IMO, me falling over for no reason, and taking way too long to pick up objects is the opposite of immersion. Jedi Fallen Order had wonky animations at times, but it was fluid. RDR2 had realistic animations, but it slowed down gameplay, and was unresponsive. It’s nice to have the best of both worlds, but I’ll take fluidity over “realistic” any day.
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy Yeah, and the aspect of scanning the plants to add their info to your collection and going to the moon to check what you've missed can just, create that perfect mix of Getting Over It and Banjo Kazooie!
Euphoria is awesome. We used it for a shortfilm I worked on some years ago that never came out. It was for a medieval battle scene, we had some semi-professional stuntmen for the close to camera stuff and planned on filling in the background with CG characters and using Euphoria to have them react to being hit by an arrow, reacting to a rock from a catapult landing next to them, etc.
I checked and you are right. Euphoria is their thing for games and their film software was called Endorphin, which runs on the same technology basically. I just recognized the puppets you showed in the video.
That was great! It's amazing what you notice just by slowing down the animations. You know it's all there and doing it's job through the feel of a game, but the detail is really evident when viewed frame by frame. That whole bit about Grow Home was really interesting too. B.U.D is such a great character. Dan- you rock!!
Related: For smooth animations, I like the technique Gwen Fray demonstrated during GDC ua-cam.com/video/LNvA6caxHzs/v-deo.html and David Rosens procedural animation for overgrowth ua-cam.com/video/LNidsMesxSE/v-deo.html Both these techniques seem to produce "good looking results" without being rockstar :)
I think a good example is yakuza 3 and yakuza 4. It's only a tiny difference, but there is a little more animation for smoother transitions. But it does make movement itself feel a little more sluggish then before. Visual there isn't much difference. But holding the controller makes you have really feel the difference
Another fascinating video! I've thought about fluidity in the past but not really given this much consideration, so it's interesting to learn how this works. The Rockstar example of lengthy animations is interesting. I think there's a fine balance in fluidity, it's important for the game to still feel responsive. As a player, I'm more interested in feeling like the player moves instantly when I instruct them, and I wonder if too much fluidity can lead to a game feeling laggy even if it isn't just because the player doesn't feel like they're instantly running or jumping etc? How many frames of transition are too many to make the game feel slow?
I know, there's a lot to consider, right? Like when you jump as Batman on the NES, there's actually a delay, but it's built in so you can decide the direction of your jump in that time. I think Feel is the most important. Thanks for that sweet, sweet algorithm!
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy All glory to the Algorithm. Seriously, though, I really liked this one, it's given me a lot to think about. There's a lot of stuff in game animation we just accept without thinking about it, so it's interesting to pick things apart and see how they work.
[Intricate Mechanics(Actions + Key Frames)^All Environmental Interactions] - [(Player Immersion * Game Feel)^Game immersion] = The Right amount of game animation. .... That's the equation I got from creeping on this conversation. I could be wrong.
That's a good point. i'm playing Dark Souls remastered for Switch right now, and I have noticed some response delays that ultimately affect whether I survive an encounter or not. I don't know why that is. I don't drop frames.
While you were talking about the fluidity in the beginning of early games, I was like 'well, my first game was Tomb Raider. I don't remember that prob-' and you addressed it right off the bat which made me very happy.
Your previous video on poses is also a keynpoint when it comes to fluidity. Like you said, megaman 8's jump feels more sluggish. It's more fluid, but feels really slow. Even though the jump is technically the same
As someone who plays loads of Retro games, fluidity is something I sadly don't give enough love. I do see it in modern games but fluidity seems to become fluid and spill through the cracks and I don't appreciate it much due to this. I think I will start looking out for more fluidity in games now and give some love to it finally. Great video!
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy It's a pun because fluids can spill and if something goes unnoticed, people often say "Sliped through the cracks" and... Yeah. It's basically a Dad Joke I have to add to the book.
I actually am rlly interested to see how procedural animation into games develip. Noteworthy ones are Rainworld. I also follow that new Spider game too.
My my Dan you're uploading more frequently these days. Hopefully one day you'll be able to make this a regular where you upload once every two weeks or perhaps once every week (wishful thinking I know)
Coincidentally, I think the first game I played with it’s fluidity was the Tomb Raider reboot. Just having fun jumping and running around, watching the animations!
