In my opinion Jak has some of the best gameplay animation around. The one where he grabs a ledge and then you press X to pull himself up and jump up the ledge I could watch all day. While it isn't exactly part of the lesson, I think it was a shame that the "full" attack animations weren't shown. When you punch and then not move at the end, Daxter has this really cute "flailing in the air" animation, and sometimes he'll fling out in front of Jak just barely holding on to his shoulder plate. Same with spinning, sometimes Daxter will slap onto Jak's face and have to be peeled off!
When I saw "The Animation of Jak and Daxter" I immediately thought of the ground pound move, and then I saw "SQUASH & STRETCH" and thought "Yeah, that's about right."
+Gorfinhofin My favorite thing to do in the game was to hit the jump button just as Jack hit the ground in his Ground/Pound move, and he'd actually bounce up to jumping height, so I could ground/pound again.
I didn't like it when all the Sony first party studios went to realistic styles for the PS3 era. More graphical power can make cartoon styles look better as well. I didn't hate Uncharted, Resistance and Infamous, but I wanted more Jak and Daxter, and it took us entirely too long to get more Ratchet and Clank and Sly Cooper.
I am in fact working on a game with pretty cartoony animation, so this is a great help. I'll probably give up and abandon the project at some point just like with my previous attempts at making games, but the time spent making them is still fun and educational.
Dan saying how Daxter catching up during the punch animation nearly throws him over Jak's shoulder. You see at the end there that if you don't hold the move button when you punch, the lack of forward momentum causes him to fly over the shoulder and have to crawl back up. I love these games and their animation so much
+Extra Play This was fantastic! Easily my new favourite series on UA-cam. Any chance you could compare some Jak 3 to this at some point? It really came on leaps and bounds within the same generation
+Extra Play I wonder why more games don't have a transition animation between running and standing still. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
+Extra Play I assume part of the issue is also the fact that jak doesn't speak at all so his personality can only be gained through those animations which would be stragne if he was the only one so they got stuck in a bad situation where they needed jak to be expressive via moving around, but it would be strange if he was the only person who did it.
+Extra Play Please tell me you get far enough into this to show off some of the custom death animations that they did for some of the more interesting enemies. I seem to recall there's a distinct swallow effect on the giant plant fairly early in the game, and it would be interesting to hear you're comments onto the cost/benefit of that sort of 'this is only going to show up maybe once or twice in the game but we'll put a custom animation in for dying in this specific way' (I think it's more noticable with some of the enemies in Crash Bandicoot, since the giant plant was more 'what happens if you exit the screen in this way' rather than 'play this custom death animation if killed by this particular enemy that only appears in one or two levels rather than the usual one', so is less notable, perhaps?)
Something I love even further about punch animation is how Daxter's bones squash so far when he returns to Jak that he gets a lightning bolt shape for a few frames at the very end of the swing. Also loving this series especially with Jak and Daxter! To this day I return to it to play through it out of sheer love for the game.
You only really get a chance to see it at the very end of the video, but the punch animation is a little longer when you use it while standing still. It gets cut down when you use it on the move, but if you don't move after using it, you get to see Daxter scurry around Jak's body while he tries to get back in place.
His kick spin is really exaggerated, as well. It looks really nice and Daxter struggling to hold on while his body is thrown outwards adds a nice touch. Though I think the kick was added in Jak II.
I was very young when I played Jak & Daxter for the first time, and this was one of the first games I've ever played that utilized squash & stretch this much. At that point I've really only seen it in cartoons.
i do like your new style of doing these dan! but i guess now you just got what you wanted to avoid with extra play, the massive workload of extra credits :DD you scripting the basics is really nice and being able to hear you comment on slowed down or repeated footage, also telling us to see what we can spot and then revisiting really adds to the video, and all while you still have your usual lets play laid-back-ness :D my respect for all the work you put into this :) i hope you're not dropping your comment while playing completely in this series, it has its own charme :D
I knew the cut scene resolution improved from Jak & Daxter to Jak II, but seeing samples of both in the same video blew me away. I never realized the jump was that huge.
Awesome! I'll never be able to look at this game the same way after watching those animations slowed down. haha Great job explaining Squash and Stretch! I also noticed an animation I hadn't noticed before when you ended the video! Jak punched and stopped and since he stoppped, Daxter flew off his shoulder and then crawled around Jak to get back up to his shoulder.
It may be worth mentioning Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon when talking about squash and stretch, as those games both utilised vertex animation in order to achieve those very contorted, exaggerated in-between poses usually seen only in 2D, and the animation is certainly interesting stylistically because of that.
From the sounds of what you're saying, a revival of the franchise would allow for some pretty nice animation going on - some more squash and stretch to make the cartoony performances better, maybe a different aesthetic style to sell it more (Not necessarially cell shaded, but... I do remember liking that sort of half way point Sly Racoon found between more traditional 3d game appearance of the time and cell shading, complete with thick chunky black outlines around the characters) ...Man, what happened to this franchise, anyway? I mean, sometimes a mascot franchise doesn't last past it's generation (And apparently Ratchet and Clank was still going on the quiet during the PS3 era so it's not like the mascot franchises of the PS2 just disappeared entirely as soon as Gen VI ended), but Jak and Daxter only seems to have been featured in 'compilation of all our stars' stuff and rereleases post PS2. Usually there's a failed attempt to keep a franchise alive on the next generation before it's killed, at least... Even Dizzy had a 16 bit title, and no-one outside of the UK was familiar with that franchise.
