Godot 3 is gaining new functionality at a staggering rate. Just last week I wrote about the addition of CSG Support. Yesterday the development branch of Godot 3 gained 2D Skeletal Deformation, enabling you to animate deformations on a 2D texture using bones. Essentially you create a Polygon2D object, apply a texture to it and create a polygon cage. Then you set a series of bones and paint the influences for those bones, at which point on you can deform the underlying texture using the bone system you just created. If you’ve used a tool like Creature, Spine, COATools or Spriter, you’ve probably got a decent idea how this process works.
If you want to play around with this functionality you current need to build the current development branch yourself. However if you just want to see the how the new systems work, check out the following video which shows you step by step how to use 2D deformations in Godot.
Do keep in mind this functionality is brand new and under development, so expect some changes in the way things work and the occasional bug, although I didn’t encounter any personally. If you are interested in learning more be sure to check out the full writeup over on GodotEngine.org.