Odyssey was a standalone 2D animation software powered by Unreal Engine, developed by Praxinos, a French company based in northeastern France. The software was available in beta in 2023, with its first official release following in February 2024.
Recently, the standalone version of Odyssey was discontinued and reimagined as a 2D toolset plugin for Unreal Engine. According to the developers, this transition has significantly streamlined development, which is an important factor given the small size of their team. In addition, In contrast to the original software, which required a commercial license, the plugin is available for free.
Much like the standalone version, the Odyssey plugin is designed to help artists seamlessly bring 2D art and animations into 3D environments, combining Unreal Engine's advanced rendering capabilities with a user-friendly interface tailored to 2D workflows.
Although Odyssey is a versatile tool suitable for various audiovisual projects, our focus remains on its application in video games. In this context, it enables the creation of animated sprites, tiles, and cutscenes for both 2D and 2.5D games, all without ever leaving Unreal Engine. It also opens up creative possibilities for stylizing 3D games with hand-drawn 2D effects.
The plugin supports both raster and vector layers, offering a variety of tools tailored to each and giving artists flexibility across sketching and inking workflows. It also includes features for storyboarding and for texture painting, the latter being particularly useful for creating decals, foliage, and post-processing effects. When conditions allow, it even supports painting directly onto static meshes, enabling stylization at the asset level.
Odyssey's animation editor includes essential tools such as onion skinning, shift and trace, stagger cells, shortcut-based flipbook previewing, automatic inbetweens, and more. In addition, the plugin is fully compatible with graphics tablets, supporting pressure sensitivity, tilt, and azimuth input for a responsive and natural drawing experience.
When it comes to learning materials, the user guide is currently the recommended way to get up to speed with the tool. However, the developers have stated that new tutorials will be coming soon. There are also several existing videos on the company's YouTube channel that may still apply to the plugin version of the tool.
The plugin is now available on Fab. For more information, be sure to visit the Odyssey product page on the Praxinos website.
