Gameplay Pack Animation Production blog by Wayreframe

 So, the next thing to do is making a demo animation using the controls I've experimented with and get some feedback. I made the animation using the key frames only to see if it's going to work or not. So, the animation had roughly 8 frames and it was time to get feedback. I sought feedback from my lecturer and my friends who gave valuable insights about my demo animation today. Everyone said the same thing that the key frames don't match well because I'm missing the breakdown poses and thus it is not possible to know if it's going to work or not. but they like the idea of the catwalk animation so I can continue to work with it. So, I completed the body mechanics with breakdown first and now I'll work with the secondary parts like the cape, skirt and belt as that's more convenient and allowed me to focus on one part of the animation at a time without feeling the need to go back and forth with my workflow. That's why I didn't bother animating the cape...

 So, I have the character and I have the reference to start experimenting. Now, i just need to find out how to achieve the expected look. Having a lot of controls can be rewarding in terms of creativity but the hardest challenge is to learn how to use these controls. I mean, just look at the number of controls on this model!                   I think the biggest challenge I'm going to face is to animate the skirt. I tried to make some of the key poses, and whenever I go for the leg up pose, her knee goes right through the skirt. And moving the skirt sometimes makes it go through her belt and other times I get an unnatural bend.   Now, I'll have to find a good balance between body pose and cloth physics.

Developing an idea can be a complicated process as it involves lots of trials and improvisation along the way before coming to a point where we can commit and start to work on it. The most essential part of trial is figuring out the limitations of the tools and for that we need lots of test cases. To start simple, I decided to do the walk cycle first as that's the most basic thing for any character animation. I had the initial idea of making a serious, angry looking walk cycle but then I decided to try something different, I want to make a catwalk with that heavy weapon. My idea is to make her hold that weapon with one hand, leaning it against her shoulder and other hand on her waist to give her a sense of attitude. Something like this: But this is just one pose, I need a whole bunch of frames and I need reference. So, I did some research online and found this YouTube video of professional models doing catwalk and I picked the model from timestamp: 1:32-1:45 as her body pose is so...

 So, with the idea in mind, the first thing to do was finding an asset that is relevant to the concept. But most importantly, it had to be ready for the animation workflow and within budget and scope of my abilities. I could just google and find a dozen of medieval Viking themed character assets, but I needed a rigged model and a cheap one. Luckily, I found, this game ready model and it was free.                        The reason I chose this model despite it not being a viking themed one is this model has a cape and a heavy weapon which is similar to the character Eivor from Assassin's Creed Valhalla. I really liked the heavy weapon wielded animations and the cape swinging in the air, so I wanted to create something similar for fun. And the controls of this rig is very flexible and it has separate controls for body mechanics and costume (Cape, Skirt, Belt and even the bullets on the belt!) which gives a lot mor...

When I decided to switch careers from a game developer to a 3D artist, character animation is the thing I was most fascinated about. And my area of interest is and always has been video games, especially action games. I started developing ideas for making an action game a long time ago, but I didn't know the proper production pipeline. Now that I'm studying MA Animation, I'll test and develop my ideas as my module project. And this pre-production portfolio will show my work potential to the employers in the industry as well as work as an idea development diary for me. I've decided to work on a gameplay pack as a starting point of my journey as an animator and I want to experiment, get feedback and develop my ideas. This pre-production diary will contain storyboard, reference images from my research, design ideas for the characters and the environment, progress updates and a final animation render. If people like the idea, I'll continue to work with similar ideas aft...