So, correctly if I'm wrong. Game feel is about the responsiveness between input-animation. While fluidity is about animation-animation transition. When I implement jump mechanic, I find them mutually exclusive, can't have both. A jump divided into 3 phase: - 1, jump anticipation, character retract himself, preparing for a jump. Input blocked. - 2, jump in air, character spring up in the air. - 3, jump recover, character landed in squashed shape, he is now recovering to idle pose. Input blocked. To maintain game feel, I cut off phase 1 and 3, causing character to jump straight up unhindered with its animation not so convincing. The other case, keeping phase 1 and 3 will produce a believable animation, but the character feel a little sluggish. What would you do in this case?
Well this is the balance one has to consider when creating game animations. Ultimately, Feel should come first. It doesn't matter if Mega Man has no anticipation or follow through action when jumping because he feels good to play when you can have that pixel-perfect input, the same with Hollow Knight. Whereas with Lara Croft, the anticipation is needed so you can have time.to think about where you want the jump to go etc. There's no right or wrong answer, really.
Something the industry has left me behind on you touched on in the first part of the video. Taking control away from me as the player to make something look nicer to you the developer is a game design smell and always will be. No matter how slight. Games today now feel _terrible_ to play for me. Everything just feels sluggish and clunky. Some games have done better jobs at mitigating this problem than others, but it is a problem of our own creation. I simply have less fun with games today than I used to. They look better, but they play worse. It is at the point that I virtually play no modern action games as a result. The handful I have played all the way through have been very clever about this. For example, the zoomed in camera in God of War (PS4) enabled the developers to more often than not crop out Kratos' feet, which means they could be more sloppy with the specifics of his foot placement which in turn allows him to feel more responsive.
Hum, weird that you gave PS4's _GoW_ has an example of responsiveness. Zooming in completely restricted the action and turned one of the nimblest characters in gaming into one of the clumsiest -- everything felt sluggish. The devs were so obsessed with delivering the awfully sappy cinematic experience, snobbishly insisting that _"it's NOT a gaming script; it's a script",_ that they eschewed the kinetic energy of previous entries for one so restrictive that felt the need for a *radar* around Kratos... I mean, even zoomed-in God Hand from 2006 managed to get around such a nonsensical crutch. Everything about this new GoW felt slow as molasses, really: from the carrying of nth heavy crystals, to the obligatory exposition walks sections, to even being unable to open chests during battles.
@@Target00smile I didn't say it was better than the OG GoWs but, honestly, your take away should be more like "Is the rest of modern gaming _that_ bad that this is an example of doing it well?" and the answer is yes.
@@DampeS8N Nor have I implied that you did. You'd be a horrendous blasphemer if you did, and I'm not even much of a fan of the series. But _action_ itself -- its mechanics, the overall genre, Et al. -- in modern gaming is one of the few things that isn't dire. Numerous modern games have shined in this despite their embarrassing writing, predatory business practices, etc. In sum, this GoW wasn't an example of _"doing it well"_ at all imo.
@@Target00smile Well. Let's put it this way. Action that _isn't_ multiplayer. If you have some modern examples of AAA action games that aren't multiplayer which are doing it well, I'm all ears. Er, eyes.
@@DampeS8N _Action_ is such a broad genre; you’d have to be more specific, bud. As for high-octane action similar to GoW, there’s *DMC5* which (although I despise it) isn’t a step down from previous entries in those terms. BTW, why the sudden AAA parameter when looking better isn't synonymous with it? Platinum games usually delivers something at least interesting, like their recent *Astral Chain* -- speaking of which, their neat *Wonderful 101* is coming out for the Switch, too. Then there’re the countless *Souls games* with their unobtrusive online features. Let's see, how about the Run ‘N Gun *Cuphead* or titles like the last *Hitman* which allow you to go gung ho? Oh, and *Kingdom Come: Deliverance* was a spectacular experience with solid & immersive first-person combat. Do any of these examples count?
