi effects, tailored to your game’s world, narrative, and visual style. We have extensive knowledge of creating stop-motion effects in Adobe After Effects and comprehensive VFX in Unity and Unreal Engine.

    Key Artwork for 2D Games

Design Tools

To execute your vision and bring your static game to life, we leverage an in-depth animation toolset and a full range of capabilities. Our animation experts have extensive knowledge across various tools and methodologies that can give motion to 2D objects, including:

ILLUSTRATOR
ILLUSTRATOR
PHOTOSHOP
PHOTOSHOP
AFTER EFFECTS
AFTER EFFECTS
SPINE
SPINE
UNITY
UNITY

A Closer Look at the 2D Animation Production Stages

Through years of experience, we’ve polished our processes and developed a seamless 2D animation pipeline that allows us to continuously produce amazing animations in various visual styles. As a profound animation production agency, we tested every step of our workflow over time and experience, and established the most efficient processes that reduce the risks of bottlenecks and technical issues.

Assets preparation according to technical and visual requirements

We start by dividing design elements into parts, props, and backgrounds that can be easily polished, cleaned, and formatted into layered files. These files are then imported into animation software, so we ensure they’re well-built for animation to avoid technical issues during production.

Game Assets Preparation

Additional assets design for the supply of connecting parts, transitions and overlaps

The second step is to complement the main design with additional visual elements required for seamless and complete animation. It can involve the creation of small details, such as flashes, dust, UI transitions, characters’ emotions, and little movements. All these little assets enhance the overall visualization.

Additional Game Assets Design

Rigging and preparing for animation

This stage involves creating rigs for your 2D assets that help us to animate them and create smooth movements. We assign pivot points, build the structure of the movement, and create layers for all animated elements. Rigging is a crucial bone system that makes the animation seamless, realistic, and fun.

2D Assets Rigging and preparing for animation

2D Animation creation

The main stage of our 2D animation services is where we meticulously animate your characters, props, and environments. Utilizing different methodologies and frameworks, like frame-by-frame animation or bone-based rigging, we animate your assets, tailoring to your gameplay logic and visual style, and bring your game to life.

2D Animation creation

Animation export and prepare assets

When your assets are animated correctly, we render every asset and format it for the game engine. This production stage also includes optimizing the animation's performance and file sizes, and exporting sequences, rigged animations, and sprite sheets in the required format to match the game engine.

Optimizing 2D Animation Performance

Assets integration and testing

We seamlessly integrate animated assets into your game engine and ensure their correct performance. During this production stage, we test animations in gameplay, ensuring that they align with mechanics and graphics and perform as expected, and fix all the animation bugs that may appear.

Integration of 2D Animated Assets

Who’s involved in 2d animation creation pipelines

The 2D animation pipeline is a collaborative, complex process involving various specialists, from creative artists to management personnel. Every 2D animation studio for hire establishes its own pipeline with well-assembled teams and seamless, transparent communication between specialists. Our 2D animation pipeline has been proven for years of animation assets for games and consists of the following professionals:

2D Artist

Our production begins with 2D artists who design and prepare your assets for the animation process. They prepare all assets, including characters, props, environments, and items, polish them, and format them in layered files that animators can import into their software for rigging and motion. 2D Artists ensure the assets are complete and well-built for seamless animation and fitting in overall gameplay.

2D Animator

2D Animators are key specialists in the entire animation production. To animate your assets, 2D animators for hire use different methodologies, such as rigging, which means creating digital bones for assets, or frame-by-frame animation to give motion to your game. When they finish the animation process, they export the assets and ensure they’re ready for implementation into the game engine.

Art Lead

The seasoned expert in the field, the art lead, guides the art team, ensures asset quality, consistency of the pipeline, and adherence to your game’s visual style. They provide valuable feedback to artists and animators, give advice, solve sophisticated challenges, and ensure the successful animation of assets tailored to gameplay.

Project Manager

The project manager coordinates tasks within the art team and ensures smooth collaboration with the development team. They manage schedules, meetings, track production progress, and bridge animators with the client and ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Case Studies

Featured Case Studies

We’re proud of our contribution to successful titles that hit the mark. Our 2D animation outsourcing services elevate clients’ games and creatively enhance their gameplay and visual style. Below are only three examples of how we animated assets and improved these games' overall performance:

Battle Legende

Within our full-cycle development services, we also covered the 2D animation for the mobile turn-based card game. Our talented artists utilized Spine and Unity engines to animate characters, effects, and UI.

CHECK THE CASE STUDY

Sheep Fight

We developed a mobile casual game for the Joyride gaming platform from scratch, and our scope included the 2D game animation services. Utilizing the Spine and Unity engine, we animated assets, like characters, powerups, obstacles, items, UI screens, and popups, to make the game visually appealing.

CHECK THE CASE STUDY

Wild West Treasures

One of the examples of our contribution to the slot machine game genre. Among all services we provided for the client were rendering and 2D animation of symbols, assets, and other in-game objects. Our artists leveraged 2D graphic editors and Spine to make the game alive.

