During the 1990s I was an animation director for Creative Capers Ent., a small animation and design studio. We animated many games for Disney Interactive, many based on classic Disney characters (Donald Duck) and others on more recent titles (Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, The Lion King, etc). During that period we developed many techniques to deal with the challenges of tricky gameplay. I made several movies about these for my Lynda ‘Tips & Tricks’ course, which I’ve assembled here. Though I used 2D animation software to create the assets in these movies, all of the principles can be applied to CGI animated characters as well.
BTW, check out my patreon, there’s going to be a lot of animation resources posted there!
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PLANNING SIDE SCROLLERS (9m 38s)
This explains the process of planning the game, the background assets, foreground elements, objects, character designs, and FX animations such as explosions. You’ll see which programs can be used to create each component.
CREATING THE ARTWORK (9m 28s)
For this demo I used Photoshop to create the background assets. However, it’s not as simple as just painting one long bg – as the game will need to scroll. All elements must be able to tile or repeat, or to be assembled in different combinations.
IDLING & ZERO POSES (5m 39s)
A character usually starts in a standing pose – called a ‘zero’ pose. To keep this alive we sometimes add a slight ‘breathe’ or idle. In addition, we can add secondary idles such as simple gestures, to keep the animation alive and varied.
WALKING AND HOOKUPS (3m 49s)
The game won’t be much if the character can’t walk or move – so most games will need a lot of walk cycles. The walk cycle isn’t enough by itself, we also need to add hookup scenes that transition from the walk into and out of an idle or zero pose!
JOGGING & RUNNING (4m 44s)
Depending on the game, the character may need several jog or run cycles of varying speeds. Again, these must be able to transition from walk to jog, jog to run, and from jogs or runs back into the zero pose or idle animation.
PICKING UP OBJECTS (2m 34s)
The character will often need to pick up objects. Some games simply cheat this, ‘popping’ the element ono the character. However if you want a slightly more realistic or immersive animation, a pickup action is nice to have.
JUMPING & CROUCHING (3m 20s)
The character often needs a crouch (to avoid attacks) or a jump (to leap over obstacles). The jump can be used by the programmer to interact with the joystick or keypad input to create gameplay avoidance and navigation of the environment.
FIRING A WEAPON (2m 32s)
Because this action is triggered by the user, the usual animation principle of ‘anticipation’ can often be removed, as the player will anticipate the action by pressing the fire button! These actions need to be snappy for responsive gameplay.
BREAKING ACTIONS INTO PIECES (2m 49s)
Think of the scenes as small lego blocks that can be assembled by the programmers to produce a varied series of performances. A common mistate in early game design was to combine all the actions into one scene, which caused headaches for developers.
COLLISON & HIT REACTS (1m 47s)
This should be an instant reaction to impact – but it should also be funny or entertaining. We can create multipile hit reacts for injuries of varying damage. These should also hook back up into a zero pose or walk / run cycle.
DEATH SCENES (3m 24s)
This is a very important animation, as it’s a key moment in the game – so it should be visually interesting. In this example I went full Looney Tunes and turned the character into a skeleton, then into a pile of bones.
FLIPPING HORIZONTALLY (2m 42s)
There should be no need to re-animate a left-right animation as a right-left one. Usually it’s enough to flip the art horizontally. However, any asymmetrical design elements (such as a badge on one side) may need a specific addition in order to avoid popping.
WINNING AND LEVEL UPS (4m 15s)
A key element that makes games addictive is ‘leveling up’ – the point where the character wins new abilities either through experience of by finding new weapons or armor. This movie demonstrates the process of applying them, and shows the final demo gameplay.
In addition to these specialised movies on game animation, I’ve created many other courses on animation and design, from introductory to advanced:
ANIMATION MASTERCLASS LIST
I created this overview list of ten years of my animation classes on Lynda/Linkedin Learning. If you’re a student who wants a comprehensive series of lessons on animation, design, storyboarding, walks and runs, this gives you the links.
NATURAL FX
An often overlooked aspect of animation is the creation of traditional FX – the animation of natural phenomena like smoke, fire, water, clouds, explosions, or candles. Anything not character based. This short series gives some good pointers.
MAGICAL CAREER ADVICE
It’s no good having the skills if your confidence is in the toilet. The mental / emotional aspect is crucial also, and can help you make major breakthroughs in your work. This short series also gives some solid advice on inter-personal work relationships.