Forum 4: Five Fundamentals of Game Animation

Sketches

Idle

In the idle animation, my character starts out a little hunched over, then straightens out his posture, then returns to a hunched position. The idea of this is to try and make a bouncing idle. Adding some stretching could help with that as well.

Attack

The attack will be a tail whip. My character will start out hunched, like the idle, then straighten out, move his hands up, as the tail starts to go back. He will rotate slightly while the tail goes back, then the tail will whip around and he will rotate back around.

Jump Up

My character will hunch over and bring his knees and arms up in anticipation while shrinking his body. The tail will also go up as he gets ready to jump, then he will straighten his body out at the apex of the jump, lower his arms and legs, as well as his tail. 

Fall Down/Death

I did this animation in a way that it can be used as a fall or a death. My character will fall backward with his arms stretched out, keeping his hunch as he falls, then he straightens out his body when he hits the ground, but keeps his arms stretched out. Then his body bounces off the ground and arches in the opposite direction, while his limbs are pulled down by gravity. Finally, he hits the ground again, completely straightening out. 

3 Concepts from the Fundamentals of Game Animation

Feel

My character had visual feedback, which is "A key component of the "feel" of any action the player and avatar perform is the visual representation of that action" (Cooper, pg. 43). I used visual feedback by making my character walk fast, showing that he was in a hurry to get where he was going.

Context

The book talks about homogeneity, and how someone can "imbue it with as much personality as matches the character description" (Cooper, pg. 50), with it being the character and a run cycle for it. While I did a walk cycle, I put personality into it with the way he walks and how his tail moves with his walk. Also, you can see how he walks kind of heavy during his animation. 

Elegance

The book says that "concentrating only on essential aspects" (Cooper, pg. 53), is what a good game uses for their characters. I kept my walk cycle simple with how I animated the body parts and how I moved them, I did not do too much to the body parts when I moved them, which kept the walk cyle simple.