So glad you're doing this game! This was one of the first games I ever played and how Jak moved when attacking really really stuck with me. Especially as you unlock more attacks I remember how much fun it was simply to combo around. It's actually kinda validating to understand there was a reason why it stuck with me.
Another good example of this in motion in a 3D game is actually League of Legends' more recent champs/champ updates. If you look at the likes of Braum or Poppy during a few of their animations (their ults are the best examples) their arms extend to some twice the length of their bodies, they splat into the ground on contact, all that jazz. Was very interesting to look into when the rest of the game makes characters /seem/ so solid and grounded in some form of reality.
The distinction between the first and second games animation is also a design choice. The first one is more bouncy, friendly and busy. A classic adventure game type that anyone can pick up and instantly know that this is a playground and not to expect any deep or emotional plot twists. Whereas the second is now a bit darker in tone and story. From the very first cut scene you instantly recognize the tonal shift. Great Series, thank you for the analyzing.
Basically only following this channel for your animation explanation-showcasey-lesson things at this stage. The quality gap to the other (mostly just talksy-rambly) videos is definitely noticeable, and the editing to help ingrain what you're talking about is on POINT. Thank you for your effort! :0
This is why I'm dissapointed with the animation in the newer Ratchet And Clank games. When you swing the wrench in the ps2 ones, the wrench expands for cartoony emphasis, but now its just boring movement.
According to Pixar, Inside-out is the movie where they (Pixar) used the most Squash and Stretch, which considering they're 3D animated, that's very impressive
+Cordell Sherwood Yeah, Pixar's animation style is actually quite contained in terms of exaggeration and squash and stretch (at least, compared to other 3D studios like Disney, Dreamworks, Sony and Blue Sky). It was fun seeing them cut loose a bit more with the Emotions in Inside Out.
With each episode entry in this series you improve Dan, if we watch the first episode and then the last we can see how much Dan really has gone a long way. Keep up the good work!
I love that you're already referencing other animation principles like appeal and exaggeration throughout this episode. It's both laying some groundwork for the harder to understand principles and also pointing out just how good this animation is:)
My only question would be this, when dealing with a jump animation for a game, how do you deal with the lack of anticipation and squash/stretch for something the player wants to feel immediate?
Theres a different smash animation from standing still where daxter will fly way off the shoulder. I used to just smash all around untill I got that animation its very satisfying to see.
It been so long since I played this, I forgot how Dexter looked like before he got transformed. Darkstalkers is a pretty good example of what you have talked about so far.
This made me take a real look at this game series which is one of my favorites. I never realized Jak actually slams his head into the ground with the ground pound haha. It makes me think how other cartoony games like World of Warcraft can bring a bigger sense of liveliness to the game with their technical limitations as it is a 12 year old game. Even with the high res models in legion it would be interesting to delve into their cartoony feel.
One of my favorite things I always love to flaunt around about this game is that this came out in 2001. While I love ratchet and sly (them being the other two mascots of the ps2), their debut games which came out a year after jak 1 don't look half as good in the animation department when compared to this. They're still fantastic and I understand that's not what Sly went for but it's truly amazing for the year that this game came out in so early in the ps2's life and it still looks one of the best.
I never got to play this game as a kid, but I like what I see! Another thing I noticed in the cutscene was that the characters' upper teeth were moving with their mouths. Those teeth are attached to the skull!
I absolutely love the animation in J&D and it's really fascinating hearing an animation expert give their thoughts on it, and comparing it to animated movies. Great video!
I remember playing and loving this game years ago, and as soon as I read the title all the combat animations came back to memory and without pretty much any true technical animation knowledge I immediately knew what that principle talked about :D Also I'm really enjoying your method of explaining/analyzing animation, loving this series!
Two games I would be interested in. 1 more on shadow of the colossus in how each of the colossi convey the structure of their character in their animations. like how on part 4 you talk about how the animation conveys a lack of balance in how the 3rd colossus is built. The 2nd game I would be interested in would be smash brothers melee, just look at a couple characters ( personal recommendations Captain Falcon, Marth, Mario, and Peach ) in relation to how their animations convey the character of the character being played and their previous history, the play style of that character ( for the average player and professionally ), and also the responsiveness of actions. maybe talk about ideas on how to weigh all these different components of animation. Or even talk about how the camera effects how things will be animated. PLEASE
All of the yays for Dan doing this one, but the timing is a bit uncanny for me. i bought the trilogy again last weekend (It was my favourite game series back in the day, which was visible in how quickly I went through areas) and I've been playing this game since then, when I've had time, thinking of the animation as I played and how neat it would be for Dan to cover it, but thinking that he wouldn't. Lo and behold, here comes the video and I am very happy and pleased :D
OMG! this video has really blown my mind, because you have explained me what i have never achieved to describe the reason why i loved so much this game. The lack of this type of animation is the worst thing that i could notice when i played for the first time Jak And Daxter lost frontier
I always thought the fact that they toned down the performances in the sequel games also helped contribute to the darker tones the sequels had. Like the first game is so over the top and childish and that was added to with the wild animations in the cut scenes and then when you move to Jak 2 the game takes a much more serious tone to it that I feel is accentuated by the calmer (but still expressive) cut scene animation
Wow, this was really interesting. I really love his jump animation as well! It looks so smooth. As someone who wants to make a game in the future, it's great watching videos like this. I might add a bit of squash and stretch to my game, since it will be pretty cartoony. I want to give it as much personality as I can.
