Hi Everyone! 

I'd mentioned in last week's post that there'd be an animation process devlog; hooray, that's this week! I wanted to cover my animations and what I do to speed up the process. I'll start off talking about the smaller NPCs and make my way to the Skink's animation, given that it's the more complicated one, with additional movement and equipment.

The slightly less intriguing part of what I do, but really helps to visualise movement, and that's blocking out shapes with similar outline colours. As for studying the type of movement I'd like to happen, if it's a walking or running animation, I admittedly do the finger legs walking on my table... (￣▽￣*)ゞ 

But for more complex movements (like jabbing, throwing and blocking), I do the motions myself and re-imagine them for our little characters!

Below is an example of the aforementioned colour blockouts,  with our pesticide robot. Not only do the colours hurt your eyes and give you a headache, but the shapes also come across! 

After making sure the animation looks okay, I run it by my team for any modifications. I do tend to add more movement after the fact that I've sent it to our other members, most often it's a minor addition (i.e. making liquid move around/ splash). The WIP animation ends up looking like this: 

When the animation has been approved, I add more details and save my eyes the pain of looking at intense colours, which usually clash, so there's a distinction in the subject's parts/ limbs. Which is how we get the final product!

There is an exception in my process depending on how small the sprite needs to be; sometimes, I go from our voted-for concept art, straight into a rendered version and start animating from there, rather than block out the parts. Skipping a step like that is only possible when the sprite is quite small.  Like this 5-cent coin and our small robot!

You'll notice there are two animations for our robot, one with a coloured glass and one without. I've put both examples in here because they're an example of why it's important that I check in and present work to my team! While the coloured glass is okay, it breaks clarity, and there's not enough contrast, so a unanimous vote opted for the colourless glass. 

The Skinks animation is a slight bit more tedious than animating other characters, not only because it's the player-character, but because of the equipment he uses! Each piece of equipment means a different animation; not every bit of equipment will have the same movement. 

For the Skink, I also do a colour block-out; however, since the character has equipment as well and not just their body, each individual piece gets its own colour, limbs included. 

Obviously, different actions mean different movements. In the first attack WIP, we wanted a sort of spear-like jab with his fork, meaning he had to take a step forward for his lunge, rotating his body too. The second block WIP we wanted him to just propel his shield forward and hold it outwards, because he does this with the opposite hand (attack is from the Skinks' left), we needed him to rotate the opposite direction. Making the Skink rotate in any direction for his movements meant he had to do the opposite on the other side.

i.e. Skink facing right means he rotates left, and when he faces left means he rotates right (which in itself required different variations of the same animation to allow for perspective changes!)

The Skink is a more complex character to animate because of his patterns, the blockout and checking the animation definitely feels like the simpler task out of the two. The process of keeping his patterns consistent with all of his bodily rotations and movements can be quite difficult and tedious, but the final results are satisfying... (ಡ‸ಡ)

My most recent Skink animation has been for a new weapon that's used for puzzle solving! The blockout colours have changed over our month break, but I still go through the same process. 

Again, we have two animations, the first being the initial WIP, the team asked for more of a lean into his spear-throw, which prompted the second WIP! 

When doing weapon animations, I usually start off with just the Skink himself and then add the weapon after the initial WIP is approved. I did, however, render the Skink before adding the spear-thrower (Woomera) and spear (Echidna quill), which is outside of my usual process. 

I hope my process was at least somewhat clear in how I do the art side of the pixel animations! By the end of this week, our team will be in a testing phase for our new area. Scalies are looking forward to sharing our future progress!! 

Skink jiggy!!

We acknowledge the Wiilman people as the traditional owners of Dryandra National Park. 

Signed, Megan, Producer and Marketing Lead.