AliJayShannon

For the first entry, I will just go over the goings on for the last week or two. With the release date for chapter one fast approaching, it has been somewhat busy with the final preparations for animations that are needed for the first chapter. Working the finishing touches to melee combat and some idle movements for NPCs (for example in the taverns or out in the streets, eating, chatting and drinking merrily). Luckily, fortunate that I am, I got to meet an animator from the Disney and Warner Bros world of animation. Fraser Mclean gave a talk recently which I got to attend and he gave very helpful and insightful hints, tips, and animation knowhow. Even more helpful was connecting with him via social media and being able to talk to him one on one, asking for advice on the work I'm doing now, what luck! A small indie game animator, such as myself, getting one on one help from a 30+ year professional such as Fraser.

It wasn't just animation tips he gave me though, when you're fast approaching a deadline, sometimes you need that extra motivation to keep yourself going. Those long nights drag on and it can be tough to keep up the progress, but alas, nothing great comes easily. You really need to take special consideration when animating characters. I am quite active myself and before I got into animation I never really noticed how much a person moves their body, even if it is just running or simply walking — never mind swinging a sword or firing a bow! One thing I learned quickly was never just animate a character thinking to yourself, "yeah, that looks about right," because, well, it's not. I highly doubt any animator has just sat and created an animation properly that hadn't required some kind of referencing, which is what I ended up doing this week.

I had the joy (no seriously, it was quite fun!) of doing some live action referencing. To make sure my character animations were as realistic as possible, I filmed myself doing all the motions that the characters will be performing. I got to stand in a room on my own with a video camera doing all these actions. Sure, it sounds silly and you might think you look like a bit of a weirdo doing them, but it's fine, I mean, you probably do look like a weirdo (no you cannot see the footage of me doing stuff) but in the end, it's to improve your work, so even if it looks silly it doesn't matter. So as for this week, it was standing in front of a camera swinging my hands around, as if I was wielding a sword and shield, and running and jumping. It was extremely helpful. I was asked why I was carrying weights, which I guess is a fair question... The weights were used to simulate the sword and shield. I can't swing my arms around pretending to be carrying a sword and expect it to look legit, I needed the extra weight so my arms and body moved accordingly to having the extra weight.

Next week, I will do a follow up of my live action referencing. I will try posting GIFs of my character animations before and after the live action referencing just to show the difference it really makes and hopefully inspire others to follow suit, for good examples you can check out Disney's old footage for Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, and the other classic animations.

Ali
Senior Animator at PhyNXT Interactive.