Love all these videos on animation! Especially these ones on Jak and Daxter, I grew up playing these games and these animations are burned into my brain!
There definitely could have been more weight to the throw that Jak does at the beginning to blow up the lurker. He walks a few steps, which you assume is to get some momentum, but none of that momentum transfers into his throw, it looks very mechanical I dunno, you're clearly more qualified to make the assessment than I am, but I didn't find the cutscene in Samos's hut to be too busy. It certainly has a lot going on, but it's all noticeable, and while it maybe isn't able to be appreciated in full because of how much going on there is, being able to notice more and more every time you watch a scene is a good thing in video games, it helps with replayability. Movies generally want the audience to be able to pick everything up, games don't do that as often. Some games even have entire scenes that you don't see if you don't play the game in a certain way, this comes across as simply a more subtle version of that. Personally, every gesture registers internally to a satisfying degree when I watch this, it doesn't feel too fast or forced or like I'm being distracted away from the main focus. And there is some variation in Samos's and Daxter's energy level. Samos remains grumpy and Daxter remains twitchy, but you can see Samos calm down in some lines, and get more excited in others. Daxter goes from energetic to spastic, which maybe doesn't register all that clearly, but it certainly happens. Seems like a really big component of the less distracting animation in later games is the relatively high polygon models, so you focus less on the sharp edges of things like Daxter's mouth. There is a bit of dryness in a lot of the cutscene animation in jak 1, but theres also that dryness in jak 2 imo, Daxter is a hard character to really make feel perfect because he's so expressive as a character. It might not be what you want for a movie, but I personally did not feel the same issues you bring up watching the cutscenes years ago or today. I can't know how common my opinion is, but as you mentioned in the skyrim mining animation video, effect on players is basically the final word when it comes to game creation, proper animation techniques and realism ultimately play second fiddle to player experience. I would be interested to see how many players noticed or were subconsciously impacted by this, versus how many professionals noticed it It's interesting that you use the word "plastic" to describe something that is rigid and stiff, as the word plastic literally means flexible and moldable, and is where the term comes from. You can see the meaning of the word plastic preserved in things like "neuroplasticity" which talks about how changeable your brain matter is Good video overall, great game and a very interesting topic especially nowadays with so few companies even attempting this, and many gamers having a distaste for certain kinds of nonrealism. Only complaint is I wish you briefly went over the punch-jump animation, as that one is really squishy compared to the jump-punch animation
holy shit, perfect analysis! Just learning animation and you really pointed the right direction for new learners to be more observant, it even got me interested in playing this game again.
You guys should also make something about the animations in the Ace Attorney games, specially the latest ones (Dual Destinies and Dai Gyakuten Saiban). The animations on those are top-notch! Lots to learn about their characters based on their animations.
I would have said that the toning down of character emoting between Jak 1 and 2 also highlighted that Naughty Dog were going for very different tones with the game, perhaps part of the reason they decided to tone down the animation was due to the highly exaggerated movements no longer gel with the slightly darker and more desperate world they were creating in Jak 2. They obviously still had a lot of those cartoon-y movements but they more punctuated the game to provide moments of levity rather than constant toony feel.
You really didn't get into much at all. So looking forward to the second part of this! (you could've at least put the iconic ground pound move into this ep though...) Also I personally have no issue with the 'every syllable has a pose' style of animating, it shows they really wanted to put effort into it and it just generally works well with the theme of the game. (and for me at least, it actually made it more memorable without detracting from the rest of it.)
This game...Oh SO many amazing memories!😄 And I LOVE that I got to see the breakdown of the animations! Can't wait to hear you talk more on Jak & Daxter! 😄
Love this series you're making, and great analysis. maybe you could cover exaggerations in fighting games like Street Fighter Third Strike. The sprites are wonderfully drawn and animated with lots of nice exaggerations!
So what's to stop them from supplementing those weaknesses in the rig with blendshapes and other vertex-level deformations? More hardware limitations, like a lack of memory? Because that was my first thought, if you can't have additional bones to make the body feel malleable everywhere, sculpt a few poses with Daxter's head stretched out and blend between them.
Does that mean that when game animators create these rigs they include more bones in the sections they foresee themselves stretching in specific animations? Does it ever happen that animators will remove some underused bones once all the animations have been completed for performance reasons?