Love the vids to be honest I don’t think I’d have the same view on games if it weren’t for seeing you stuff I’m definitely taking notes and using these points for my career
Why do you think a lack of blending is jarring with modern games but not with classics? Is it simply due to how few frames the animations had generally with 16 and especially 8 bit games, as you discussed with your key pose video (pointing out that sometimes adding extra frames hurts the overall quality)? Come to think of it, could it be argued that that Dizzy's rolling animation, where his jump transitions into his idle by completing the rotation is an early attempt at fluidity in game animation?
Well it's not that it's _not_ jarring in classics, it's just more so in modern games because you don't expect it because the tools are there to aid in transitioning frames. Ah yes, I remember Dizzy's rolling animation....
It's impossible to license Euphoria Natural Motion engine any longer, it has been bought up by Zynga, and then discontinued, and all the developers fired. When trying to reimplement it from scratch, you'll run afoul of patents, and unpredictable licensing costs if Zynga can be reasoned with at all. Furthermore Euphoria is notoriously difficult to work with, it needs a lot of manual markup and suffers from combinatorial explosion. I'm kinda surprised no modern Ubisoft games have made an appearance in this video, though one classic did.
Is there a reason I think of Dark Souls when I think of procedural animation, specifically like someone standing on stairs and having one foot higher than the other?
That's called in inverse kinematics, and it's a type of procedural animation in that it connects parts of a body to the game world, and it doing in-game maths.
No disrespect to the author of the book but I'm a bit hesitant to call fluidity a fundamental. I feel like it excludes way too many games, especially ones where you need snappy transitions (fighting games come to mind). Fluidity can definitely help sell the clarity of the action by giving it more weight, but snappiness can also sell clarity in certain situations (hurt/death animations for example). I also feel that realism and immersion shouldn't always be the end goal and don't necessarily make a game "better".
That's not the point of the fundamental, it's the point that you have to think of transition animations, even if you don't have any. Like you say, it's more important to get game *feel* right first, the previous fundamental. Mega Man 11 had small transitioning animations but it still felt the same as classic Mega Man games, as the transitions didn't interfer with gameplay.
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy It works perfectly now! There is still a typo in the link on the website though, it says source=videogameanumationstudy instead of animation. It doesn't bother me, but I just wanted to let you know.
It may be serving the *Feel* of the game first though. Fluidity isn't required for all games if it doesn't help anything, or if you don't have the budget (although Bethesda have the budget)
God please do something about your voice audio. Your content is pretty interesting, but what an annoyance it was to hear the background noise pop in and out everytime your voice came in. Where does it come from? It's not in your other video's? (although the previous video on feel has it also slightly, but I could still it ignore it there) Anyway just a tip. Keep up the good work man, it's nice to have a channel out here focusing on game animation! You think there's one about game audio as well? Might be interesting. To me as well as you :p I guess
How are you watching the video? I test it out on my computer through speakers and headphones. It's not the greatest audio, but unfortunately I don't have the means or expense to record perfect audio like big channels. It'll just have to do, I'm afraid.
I just used my laptop's speakers, but I also hear it using headphones. But if I'm the only one noticing it never mind me, in the end it does do :p Probably if you start hearing it, it's hard to unhear it again...
Dude, I have no idea what you're talking about. Even if you can hear popping it's not a big enough deal to comment on, let alone start your 'contribution' with this nitpicky, negative point. I listened to it on my TV soundbar and it was absolutely fine. Dan- it's not an issue. Keep doing what you're doing!!!
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy There is some background noise in the recordings. I dont think its a big deal. It is probably because you use a standard line-in instead of an externeral audio card.
I don't get it. Why are you completely brushing startup animations and tween poses of frame by frame animations under the rug and basically only talking about blending and AI stuffs. Like, yeah, there are amazing tools for skeleton animations out there, but this shit is done in frame by frame as well, like the landing animation you touched upon. And like, choosing a starting frame that flows out of previous states does a lot to make animations look good. Like, a common one is the frame you pick as the first frame of your walking animation is always the one that flows out of the idle pose well.
Well I can't make the video half an hour long as I just don't have the time unfortunately, but I'll definitely touch upon this again in future, cos I'd love to explore 2D transition frames, as I agree with you, it's much harder I think.
