Blog #1 Animating the bride
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Feature – Bride
In our game “You May Kiss the Bride”, one of our core features is having the bride chase you from below, being a main factor in what causes the player to feel stressed and under constant pressure. The work in this blog will address the animation of the movement of the bride. I tried to make sure that she looked like something you want to run away from. A clear visualization of her trying to reach out for the player avatar. My focus was on making sure the player could see what was happening, and in addition I tried my best to make it look like a smooth animation. In the animation I tried out some of the principles of animation. I use anticipation both as a mechanic for the game communicating to the player that you’re about to get as well as making the animation look smooth. I had her pull her arm back shortly before reaching for the player. I made sure there was very few frames on the fast motion her arm was making, actually just the anticipation and the frame where she’s in the final position. Since it goes so fast she also overshoots a little bit before her arm bounces back to the position she was going for. I also tried to use the principle of follow up or secondary action. I wanted her dress and hair to follow the animation a bit delayed. But since I was only doing keyframes for the Alpha, 5-6 frames was a little too few to have follow up animation on. I had problems with the perspective of the game. Since it’s 2.5d or isometric view, the player is “above” this enemy as it’s chasing him. Therefore, reaching out towards the player meant she had to reach her hands up, above her head. I did a couple of tries of her reaching forward, but it just looked like she was hitting the ground in front of her. I realized animating all the tentacles will be (I haven’t completed that part of the animation as it’s not quite necessary for the Alpha) an awful amount of hard work. Taking with me from this will be that I shouldn’t design a character with flowy parts in a project with a little amount of time.  |