Richard Williams's book ( The Animator's Survival Kit Printed and Video DVDs) are highly recommended if you want to learn and absorb the feel of cartoon :) -m
That's so awesome :) JAK is one of my favorite series of all time :) Is there a plan to do an animation episode or tow about Assassin's Creed? It would be interesting to hear what you have to say about all the procedural stuff they've done to make sure the character animation works for every surface.
Kalernor Even squash and stretch is used in serious action cartoons though, like Batman: The Animated Series or Ultimate Spider-Man. This video even demonstrates a use in Disney's Aladdin as a means to depict rapid movement rather than actual elasticity. Not having squash and stretch at all makes characters look stiff and metal-hard. This is brought up in the commentary for The Incredibles, where Pixar's animators were trying to figure out how much squashing and stretching there needed to be for it to look natural. You probably wouldn't notice it at all besides Elasti-Girl, but if you see the movie frame by frame, it's there. That being said, you have a point there: They're trying to look realistic, and except for Mortal Kombat, they come from Japan, which doesn't use the same animation principles as the west. Anime has very little squashing and stretching, for instance, if any at all. And it was Street Fighter, a Japanese game, that made the genre popular.
Kalernor Osamu Tezuka was indeed heavily inspired by Walt Disney, but he took his own approach when making shows like Astro Boy. He didn't have the budget or manpower to employ those twelve principles, so he made up his own system, one that anime continues to use to this day. It's part of why anime has a distinct feel compared to western animation and why some western animators dislike anime. (Squash and stretch is not used at all, or used extremely minimally, because anime aims to use as few frames as possible. Squash and stretch only works when motion is fluid.) What I mean with shows like Batman TAS and Ultimate Spider-Man is that they use squash and stretch, but in subtle ways that you won't really notice it unless you look very closely. The human body really does squash and stretch in minor ways, and due to that, action becomes MORE realistic if a very small amount of squash and stretch is used in a work that aims for realism.
But I'm interested in the animation. I tried to make my characters their movement more alive with this technique. Like if they dash forward (jak and dax on his shoulder) Dax' body gets pulled back, the arm holding on is bigger and shows it carries more weight. Jak's body is bend back in an arch but yeah Imma try to do it even better with jak hitting the air with his fist attack. PS the slow-mo action of Jak and Dax only made it even better to look at
You guys should do Dragon's Dogma sometime! It's similar to Dark Souls in the way it portrays weight in motion, but Arcade-y enough that they've managed to translate a lot of Anime tropes into video games, too!
on the forward hit animation they messed up the right foot at the end. if you focus on it, you see the right leg snap from front to back, which looks kind of weird.
In my opinion Jak has some of the best gameplay animation around. The one where he grabs a ledge and then you press X to pull himself up and jump up the ledge I could watch all day.
While it isn't exactly part of the lesson, I think it was a shame that the "full" attack animations weren't shown. When you punch and then not move at the end, Daxter has this really cute "flailing in the air" animation, and sometimes he'll fling out in front of Jak just barely holding on to his shoulder plate. Same with spinning, sometimes Daxter will slap onto Jak's face and have to be peeled off!
When I saw "The Animation of Jak and Daxter" I immediately thought of the ground pound move, and then I saw "SQUASH & STRETCH" and thought "Yeah, that's about right."
+Gorfinhofin My favorite thing to do in the game was to hit the jump button just as Jack hit the ground in his Ground/Pound move, and he'd actually bounce up to jumping height, so I could ground/pound again.
Yes, I liked to travel around that way.
+Gorfinhofin not to mention the sound is really fucking satisfying
+Gorfinhofin All I could think of was the forward roll - long jump.
I feel like the airborne spin-kick would be pretty interesting in slow-mo as well.
This is one of my favorite games of all time.
+shadowsofjustice Same! The entire franchise is one of the my favorites, With Jak 3 as the best one (in my opinion)
This game is too great ;D So excited when he uploaded this
+Adam Murray Jak 3 is to Jak 2, just like Assassin's Creed 2 is to the first.
It's more of the same, only better in every single way imaginable. :D
+shadowsofjustice Jak and Daxter game is the best game.
Except for LoZ: Spirit Tracks. Nuthin beats trains.
I didn't like it when all the Sony first party studios went to realistic styles for the PS3 era. More graphical power can make cartoon styles look better as well. I didn't hate Uncharted, Resistance and Infamous, but I wanted more Jak and Daxter, and it took us entirely too long to get more Ratchet and Clank and Sly Cooper.
I am in fact working on a game with pretty cartoony animation, so this is a great help. I'll probably give up and abandon the project at some point just like with my previous attempts at making games, but the time spent making them is still fun and educational.
+Willcraft Animations
Man do I know how that is
squetch my favourite new word
Dan saying how Daxter catching up during the punch animation nearly throws him over Jak's shoulder. You see at the end there that if you don't hold the move button when you punch, the lack of forward momentum causes him to fly over the shoulder and have to crawl back up. I love these games and their animation so much
Learn about Game Animation with Dan! Today we're studying Jak & Daxter and the use of SQUASH & STRETCH!
