Forum #4: The Five Fundamentals of Game Animation

                In terms of “Feel” with game animation, this has to do mostly with the player’s input on the avatar and how it reacts to the controls. For example, one of the most famous examples is SEGA’s Sonic the Hedgehog. At first, he runs slow, then speeds up, before turning into a ball that rockets through the stage. However, if you try to stop him, he doesn’t stop on a dime, there’s inertia in his body. He skids on the ground for a second or two before finally slowing down.

               My first project for Adobe Animate was to create a walk/run cycle for Tom Nook from the Animal Crossing universe. It wasn’t easy, but since he’s a rather small, almost roundish character thanks to his gut. However, for this specific animation, I gave no sign of weight to him, because I wanted him to seem separate from what we know about him from his origins. My next project being to animate a punch or an idle cycle, his attack is leaping into the air and doing an almost double kick. This feeds into his almost super-natural, almost monk-like abilities, for these animations. We can look at the visual feedback to define some of his attack animation. He leaps up into the air, throws a kick but then quickly switches his legs, delivering a supposedly even more powerful kick to his enemy.

When we talk about “Fluidity” in-game animation, this has to do with the animation itself. The job of an animator is to make the object we’re watching move as if it were real. This is done through slight variations in the total animation to make it appear as if were real, when in fact they’re just frames moving fast to give the illusion of movement. From as something as simple as a ball moving down a slope, to as complicated as a sword-wielding character absolutely going to town on some enemy. The motions of the sword can’t be simply two frames (at least with most fighting games), because we kind of lose the magic of the character, the human parts of it. We want to see the sword pierce through the armor of the enemy, not just the sudden sword out, sword in, and that be that.

In my case, Tom Nook’s run cycle for example. I had to learn how to move the body in such a way that it wasn’t choppy. My first realization was the limbs in each frame were too far apart, which looked awkward and unrealistic (in terms of general motion). Instead, I had to move them closer together and tilting them ever so slightly, which made a big difference. Same deal with his tail, it can’t be identical to the motion of the body, it should move in opposite directions on the Y-Axis to show that it's being pulled by the body rather than it appears to be glued to the back of the avatar.

On the topic of “Readability” let's talk about the body for a moment. The center of mass in people is majorly in the gut around the belly button. This helps in our ability to walk and run, our legs catching ourselves as we fall for a millisecond, over and over again. The center of mass keeps us from simply falling over with no ability to catch ourselves (for the most part, body sizes are different for everyone). We have to mimic this with animation. For Tom Nook, who has a large gut, I have to keep his body-centered and all his limbs and extra body parts are all tied to his body.

Another example of readability, in the book, is “posing for the game cameras.” Here, we have to think again about how a real body works. When we throw a punch, it isn’t (and shouldn’t) be a simple arm extends out and hits the target. Depending on how good you are, your entire body moves somewhat to compensate for balance and power. You may duck a little, you may move to the side, your feet my shift, anything to give you the edge in the situation. Well once again, this bleeds into animation, especially fighting games.

               In Tom Nook’s attack cycle, he’s doing a jump kick essentially. But he isn’t just jumping out and extending his leg. No, instead he jumps upwards and forwards, bends his leg and extends, only to quickly draw his leg back and use the momentum in the drawback to throw his other leg forward, almost like a spring, to land an even more powerful attack, before finally landing. This adds to another sense of realism in the character and his abilities.

 

Bibliography:

Cooper, J. (2019). Game anim: Video game animation explained. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group.