Animation is a tricky pickle in game development. It's so easy to get it wrong or "just OK." This video shows some the changes we made that hugely improved the quality of the animations in Paperbound. We used quaternions to blend and layer animations on top of each other, leading to seamless transitions and animations that can be played in fast-forward or slowed down to a crawl while still remaining smooth.
These are some of the things that we did:
1) Blending between keyframes of a single animation. This allows for super-slow-motion movement without ugly pops between frames.
2) Blending between two or more animations over time. Nice transitions are key to avoiding stutter-starts and lend that professional look.
3) Layering animations onto different parts of the body. Each animation specifies which joints it affects, so you can continue playing the running animation on the legs while the upper body attacks.
Great improvement! Thanks for sharing. :)