+Extra Play This was fantastic! Easily my new favourite series on UA-cam. Any chance you could compare some Jak 3 to this at some point? It really came on leaps and bounds within the same generation
+Extra Play I wonder why more games don't have a transition animation between running and standing still. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
+Extra Play I assume part of the issue is also the fact that jak doesn't speak at all so his personality can only be gained through those animations which would be stragne if he was the only one so they got stuck in a bad situation where they needed jak to be expressive via moving around, but it would be strange if he was the only person who did it.
Jack does some strange move with his right foot and the end of the punch.
+Extra Play Please tell me you get far enough into this to show off some of the custom death animations that they did for some of the more interesting enemies. I seem to recall there's a distinct swallow effect on the giant plant fairly early in the game, and it would be interesting to hear you're comments onto the cost/benefit of that sort of 'this is only going to show up maybe once or twice in the game but we'll put a custom animation in for dying in this specific way' (I think it's more noticable with some of the enemies in Crash Bandicoot, since the giant plant was more 'what happens if you exit the screen in this way' rather than 'play this custom death animation if killed by this particular enemy that only appears in one or two levels rather than the usual one', so is less notable, perhaps?)
Something I love even further about punch animation is how Daxter's bones squash so far when he returns to Jak that he gets a lightning bolt shape for a few frames at the very end of the swing. Also loving this series especially with Jak and Daxter! To this day I return to it to play through it out of sheer love for the game.
I loved this game. The whole series is in my top 10 favorite games.
That's.... my childhood right there....
It's sad how much this game has been forgotten. They really are fun.
You only really get a chance to see it at the very end of the video, but the punch animation is a little longer when you use it while standing still. It gets cut down when you use it on the move, but if you don't move after using it, you get to see Daxter scurry around Jak's body while he tries to get back in place.
His kick spin is really exaggerated, as well. It looks really nice and Daxter struggling to hold on while his body is thrown outwards adds a nice touch.
Though I think the kick was added in Jak II.
5 years too late to comment but the kick was in the first game too
I was very young when I played Jak & Daxter for the first time, and this was one of the first games I've ever played that utilized squash & stretch this much. At that point I've really only seen it in cartoons.
i do like your new style of doing these dan! but i guess now you just got what you wanted to avoid with extra play, the massive workload of extra credits :DD you scripting the basics is really nice and being able to hear you comment on slowed down or repeated footage, also telling us to see what we can spot and then revisiting really adds to the video, and all while you still have your usual lets play laid-back-ness :D my respect for all the work you put into this :)
i hope you're not dropping your comment while playing completely in this series, it has its own charme :D
I knew the cut scene resolution improved from Jak & Daxter to Jak II, but seeing samples of both in the same video blew me away. I never realized the jump was that huge.
This series on game animations is brilliant! Thanks!
Awesome! I'll never be able to look at this game the same way after watching those animations slowed down. haha
Great job explaining Squash and Stretch!
I also noticed an animation I hadn't noticed before when you ended the video! Jak punched and stopped and since he stoppped, Daxter flew off his shoulder and then crawled around Jak to get back up to his shoulder.
It may be worth mentioning Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon when talking about squash and stretch, as those games both utilised vertex animation in order to achieve those very contorted, exaggerated in-between poses usually seen only in 2D, and the animation is certainly interesting stylistically because of that.
When you analysed that 2nd cutscene ....dear lord i have the exact same problem
From the sounds of what you're saying, a revival of the franchise would allow for some pretty nice animation going on - some more squash and stretch to make the cartoony performances better, maybe a different aesthetic style to sell it more (Not necessarially cell shaded, but... I do remember liking that sort of half way point Sly Racoon found between more traditional 3d game appearance of the time and cell shading, complete with thick chunky black outlines around the characters)
...Man, what happened to this franchise, anyway? I mean, sometimes a mascot franchise doesn't last past it's generation (And apparently Ratchet and Clank was still going on the quiet during the PS3 era so it's not like the mascot franchises of the PS2 just disappeared entirely as soon as Gen VI ended), but Jak and Daxter only seems to have been featured in 'compilation of all our stars' stuff and rereleases post PS2. Usually there's a failed attempt to keep a franchise alive on the next generation before it's killed, at least... Even Dizzy had a 16 bit title, and no-one outside of the UK was familiar with that franchise.
So glad you're doing this game! This was one of the first games I ever played and how Jak moved when attacking really really stuck with me. Especially as you unlock more attacks I remember how much fun it was simply to combo around. It's actually kinda validating to understand there was a reason why it stuck with me.
Another good example of this in motion in a 3D game is actually League of Legends' more recent champs/champ updates. If you look at the likes of Braum or Poppy during a few of their animations (their ults are the best examples) their arms extend to some twice the length of their bodies, they splat into the ground on contact, all that jazz. Was very interesting to look into when the rest of the game makes characters /seem/ so solid and grounded in some form of reality.
