Week 12-13

Week 12-13

Game Description:

Graviators: Season 1 is a third-person brawler with the unique core mechanic that players can control and shift their own local gravity. Set in a future world where entertainment and reality shows have evolved to the point of gladiatorial combat. to save human lives and get a earlier TV slot, Robot gladiators have been substituted in for humans. Graviators intends to have a dynamic fighting environment that players must adapt to.

Critique:

The core mechanic of shifting gravity is a very disorientating thing for players, and thus the implementation of a smooth camera and fluid animations to give clarity where possible. The fighting mechanics still need a lot of work, and there is the possibility as suggested from playtesters that the core mechanic could work in a variety of other game genres like puzzles and action adventures.

Reflections:

What was your overall assessment of the process and the outcomes?

Overall I think the myself and the team did a good job implementing the mechanics and animations and scripts that were needed to get a working demo of a such a complicated game. there are still alot of issues and things need to be fixed, and getting our workflow pipeline functional was a challenge, but now that it is sorted, I expect our work processes to improve across the rest of the production.

What role did you play/tasks assigned that was least satisfying to you?

Animation testing and transition tweaking within Unity. I'm still inexperienced with Unity and needed to learn a lot of how it works. Sourcetree and Github also presented a challenge for me.

What were the tasks undertaken that used your skills and abilities?

Planning and animating the characters and transitioning and blending those animations together smoothly in the unity animation controller.

What were the lessons learned with regard to time management, task planning and team processes?

I learnt a lot of time management skills, and the need for strict deadlines in regards to such a collaborative workflow. I also discovered the need to be able to explain why I did or animated something in a particular way. As not everything will be clear to team members unfamiliar with animation concepts and the pipeline involved with that area of the production.

What plans do you and your team have for the next phase of development of your project?

We plan to polish and work on the core mechanic, including the implementation of a smoother camera and other combat mechanics like ranged attacks and ultimate abilities. we also plan to integrate two additional characters into the game. this will involve alot of animations for me, which I look forward to doing.

Summary:

Animation Transitions and Blends: 5 hours

Animation Adjustments in Blender: 3 hours

Animation Testing: 1 hour

Total: 9 Hours

Animation Transition editing:

Animation Blending for Melee Attack:

Retweaking some of the core animations in blender:

Animation Testing in the multiplayer:

Week 11-12

Week 11-12

Summary:

Jump Animation (Takeoff/Float/Land): 7 hours

Float Animation Loop: 2 hours

Melee Attack: 6 hours

Total 15 hours

Jump Animation:

Float Loop Animation:

Melee Attack Animation:

Week 10-11

Week 10-11

Summary:

Run Animation: 8 Hours

Jump/Float/Landing Animation WIP: 4 Hours

Run Cycle Animation:

Final Animation Front View:

First Pass on Lower Body:

Basic Leg movements for the run cycle, but its still very stiff, and not fluid in the ankles and knees.

Second Pass Lower Body Final, Back Arms First Pass:

Fixed the knees and ankles, and foot placement, cleaned up the hip rotation and added in some basic blocking movement for the back set of arms.

Final Animation:

Smoothed out the full motion across the body, added some slight de-synced movement to match the shoulder rotations.

Jump/Float/Land Animation Blocking and Timing:

Basic Blocking Timing, and a few of the poses for the jump/float/landing.

Week 9-10

Week 9-10

Summary:

Blend Trees and Transitions Research: 2 hours

Complete Idle Animation: 7 hours

Run Cycle Animation (still WIP): 3 hours

Blend Trees & Transitions Research:

Some research into transitions. and looking into how to do blend trees, which will be needed for some of the animation states for the game.

Idle Animation:

Final Idle Animation:

Cleaned up the head movement, and de-synced the arm motions so the overall movement is more fluid.

3rd Pass:

Cleaned up the arm movements so they match a subtle Idle animation better.

Alternate idle but the the loop didn't flow correctly and it was too up and down with too much movement.

Run Cycle WIP:

Started on the run cycle.

Week 8-9

Week 8-9

Summary:

Animation Style Research: 1.5 Hours

Motion Trails and Effects Tutorials: 1.5 Hours

Animation Reference Research: 1.5 Hours

Host Poses, and Personality References and Research: 1.5 Hours

Character Animation Flowchart: 4 Hours

Total: 10 Hours

Animation Style Research:

Motion Trails:

Some research into the style of animations I envision with our holographic weapons. Motion trails seem to be one of the ways to accomplish the effect we want.

This is an example of a particle emission along a motion trail. while it's obviously very low poly. it creates another interesting effect. that could be useful for either our melee attacks. or for some of our ranged weapons.

This is an example of what can be accomplished in engine. I particularly like the trail of the sword swing on the right. at it very much matches what we'll be looking to do with our hitboxing for our melee attacks.

Motion trails and Effects tutorials:

Animation Reference Research:

Two-Handed Big Sword Attacks:

While we probably won't use attacks exactly like these as Sparkus only has one 'arm' and it basically is his blade, there's alot of poses and footwork that I like.

I like the swiftness and reality of a big heavy sword shown in this video, and its something I want to capture when I start doing the animations for Sparkus.

Four arms/Blades:

General Grievous was obviously a big inspiration

Dual Swords:

Can't find many other references for four armed fighting, So I started looking into dual swords, with the intention of just doubling what I found.

This video was interesting as the two instructors went through and showed the various flaws in current culture's interpretation of fighting with two swords. but what I was mostly looking at was their stances and the arc of their swings.

This Demo showed some good references for poses and movement, particularly in the footwork.

This was a good reference, its actually a skyrim mod where someone has come through and improved upon the vanilla dual wield animations. and it shows a comparison.

Host Poses and Movement Research:

For our Host I wanted to fine some good references for movement as well as some personality. So I started with one of my favourite show hosts, John Oliver.

I wanted to focus on how he presents himself and his body language. and how hes not just a stable talking head. but moves and expresses himself with a slightly larger than life persona. obviously for our Host we're going to crank it up to 11 to get across her craziness and manic nature. but this was a good baseline reference to start with.

Speaking of cranking it up to 11. I then looked into some crazy over the top commentators and hosts of sports and wrestling shows.

I then looked into Jim Ross, and how he delivers his lines and builds up the hype of a match.

Character Animation Flowchart:

A big thing that I need to start wrapping my head around and need to be aware of from the beginning is my transitions and flowcharts for all the different animations that will be needed for each character.

I found an interesting article/guide to help me get in the right mindset and to start thinking about the correct issues and transitions that i'll need to have work while animating.