Game Production: Feature 2
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This week I have been working on our main characters animations. Beginning with the walk cycles and attack specifically. It has been going pretty good, animation is something that I feel I know how to do since I have studied animation before. The hardest part was to make them look good on such a small model. But after some experimentation and trial and error I came up with a technique that I liked and looked good enough for this project. Production started with taking the image I created earlier, scaling it down to a size that will be used in game, in this case 64 x 64 pixels. Then I used photoshop’s inbuilt animation tool and started making the animation. I work frame by frame on different layers, starting with the key frames and then filling in the frames between. The first view I did was from the front. Since this was the first one, it defined how the walk would look, therefore it took a little longer than the other angles as I was trying out different walk styles. After that i did the side views, the second one being a reflected version of the first with some changes because the character is not symmetric. And lastly I did the back view, this was an altered version of the front view, the trickiest part here was the tail, and making it sway in a nice way. I used few frames in this animation because it is going to be very small and does not need to look perfectly smooth, but if there is time by the end of the project, more frames could be added.
The attack animation was a lot of fun to experiment with. I was thinking about what kind of attack the warden should do, and decided on a magical green energy attack, matching her glowing green eyes. The animation is of her lifting her arms and clapping her hands together creating a magic burst. This surge of energy is also shown in her eyes as they light up, and her hair, as it rises as if from static electricity.
When I was done I used the Sprite Sheet Packer programme and made spritesheets of all the different animations which have now been implemented into the game. Over all, this weeks work has gone smoothly and I am happy with my results. Next animation will be the death and respawn animations for the warden.  |