The distinction between the first and second games animation is also a design choice. The first one is more bouncy, friendly and busy. A classic adventure game type that anyone can pick up and instantly know that this is a playground and not to expect any deep or emotional plot twists.
Whereas the second is now a bit darker in tone and story. From the very first cut scene you instantly recognize the tonal shift.
Great Series, thank you for the analyzing.
Basically only following this channel for your animation explanation-showcasey-lesson things at this stage.
The quality gap to the other (mostly just talksy-rambly) videos is definitely noticeable, and the editing to help ingrain what you're talking about is on POINT.
Thank you for your effort! :0
This is why I'm dissapointed with the animation in the newer Ratchet And Clank games. When you swing the wrench in the ps2 ones, the wrench expands for cartoony emphasis, but now its just boring movement.
1:51 - The extremity of the SQUETCH may vary. Golden.
According to Pixar, Inside-out is the movie where they (Pixar) used the most Squash and Stretch, which considering they're 3D animated, that's very impressive
+Cordell Sherwood Yeah, Pixar's animation style is actually quite contained in terms of exaggeration and squash and stretch (at least, compared to other 3D studios like Disney, Dreamworks, Sony and Blue Sky). It was fun seeing them cut loose a bit more with the Emotions in Inside Out.
This is my favorite series. I grew up playing it and replaying it now brings so much joy.
Yes! I asked for this in the first "animation of X" episode! Jak 1-3 were my absolute favorite games back in the day.
With each episode entry in this series you improve Dan, if we watch the first episode and then the last we can see how much Dan really has gone a long way. Keep up the good work!
Jak and Daxter trilogy on PS3 for $20? PURCHASED.
+Dave Starr can't go wrong there.
I love that you're already referencing other animation principles like appeal and exaggeration throughout this episode. It's both laying some groundwork for the harder to understand principles and also pointing out just how good this animation is:)
My only question would be this, when dealing with a jump animation for a game, how do you deal with the lack of anticipation and squash/stretch for something the player wants to feel immediate?
Theres a different smash animation from standing still where daxter will fly way off the shoulder. I used to just smash all around untill I got that animation its very satisfying to see.
It been so long since I played this, I forgot how Dexter looked like before he got transformed.
Darkstalkers is a pretty good example of what you have talked about so far.
Omg I just saw a lets play of Jak and Daxter and noticed the awesome cartoony animation.
i think jak really compresses a lot in his jump to make room for the double jump
I'm actually loving this more with every episode. Really feel like dan's finally in his own little niche.
This made me take a real look at this game series which is one of my favorites. I never realized Jak actually slams his head into the ground with the ground pound haha. It makes me think how other cartoony games like World of Warcraft can bring a bigger sense of liveliness to the game with their technical limitations as it is a 12 year old game. Even with the high res models in legion it would be interesting to delve into their cartoony feel.
One of my favorite things I always love to flaunt around about this game is that this came out in 2001. While I love ratchet and sly (them being the other two mascots of the ps2), their debut games which came out a year after jak 1 don't look half as good in the animation department when compared to this. They're still fantastic and I understand that's not what Sly went for but it's truly amazing for the year that this game came out in so early in the ps2's life and it still looks one of the best.
I never got to play this game as a kid, but I like what I see!
Another thing I noticed in the cutscene was that the characters' upper teeth were moving with their mouths. Those teeth are attached to the skull!
I absolutely love the animation in J&D and it's really fascinating hearing an animation expert give their thoughts on it, and comparing it to animated movies. Great video!
1:50) The extremity of the Squech may vary.... Ok, you have made my day with that!
So much Jak and Daxter nostalgia right now...
Really need to get around to setting my PS2 back up.
You have no clue how happy I am you ended up getting to this game Dan. Watching you analyze the animation is such a great time.
I remember playing and loving this game years ago, and as soon as I read the title all the combat animations came back to memory and without pretty much any true technical animation knowledge I immediately knew what that principle talked about :D Also I'm really enjoying your method of explaining/analyzing animation, loving this series!
Two games I would be interested in. 1 more on shadow of the colossus in how each of the colossi convey the structure of their character in their animations. like how on part 4 you talk about how the animation conveys a lack of balance in how the 3rd colossus is built. The 2nd game I would be interested in would be smash brothers melee, just look at a couple characters ( personal recommendations Captain Falcon, Marth, Mario, and Peach ) in relation to how their animations convey the character of the character being played and their previous history, the play style of that character ( for the average player and professionally ), and also the responsiveness of actions. maybe talk about ideas on how to weigh all these different components of animation. Or even talk about how the camera effects how things will be animated. PLEASE
All of the yays for Dan doing this one, but the timing is a bit uncanny for me. i bought the trilogy again last weekend (It was my favourite game series back in the day, which was visible in how quickly I went through areas) and I've been playing this game since then, when I've had time, thinking of the animation as I played and how neat it would be for Dan to cover it, but thinking that he wouldn't. Lo and behold, here comes the video and I am very happy and pleased :D
Omg more of this game and series!!!!!! It's one of my all times favorites.
hahahah! Wow! Glad to see my suggestion on this actually beared its fruits! Thank you Extra Play! Please, keep brining them!!