If any indie developer asked for tips on how to make good animation I'd recommend this channel on the spot.
There’s no doubt this whole video was just an excuse to gush over Zero’s hair yet again.
Drat!
zero is so hot
zero is so hot
@@ohnoknux4163 he's so hot that you have to comment twice to express your admiration
good yes
Been waiting on the next one of these. I’ve never animated in my life but this stuff is fascinating to me. Keep it up!
Thanks for watching! It's surprising both how important animation is to games and how much beging to notice it once you do.
I appreciate effort in fluidity but do not prefer the hinderence to control.
Yep, *fluidity* and *feel* have to be finely balanced to give a great experience.
IMO, me falling over for no reason, and taking way too long to pick up objects is the opposite of immersion. Jedi Fallen Order had wonky animations at times, but it was fluid. RDR2 had realistic animations, but it slowed down gameplay, and was unresponsive. It’s nice to have the best of both worlds, but I’ll take fluidity over “realistic” any day.
That's fair. It depends on what sort of experience the devs want you to have, like in Death Stranding.
The background music from Grow Up brings back memories... God, I remember 100%-ing that game on my xbox in 2016.
Bloody love the soundtrack to that game!
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy Yeah, and the aspect of scanning the plants to add their info to your collection and going to the moon to check what you've missed can just, create that perfect mix of Getting Over It and Banjo Kazooie!
Euphoria is awesome. We used it for a shortfilm I worked on some years ago that never came out. It was for a medieval battle scene, we had some semi-professional stuntmen for the close to camera stuff and planned on filling in the background with CG characters and using Euphoria to have them react to being hit by an arrow, reacting to a rock from a catapult landing next to them, etc.
Oh that's really cool, I thought it was just a game engine thing!
I checked and you are right. Euphoria is their thing for games and their film software was called Endorphin, which runs on the same technology basically. I just recognized the puppets you showed in the video.
Oh sweet! That's cool they have different versions for different applications!
That was great! It's amazing what you notice just by slowing down the animations. You know it's all there and doing it's job through the feel of a game, but the detail is really evident when viewed frame by frame. That whole bit about Grow Home was really interesting too. B.U.D is such a great character. Dan- you rock!!
Thanks Ben you little sweetie.
Yeah, B.U.D is bloody great, I'm interested to play *Grow Up* to see if any of the animation has changed at all.
Aww yeah, Sheep Dog 'n Wolf soundtrack. I see You're a man of culture as well
The thing I hate about your channel
is that it doesn't have enough subs
Plot twist!
Related: For smooth animations, I like the technique Gwen Fray demonstrated during GDC ua-cam.com/video/LNvA6caxHzs/v-deo.html and David Rosens procedural animation for overgrowth ua-cam.com/video/LNidsMesxSE/v-deo.html Both these techniques seem to produce "good looking results" without being rockstar :)
Awesome, thanks for this!
I think a good example is yakuza 3 and yakuza 4. It's only a tiny difference, but there is a little more animation for smoother transitions. But it does make movement itself feel a little more sluggish then before. Visual there isn't much difference. But holding the controller makes you have really feel the difference
Love that Stardust Speedway Past remix at the end!
Another fascinating video! I've thought about fluidity in the past but not really given this much consideration, so it's interesting to learn how this works.
The Rockstar example of lengthy animations is interesting. I think there's a fine balance in fluidity, it's important for the game to still feel responsive. As a player, I'm more interested in feeling like the player moves instantly when I instruct them, and I wonder if too much fluidity can lead to a game feeling laggy even if it isn't just because the player doesn't feel like they're instantly running or jumping etc? How many frames of transition are too many to make the game feel slow?
I know, there's a lot to consider, right? Like when you jump as Batman on the NES, there's actually a delay, but it's built in so you can decide the direction of your jump in that time.
I think Feel is the most important.
Thanks for that sweet, sweet algorithm!
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy All glory to the Algorithm.
Seriously, though, I really liked this one, it's given me a lot to think about. There's a lot of stuff in game animation we just accept without thinking about it, so it's interesting to pick things apart and see how they work.
