Game dev: Mole animations (Group 13)
|
Hi! This week, except for programming I have worked on animating the main character in Mole Munch; a mole. Initially I felt pretty intimidated by the task, as I had never animated any animals and especially not a mole before. In addition to that, Mole Munch is an isometric game. As a result, I must animate the mole with the camera at a 45 degree angle. 
Like this! First things first though. How do moles walk? I began my week by doing some research on how moles move, and how four legged creatures in general walk. As it turns out, moles have super short stubby legs and sort of drag themselves along the ground to get to places. Here is a pretty adorable video of that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTJddsSLlSs I thought that if I animated the walk cycle like in the video above, people would consider it strange. I decided to animate the perception people have of a ”mole walk” rather than an actual mole walk. As a result of this, I decided to animate it like any other four legged creature. From a bit of guesswork, and from trying to walk on four legs myself, I theorized that four legged walk cycles are pretty much like human walk cycles, except with four legs. So the first step was simply taking the human walk cycle and breaking it up. 
Walk cycle divided into four key frames and put on mole feet. The next step was to determine what foot did what part on what frame. Trying to walk on four legs myself, I quickly discovered that the back feet always land before the front feet. Using that logic, I decided that the back feet would be one key frame ahead the front feet in time. Starting with that as a basis and not really knowing what to do with the other two legs, I created the left/right walk animation. 
I began each animation with a sketch showing roughly how the mole will move. Then I checked with the team if the sketch was acceptable before moving into coloring and finally texture and face hair. 
Finished right walk animation Next, I needed to define how all feet in the walk cycle would move at all times in order to create the up and down animations. I decided that the other side of the body would move two walk cycles ahead of the other. For example, if one leg was in key frame A, the opposite one would be in frame C. Using that as a basis, I was able to animate the mole in all directions consistently. 
My work area when animating the down walk Once I had established the key frames and how they move in relation to another, the work speed increased and I was able to draw out both the down walk cycle and up walk cycle in a day, compared to the two days the first direction took to animate. The problem with my current walk cycle is that I failed to incorporate the isometric view properly. I focused entirely on making the animation look great and drew the mode from the side rather than with the isometric view in mind, since drawing from the side is what I am used to. The up and down animations are wrong in that regard as well. The down animation might as well be featured in a top-down game! Overall I am pleased with my work and especially the research conducted. I could easily animate the mole in any direction with a bit of rotoscoping, since I have carefully documented how it moves through each frame. Until next time!  |