Ohhhh boy
What a blast from the past!
What a fascinating series. I hadn't checked it out until now, but yeah, it's darn great. I'm going to go watch them all now.
Congrats Dan, you just got me to go back and replay these games.
A good example of Squash and Stretch done well in 3D is the movie Madagascar.
OMG! this video has really blown my mind, because you have explained me what i have never achieved to describe the reason why i loved so much this game. The lack of this type of animation is the worst thing that i could notice when i played for the first time Jak And Daxter lost frontier
I love that you used Steven Universe as an example. I actually recognized the episode. Man, it was something.
I always thought the fact that they toned down the performances in the sequel games also helped contribute to the darker tones the sequels had. Like the first game is so over the top and childish and that was added to with the wild animations in the cut scenes and then when you move to Jak 2 the game takes a much more serious tone to it that I feel is accentuated by the calmer (but still expressive) cut scene animation
Wow, this was really interesting. I really love his jump animation as well! It looks so smooth.
As someone who wants to make a game in the future, it's great watching videos like this. I might add a bit of squash and stretch to my game, since it will be pretty cartoony. I want to give it as much personality as I can.
Braum and Poppys ultimates in league of legends use the squash and stretch principles to get some great feelings of impact and weight.
Love all these videos on animation! Especially these ones on Jak and Daxter, I grew up playing these games and these animations are burned into my brain!
Unbelievable how good this game still looks.
this isofficially my favourite series of youtube
ratchet and clank uses a ton of squash and stretch. even did some bizarre "only in a cartoon could that happen" kind of movements
There definitely could have been more weight to the throw that Jak does at the beginning to blow up the lurker. He walks a few steps, which you assume is to get some momentum, but none of that momentum transfers into his throw, it looks very mechanical
I dunno, you're clearly more qualified to make the assessment than I am, but I didn't find the cutscene in Samos's hut to be too busy. It certainly has a lot going on, but it's all noticeable, and while it maybe isn't able to be appreciated in full because of how much going on there is, being able to notice more and more every time you watch a scene is a good thing in video games, it helps with replayability. Movies generally want the audience to be able to pick everything up, games don't do that as often. Some games even have entire scenes that you don't see if you don't play the game in a certain way, this comes across as simply a more subtle version of that. Personally, every gesture registers internally to a satisfying degree when I watch this, it doesn't feel too fast or forced or like I'm being distracted away from the main focus. And there is some variation in Samos's and Daxter's energy level. Samos remains grumpy and Daxter remains twitchy, but you can see Samos calm down in some lines, and get more excited in others. Daxter goes from energetic to spastic, which maybe doesn't register all that clearly, but it certainly happens. Seems like a really big component of the less distracting animation in later games is the relatively high polygon models, so you focus less on the sharp edges of things like Daxter's mouth. There is a bit of dryness in a lot of the cutscene animation in jak 1, but theres also that dryness in jak 2 imo, Daxter is a hard character to really make feel perfect because he's so expressive as a character. It might not be what you want for a movie, but I personally did not feel the same issues you bring up watching the cutscenes years ago or today. I can't know how common my opinion is, but as you mentioned in the skyrim mining animation video, effect on players is basically the final word when it comes to game creation, proper animation techniques and realism ultimately play second fiddle to player experience. I would be interested to see how many players noticed or were subconsciously impacted by this, versus how many professionals noticed it
It's interesting that you use the word "plastic" to describe something that is rigid and stiff, as the word plastic literally means flexible and moldable, and is where the term comes from. You can see the meaning of the word plastic preserved in things like "neuroplasticity" which talks about how changeable your brain matter is
Good video overall, great game and a very interesting topic especially nowadays with so few companies even attempting this, and many gamers having a distaste for certain kinds of nonrealism. Only complaint is I wish you briefly went over the punch-jump animation, as that one is really squishy compared to the jump-punch animation
God, I loved this game as a kid. I need to replay this series. Time to break out the old playstation.
holy shit, perfect analysis! Just learning animation and you really pointed the right direction for new learners to be more observant, it even got me interested in playing this game again.
Riot Games uses SnS fairly frequent and, if i recall correctly, even made a post about that regarding Braum.
Took me back to my childhood, it was a great game, and I was glad to see it again. I learned something about animation too!
Did you say squetch?
He did and I'm going to assume that was intentional XD
You guys should also make something about the animations in the Ace Attorney games, specially the latest ones (Dual Destinies and Dai Gyakuten Saiban). The animations on those are top-notch! Lots to learn about their characters based on their animations.
I think the music, sound effects and voice acting in this game is a lot more significant than the animation.
Wow now I cannot unsee the level of stretch Jak goes through when he jumps
I would have said that the toning down of character emoting between Jak 1 and 2 also highlighted that Naughty Dog were going for very different tones with the game, perhaps part of the reason they decided to tone down the animation was due to the highly exaggerated movements no longer gel with the slightly darker and more desperate world they were creating in Jak 2. They obviously still had a lot of those cartoon-y movements but they more punctuated the game to provide moments of levity rather than constant toony feel.