[Intricate Mechanics(Actions + Key Frames)^All Environmental Interactions] - [(Player Immersion * Game Feel)^Game immersion] = The Right amount of game animation.
....
That's the equation I got from creeping on this conversation. I could be wrong.
That's a good point. i'm playing Dark Souls remastered for Switch right now, and I have noticed some response delays that ultimately affect whether I survive an encounter or not. I don't know why that is. I don't drop frames.
I'd love to see a video on animating for isometrics! Some of the "Keep silhouettes distinct" and "Read across axis" tips are much more challenging!
Love these fundamentals videos, I bought the book but never have the time to read it, so your videos really help out!
Awesome! I'd recommend finding the time to read it as it goes into so much more detail than I can right now.
This was good to learn.
While you were talking about the fluidity in the beginning of early games, I was like 'well, my first game was Tomb Raider. I don't remember that prob-' and you addressed it right off the bat which made me very happy.
Your previous video on poses is also a keynpoint when it comes to fluidity. Like you said, megaman 8's jump feels more sluggish. It's more fluid, but feels really slow. Even though the jump is technically the same
This is extremely informative, thank you!
As someone who plays loads of Retro games, fluidity is something I sadly don't give enough love. I do see it in modern games but fluidity seems to become fluid and spill through the cracks and I don't appreciate it much due to this. I think I will start looking out for more fluidity in games now and give some love to it finally.
Great video!
Thanks!
How do you mean "spill through the cracks"? 🤔
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy It's a pun because fluids can spill and if something goes unnoticed, people often say "Sliped through the cracks" and... Yeah. It's basically a Dad Joke I have to add to the book.
good stuff
It really makes you fluidity like Bud
I actually am rlly interested to see how procedural animation into games develip. Noteworthy ones are Rainworld. I also follow that new Spider game too.
This video is so thorough!!! thank you!
Love your videos
My my Dan you're uploading more frequently these days. Hopefully one day you'll be able to make this a regular where you upload once every two weeks or perhaps once every week (wishful thinking I know)
Ha! Only because these sets of videos are sponsored 😆
I think I'd blow a fuse if I uploaded weekly, I definitely prefer taking my time!
Video Game Animation Study ha yeah especially with your kids all up on ya I completely understand why you take your time making these videos
Coincidentally, I think the first game I played with it’s fluidity was the Tomb Raider reboot. Just having fun jumping and running around, watching the animations!
Yeah it's really nice! Haven't played the sequels yet, but interested to see what they do.
Next a video about fluidity in jiggle physics. We deserve it as gamers!
If that means exploring the majestic fluidity & feel of Itagaki-era Team Ninja, then F yeah I’m all for it!! 🤘
So, correctly if I'm wrong. Game feel is about the responsiveness between input-animation. While fluidity is about animation-animation transition. When I implement jump mechanic, I find them mutually exclusive, can't have both. A jump divided into 3 phase:
- 1, jump anticipation, character retract himself, preparing for a jump. Input blocked.
- 2, jump in air, character spring up in the air.
- 3, jump recover, character landed in squashed shape, he is now recovering to idle pose. Input blocked.
To maintain game feel, I cut off phase 1 and 3, causing character to jump straight up unhindered with its animation not so convincing. The other case, keeping phase 1 and 3 will produce a believable animation, but the character feel a little sluggish.
What would you do in this case?
Well this is the balance one has to consider when creating game animations. Ultimately, Feel should come first. It doesn't matter if Mega Man has no anticipation or follow through action when jumping because he feels good to play when you can have that pixel-perfect input, the same with Hollow Knight.
Whereas with Lara Croft, the anticipation is needed so you can have time.to think about where you want the jump to go etc.
There's no right or wrong answer, really.
Something the industry has left me behind on you touched on in the first part of the video. Taking control away from me as the player to make something look nicer to you the developer is a game design smell and always will be. No matter how slight. Games today now feel _terrible_ to play for me. Everything just feels sluggish and clunky. Some games have done better jobs at mitigating this problem than others, but it is a problem of our own creation. I simply have less fun with games today than I used to. They look better, but they play worse. It is at the point that I virtually play no modern action games as a result. The handful I have played all the way through have been very clever about this. For example, the zoomed in camera in God of War (PS4) enabled the developers to more often than not crop out Kratos' feet, which means they could be more sloppy with the specifics of his foot placement which in turn allows him to feel more responsive.