CHECK THE CASE STUDY

2D Animation Portfolio

Every project is important to us. We’re not only putting all our efforts into every project, but also going the extra mile to elevate it and build it to last. When providing you with professional 2D animation services, we don't limit ourselves to strictly executing tasks, we creatively solve your game’s weak spots and enhance it through rigorous asset animation. Check out our portfolio to find more case studies and learn our approaches to animation and development!

VIEW MORE CASE STUDIES

What our clients say

As a seasoned 2D animation agency, we maintain continuous and transparent communication with clients, exchange feedback, and improve our partnerships. After every project, we gather reviews on our hard and soft skills and the project results, assessing our contribution and leveling up our capabilities.

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    Deep experience with 2D animation requests for various needs

    We don’t have limits in terms of providing clients with 2D animation outsourcing services and solving their needs. Our animation capabilities exceed game development and expand to slot and bingo games and 2D motion design. Honed by years of providing 2D animation for various sectors and industries, our creative team sharpened their skills and diversified their expertise to cover any kind of request.

    Gaming

    Game development is a key sector, where game animators create motion for the static characters, objects, and environments, and actually bring life to the gameplay. Animation is crucial to any kind of game and to any scope of the game: every casual, mobile game, and every AAA game requires animation. 2D game animation services are the necessary stage for every game development process.

    Casual 2D Game Art creation

    Slot and Bingo Games

    Our Studio also covers the needs for slot and bingo games by designing bright and vibrant visuals that catch the eye and engage players. For slot and bingo games, artists animate effects, transitions, symbols, and UI to create an additional engaging layer and contribute to an addictive experience.

    2D Motion Design

    2D motion design relies heavily on 2D animation services that help to animate text, icons, and figures to improve the overall user experience. 2D motion design is leveraged in various sectors, such as games, filmmaking, trailer creation, and software development. Motion design creates a fun and engaging experience through entertaining visuals.

    Resources

    Latest from the blog

    We’re always glad to share our experience and our view on the industry with our clients, potential partners, and colleagues. Check out our blog to get insights, learn about the game 2D animation, VFX, concept art, and other aspects of game development.

    2D Animation FAQ

    When delivering 2D animation services, we provide you with detailed information about our approach, pipelines, stages, and processes. We maintain transparent communication and are always ready to provide feedback and be on the same page with you. Here we’ve collected the frequently asked questions that might answer your queries:

    2D animation is the process of creating motion for two-dimensional objects, such as characters, environments, items, props, and effects. By animating assets, artists create an illusion of movement and hence, their life. Usually, 2D animators utilize different techniques and methodologies, like frame-by-frame animation, where artists draw every shot separately, or a more sophisticated rigging framework, where they create a digital skeleton to create smooth movements for characters.

    2D animation is widely used in various industries, like game development, filmmaking, advertising, and software development, for its great possibilities to create fun, engaging, and entertaining experiences. Particularly, every 2D game animation studio is responsible for bringing static artworks to life, giving them movements, atmosphere, and visual effects.
    Every 2D animation studio has its own workflows and established pipelines. However, the main backbone of the 2D animation production pipeline is relatively the same everywhere, with only small differences.

    The first stage is usually concept development, where artists define all the elements of the game, including characters, narrative, and visual style. Then, they prepare all the assets for animation by formatting them into the required layered formats that will be implemented into the animation software. Next, when assets are ready for animation, artists make a rig and develop smooth motion for every asset. Through rigging, it's much easier to create seamless and realistic movements.

    After artists finalize the animation, they export all the assets and prepare them for implementation into the game engine. When it's done, they conduct a comprehensive testing of the animated assets on their proper performance and match with the visual style of the entire game.
    Choosing the right vendor for 2D animation outsourcing is not an easy task that requires time, experience, and resources for a significant assessment of the potential partners. When deciding between different 2D animation studios, you have to consider this: thoroughly evaluate all the company’s information, starting from their portfolio and to their style, experience and technical capabilities.

    When evaluating a portfolio, first look at projects similar to yours. It will help you understand whether the vendor has the expertise to execute your unique needs. Check their visual style, quality of animation, and the level of detailing on their assets. Also, look at the testimonials and the reviews of their previous clients on the external sources. It might help you to understand their communication style, transparency, and responsibility.

    Assess their technical expertise and production pipeline. Check the engines and tools they use and what stages they include in their production. It’s crucial to define whether the vendor has the capacity to cover all your 2D animation needs and match your requirements and visual style.
    The cost of 2D animation services varies depending on different factors, and the final budget estimation will depend on your requirements and your project scope. The first thing that affects the cost is the complexity of the animation and the required visual style. It’s no secret that minimalistic, cartoonish, casual animations or basic loops and UI effects will be much cheaper to produce than visually appealing, almost realistic 2D animations. The amount of assets and the lengths of the animations, and the overall production scope will also affect the cost of your animation.

    Another thing to consider is the way the chosen 2D animation company charges for its services. Different studios have different terms: someone charges per second of animation, someone per asset, or provides their services on a fixed-price contract. Also, consider the studio’s expertise and reputation: huge companies will charge much more than a small game animation studio.
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