You really didn't get into much at all. So looking forward to the second part of this! (you could've at least put the iconic ground pound move into this ep though...) Also I personally have no issue with the 'every syllable has a pose' style of animating, it shows they really wanted to put effort into it and it just generally works well with the theme of the game. (and for me at least, it actually made it more memorable without detracting from the rest of it.)
This game...Oh SO many amazing memories!😄
And I LOVE that I got to see the breakdown of the animations!
Can't wait to hear you talk more on Jak & Daxter! 😄
really been loving the animation series so far, I'm looking forward to the next episode ^-^
I absolutely love this videos, Easily my favorite youtube content.
Please keep it up!
An animation student.
I love this series so much, Dan. Keep it up!
This is literally my favorite game ever
Really, really enjoying this series, Dan. Great work :)
Loved that last lil detail!
Love this series you're making, and great analysis.
maybe you could cover exaggerations in fighting games like Street Fighter Third Strike. The sprites are wonderfully drawn and animated with lots of nice exaggerations!
So what's to stop them from supplementing those weaknesses in the rig with blendshapes and other vertex-level deformations? More hardware limitations, like a lack of memory? Because that was my first thought, if you can't have additional bones to make the body feel malleable everywhere, sculpt a few poses with Daxter's head stretched out and blend between them.
Does that mean that when game animators create these rigs they include more bones in the sections they foresee themselves stretching in specific animations? Does it ever happen that animators will remove some underused bones once all the animations have been completed for performance reasons?
I want you guys ti finish this game later. It can be like a relaxation for Dark Souls
I don't know why, but this remind me of the artist Proko who also makes such nice videos about art. Same music taste and way of explaining haha
Jak, spyro, rayman and ratchet are my childhood basically.
Richard Williams's book ( The Animator's Survival Kit Printed and Video DVDs) are highly recommended if you want to learn and absorb the feel of cartoon :)
-m
This was not the place I expected to end up after clicking on the "Game mugs, y'all"-link
Hyped for this since you tweeted it out! Hoping you do Jak 2 as well!!
That's so awesome :) JAK is one of my favorite series of all time :)
Is there a plan to do an animation episode or tow about Assassin's Creed? It would be interesting to hear what you have to say about all the procedural stuff they've done to make sure the character animation works for every surface.
I like how you talk about the first game not those damned sequels
Now I have a thought: Squash and stretch is used a lot in Smash Bros. in subtle ways, but how come there isn't much of it in normal fighting games?
Kalernor
Even squash and stretch is used in serious action cartoons though, like Batman: The Animated Series or Ultimate Spider-Man. This video even demonstrates a use in Disney's Aladdin as a means to depict rapid movement rather than actual elasticity. Not having squash and stretch at all makes characters look stiff and metal-hard. This is brought up in the commentary for The Incredibles, where Pixar's animators were trying to figure out how much squashing and stretching there needed to be for it to look natural. You probably wouldn't notice it at all besides Elasti-Girl, but if you see the movie frame by frame, it's there.
That being said, you have a point there: They're trying to look realistic, and except for Mortal Kombat, they come from Japan, which doesn't use the same animation principles as the west. Anime has very little squashing and stretching, for instance, if any at all. And it was Street Fighter, a Japanese game, that made the genre popular.
Kalernor
Osamu Tezuka was indeed heavily inspired by Walt Disney, but he took his own approach when making shows like Astro Boy. He didn't have the budget or manpower to employ those twelve principles, so he made up his own system, one that anime continues to use to this day. It's part of why anime has a distinct feel compared to western animation and why some western animators dislike anime. (Squash and stretch is not used at all, or used extremely minimally, because anime aims to use as few frames as possible. Squash and stretch only works when motion is fluid.)
What I mean with shows like Batman TAS and Ultimate Spider-Man is that they use squash and stretch, but in subtle ways that you won't really notice it unless you look very closely. The human body really does squash and stretch in minor ways, and due to that, action becomes MORE realistic if a very small amount of squash and stretch is used in a work that aims for realism.
But I'm interested in the animation. I tried to make my characters their movement more alive with this technique. Like if they dash forward (jak and dax on his shoulder) Dax' body gets pulled back, the arm holding on is bigger and shows it carries more weight. Jak's body is bend back in an arch but yeah Imma try to do it even better with jak hitting the air with his fist attack. PS the slow-mo action of Jak and Dax only made it even better to look at
You guys should do Dragon's Dogma sometime! It's similar to Dark Souls in the way it portrays weight in motion, but Arcade-y enough that they've managed to translate a lot of Anime tropes into video games, too!
This is a great episode. Thanks Dan!
You should get all the 12 principles of animation basics clips and put them all together as just a couple of videos like Alan Becker.
oh god this game is the one responsible for my extreme phobia of man eating fish in video games, this and duke nukem.....well that one was a slime
holy poo...dan sounds reeeeeeally different without the voice manipulation
on the forward hit animation they messed up the right foot at the end. if you focus on it, you see the right leg snap from front to back, which looks kind of weird.