I’ve managed to get a lot done these past few days, and at the same time it feels like a lot of unpredictable, slightly bad things have happened. Due to certain reasons Anita, the only other graphical artist in my group, might not be able to work for a while, which I don’t blame her for. This does however leave me as the only graphical artist left. Luckily we’ve both been working hard and managed to finish almost all of the graphics for the game, and I’m very proud of what we’ve managed so far, being only two artists. One of the very few things left is the intro sequence, which will consume most of my time this last week before the Final Product deadline.
I began working on the second part of the intro as soon as I finished the sketch animation for the first part. As with the first part of the intro I began by testing the movement a couple of times, turning quickly and backing up. I took help from some of my fellow group members who also quickly tried the movement to help me figure out how it would look. After that I sat down and created some key frames.
When I had finished the key frames I thought that I could use some frames from the players’ run cycle when the character turned to run away. When I tried the run cycle together with the intro however it looked more as if the character became frightened and then suddenly forgot why it had been alarmed and walked away. After a very short discussion with the other group members it was decided that we needed to change the run cycle animation.
I finished the sketch animation for the second part of the intro by adding in-betweens until the movement flowed like what we wanted. When that was done I quickly sat down with the run cycle. I tried to follow the placement and basic movement of the first version, but edited it so that the character would take longer steps and move the body a tad more, as if it was running faster. At first the character held the left arm rather far from the body, but after looking at it together with the group I changed it to closer to the body, which looked a lot better.
When I’d finished the movement I took on the bigger part of the task, colouring it. I sat a long time cutting and pasting with the first run cycles’ arms and body and painted on top of it to the best of my abilities to make it match my sketch animation and the style of the player character. I believe that I managed to match the style rather well, even though it doesn’t look exactly the same.
As soon as I finished the new run cycle I added the last two frames into the intro sequence sketch, and the result looked a lot better than before. The character doesn’t seem to forget that it’s scared anymore.
I wish you all good luck with your projects. I’m looking forward to seeing all of the finished games!
Have a great week.
MPh out.
Liten Skåning 
Hi Jonna
I am sorry to hear that you have been mostly alone this week working on the graphics. But as you said that both of you have worked really hard and is almost done with all of the graphics for the game I think you will be fine.
I can see that you are really good at animating and I think it was a really good idea to take help from your team members to get the feeling of the movements. That helps a lot, I did that a lot when I was animating movements in 3D, moving myself as well as asking others to help. It helps a lot if you do that. And one thing I’ve learnt animating movements in 3D is that everything has to move or it will look really weird, and I think that applys to 2D aswell and I think you have done it really well. I also really like that you show your progress with the gifs, it help readers a lot to see how you work and understand more about what you are writing about. I also liked to see how you did both walk and run animations, to see the difference and read about your thoughts around it.
Just a tip for future blogs for this school. Use a normal still picture first because Babel doesn’t show gifs. So there is no picture inviting people’s eyes to see your blog as easily as others.
Of course I can imagine that it was a rather unexpected, and not very welcome, surprise to be left as the only graphical artist this close to the end of the project. I hope that everything works out for Anita though!
But it does appear like you have managed to get quite a bit done despite that, and a lot of animation no less.
I tend to animate in a slightly different manner than you appear to, so it’s pretty nice to see how you go about things. Trying the movements out, or rather asking someone else to try them out for me, is something I tend to do very little for example, even though it would probably have been quite helpful at a couple of times during this project.
Also Key frame animation is probably something that I should try a little bit more. Right now I mostly just go from start to finish, making a rough with gesture lines, and then refining it more and more.
I think that you have managed to illustrate your work process very well through the post, both in making the step by step of the intro animation, as well as the before and after of the run cycle. It leaves little doubt about what it is that you are describing.
I still had a tiny question about the run cycle though. Since you have a sprint function in your game, will you still use the old run animation for when you walk around normally, or will both use the new run animation?
All in all a well written blog post though, and good luck with the last few days of the project!
I find keyframe animation a lot easier than straight-ahead animation, but that’s rather individual 🙂
The run cycle is for the sprinting part. There’s still a walk cycle, that looks a lot like the first run cycle, that will be the default walk when you walk around.
Hello Jonna! Wow. Making such huge progress with that limited amount of graphic artists, I am impressed! You should be proud of yourselves and of your work.
Your animations look straight up wonderful! They have a lifelike movement that really catches the stressful and panicky feel of the game. It is also fun to see that you consult the others in the group for changes, even if they are short discussions. Communication is always important in any project.
I also think that you have written this post really well and informative, giving me a good look on what you have been doing and how. I find this blog extremely interesting all in all, since I want to learn animating better myself. And by just seeing how you are working and thinking when it comes to animating, I can learn a lot. I really cannot say anything bad about your post, it is just fun to read. I kind of feel sorry for your group losing so many members though. All the more cred for managing with less and less people I guess!
I am really looking forward to see your group’s complete game! And I wish you the best of luck this last, grueling week.
Cheers!