Introduction
Yeah! I am finally about to start my FMP! Because my thesis chose to study gameplay animation, I wanted to make some interesting gameplay animations. I also exchanged ideas with Nigel, and he supported me to figure out how to make an excellent gameplay animation element.
I think I should be fully prepared before I start making my animation. So I checked a lot of information this week.
Process
If I have learned the most about game animation from whom, it must be Jonathan Cooper. The book VIDEO GAME ANIMATION EXPLAINED written by him is also an important reference for my thesis. In the book, he explained in detail the difference between game animation and traditional 3D animation (cinematic animation), and provided a lot of practice, so that I can better understand the production process.
For example, he proposed:
Traditionally, when first designing or evaluating the requirements for a given character, the game animator would draw out on paper the various states the proposed character could be in (such as idle, walk, run, etc.) as nodes in a flowchart with lines connecting the states that could be moved
between.
This helped not only list all the animations that would be needed to get the full functionality of the character up and running, but also highlighted where transition animations might have been required to smooth over commonly used transitions between states. The animator or designer would then work with the programmer to implement the character, using the state chart as a
reference.
I first drew my own ideas, this is just a preliminary design, I will continue to improve my flowchart in the subsequent production.
Then I started searching for the tutorial:
1.
Carol’s video tells how to make an idle character with cloak:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcWDwjLkCXk&t=3s
2.
Peer Lemmers will give me some inspiration in making creature fighting aniamtion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7APJG9ebIg
3.
Jack Ebensteiner showed how to express the character’s movements naturally in God of War:
https://vimeo.com/275888180
4.
Roberto Clemente showed in God of War how a muscular man shows the feeling of hitting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u7k6h9asL8
5.
Fabian Johnston demonstrated two-player strikes and action and camera movement in God of War:
https://vimeo.com/275152806
6.
Tycjan Bartus showed the use of macap to make natural gameplay animation, which also includes the ultimate of creature and boss:
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Bf4y1n7YA?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0
7.
How to make a League of Legends character animation display (like Highlight in Overwatch):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qhbJ-fICOk
8.
This is my favorite tutorial. It explains in detail the characteristics of different gameplay actions, and there are special exercises. So I plan to refer to his production method when practicing:
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1aE411Z7tU?p=14
After watching all kinds of videos and tutorials, I found that gameplay animation will highlight the impact. Although a seamless loop animation may only be as short as a few dozen frames, we still need to emphasize key actions, such as attacking the object.
The animation I want to make now is roughly like this:
1.Idle
2.Walk
3.Run
- Attack (at least three)
5.Jump - Double sparring
- Biological and human sparring
8.Highlight
I want to import UE4 for point1-5, so I have to learn this software.
Conclusion
In FMP planning, I have many animations I want to make, but cool animations generally require other elements such as model, rendering, lighting, special effects, etc., but I only want to focus on gameplay animation itself, so I chose to make this. Hope I can have good practice.
This week gave me a new understanding of game animation. Before that, I thought it was just loop animation, which shouldn’t be difficult, but after reading the works of many excellent animators, I found that I was wrong. It is precisely because the loop animation needs to run in the game, the game animator needs to use fewer frames and key frames to make animations. I hope the video I shared can also help you.