Introduction
This blog is mainly to supplement Chapter 4: Further Studies and Analysis failed to write the content of the paper.
Process
At the beginning, I wanted to create a questionnaire with my own animation analysis, just like Iva, and let the participants provide me with data. Then I think the interview is not bad, and I have even arranged a time with a few friends. But in the end I found that I wanted to elaborate on the 5 basics of game animation. Because this is too professional! Can provide a strong theoretical basis for my article! But once I wrote these, the number of words in the paper and my workload would increase, so I didn’t know what to do at the time, so I wrote 5 game animation basics first.
1.Feel
Here I just want to add a theory that I don’t understand for the time being. I hope that I can gain something when I review this article in the future.
Inertia and Momentum
Inertia is a great way to not only provide a sense of feel to player characters, but also to make things fun. While some characters will be required to turn on a dime and immediately hit a run at full speed, driving a car around a track that could do the same would not only feel unrealistic but mean there would be no joy to be had in approaching a corner at the correct speed for the minimum lap time. The little moments when you are nudging an avatar because you understand their controls are where mastery of a game is to be found, and much of this is provided via inertia.Judging death-defying jumps in a platform game is most fun when the character must be controlled in an analog manner, whereby they take some time to reach full speed and continue slightly after the input is released. This is as much a design/programming challenge as it is animation, but the animator often controls the initial inertia boost and slowdown in stop/start animations.
Momentum is often conveyed by how long it takes a character to change from current to newly desired directions and headings. The general principle is that the faster a character is moving, the longer it takes to change direction via larger turn-circles at higher speeds or longer plant-and-turn animations in the case of turning 180°.Larger turn-circles can be made to feel better by immediately showing the intent of the avatar, such as having the character lean into the turn and/or look with his or her head, but ultimately we are again balancing within a very small window of time lest we render our characters unresponsive.
A classic example is the difference between the early Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog series. Both classic Mario and Sonic’s run animations rely heavily on inertia and have similar long ramp-ups to full speed. While Mario immediately starts cartoonishly running at full speed as his legs spin on the ground to gain traction, Sonic slowly transitions from a walk to a run to a sprint. While Mario subjectively feels better, this is by design, as Sonic’s gameplay centers on high speeds and “flow,” so stopping or slowing down is punitive for not maintaining momentum.
2.Fluidity
Settling
This kind of approach should generally be employed whenever a pose must be hit at the end of an animation, time willing. It is rather unsightly to have a large movement like an attack animation end abruptly in the combat idle pose, especially with all of the character’s body parts arriving simultaneously. Offsetting individual elements such as the arms and root are key to a more visually pleasing settle.
Notably, however, games often suffer from too quickly resuming the idle pose at the end of an animation in order to return control to the player to promote response, but this can be avoided by animating a long tail on the end of an animation and, importantly, allowing the player to exit out at a predetermined frame before the end if new input is provided. This ability to interrupt an animation before finishing allows the animator to use the desired number of frames required for a smooth and fluid settle back into the
following animation.
Settling is generally achieved by first copying the desired end pose to the end of an animation but ensuring some elements like limbs (even divided into shoulder and forearms) arrive at their final position at different times, with earlier elements hitting, then overshooting, their goal , creating overlapping animation. Settling the character’s root (perhaps the single most important element, as it moves everything not planted) is best achieved by having it arrive at the final pose with different axes at different times. Perhaps it achieves its desired height (Y -axis) first as it is still moving left to right (X-axis), causing the root to hit, then bounce past, the final height and back again. Offsetting in the order of character root, head, and limbs lessens the harshness of a character fully assuming the end pose on a single frame—though care must be taken to not overdo overlap such that it results in limbs appearing weak and floppy.
3.Readability
Why didn’t I propose Silhouettes like cooper, because I think this should be put in to look at the actions of characters from different angles. Silhouettes is just a reference, not unique to game animation.
4.Context
In fact, it may be because I play fewer games. I haven’t seen games where the animation changes due to the changes in the player’s personality, as mentioned by Cooper. But if it is an animation that compares the drunk with the normal state, I have seen it. So I didn’t mention this, and in Zelda Link did not make any difference because of growth (increased stamina).
5.Elegance
I don’t know the meaning of this word in Chinese. Perhaps elegance has a special meaning in English. I think this principle is more about the process of Standardization. For example, how do I classify my animations and organize my animation resources.
When I wrote this, I found out that why didn’t I first make a table to show the similarity between the 12 animation principles and the 5 game animation foundations, and then look for the relationship between immersion and them. I drew a mind map (in Chinese, of course) on paper to sort out the Silk Road for me. So a visual table was created. This is a development I didn’t expect at all! I actually have a form! And the data obtained is so credible!
Conclusion
These two charts are the biggest surprise that this research has brought me, and they fully verify my ideas! Although I used simple sentences to explain the final results, I know that it is really not easy to use thousands of words to prove them!