Hum, weird that you gave PS4's _GoW_ has an example of responsiveness. Zooming in completely restricted the action and turned one of the nimblest characters in gaming into one of the clumsiest -- everything felt sluggish. The devs were so obsessed with delivering the awfully sappy cinematic experience, snobbishly insisting that _"it's NOT a gaming script; it's a script",_ that they eschewed the kinetic energy of previous entries for one so restrictive that felt the need for a *radar* around Kratos...
I mean, even zoomed-in God Hand from 2006 managed to get around such a nonsensical crutch. Everything about this new GoW felt slow as molasses, really: from the carrying of nth heavy crystals, to the obligatory exposition walks sections, to even being unable to open chests during battles.
@@Target00smile I didn't say it was better than the OG GoWs but, honestly, your take away should be more like "Is the rest of modern gaming _that_ bad that this is an example of doing it well?" and the answer is yes.
@@DampeS8N Nor have I implied that you did. You'd be a horrendous blasphemer if you did, and I'm not even much of a fan of the series. But _action_ itself -- its mechanics, the overall genre, Et al. -- in modern gaming is one of the few things that isn't dire. Numerous modern games have shined in this despite their embarrassing writing, predatory business practices, etc.
In sum, this GoW wasn't an example of _"doing it well"_ at all imo.
@@Target00smile Well. Let's put it this way. Action that _isn't_ multiplayer. If you have some modern examples of AAA action games that aren't multiplayer which are doing it well, I'm all ears. Er, eyes.
@@DampeS8N _Action_ is such a broad genre; you’d have to be more specific, bud. As for high-octane action similar to GoW, there’s *DMC5* which (although I despise it) isn’t a step down from previous entries in those terms. BTW, why the sudden AAA parameter when looking better isn't synonymous with it?
Platinum games usually delivers something at least interesting, like their recent *Astral Chain* -- speaking of which, their neat *Wonderful 101* is coming out for the Switch, too. Then there’re the countless *Souls games* with their unobtrusive online features. Let's see, how about the Run ‘N Gun *Cuphead* or titles like the last *Hitman* which allow you to go gung ho? Oh, and *Kingdom Come: Deliverance* was a spectacular experience with solid & immersive first-person combat.
Do any of these examples count?
Love the vids to be honest I don’t think I’d have the same view on games if it weren’t for seeing you stuff I’m definitely taking notes and using these points for my career
That's awesome to hear!
Why do you think a lack of blending is jarring with modern games but not with classics? Is it simply due to how few frames the animations had generally with 16 and especially 8 bit games, as you discussed with your key pose video (pointing out that sometimes adding extra frames hurts the overall quality)? Come to think of it, could it be argued that that Dizzy's rolling animation, where his jump transitions into his idle by completing the rotation is an early attempt at fluidity in game animation?
Well it's not that it's _not_ jarring in classics, it's just more so in modern games because you don't expect it because the tools are there to aid in transitioning frames.
Ah yes, I remember Dizzy's rolling animation....
It's impossible to license Euphoria Natural Motion engine any longer, it has been bought up by Zynga, and then discontinued, and all the developers fired. When trying to reimplement it from scratch, you'll run afoul of patents, and unpredictable licensing costs if Zynga can be reasoned with at all. Furthermore Euphoria is notoriously difficult to work with, it needs a lot of manual markup and suffers from combinatorial explosion.
I'm kinda surprised no modern Ubisoft games have made an appearance in this video, though one classic did.
That intro, for a minute I thought I was on the wrong channel: ReviewTechUSA's.
Oooooh do they use the same generic UA-cam music? 😆
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy He ends his' with that music, so I thought I re-clicked on his and the last bits were playing.
I watch these video for the love you bye
Just commenting to help the algorithm.
Just replying to help the algorithm
Bump
Is there a reason I think of Dark Souls when I think of procedural animation, specifically like someone standing on stairs and having one foot higher than the other?
That's called in inverse kinematics, and it's a type of procedural animation in that it connects parts of a body to the game world, and it doing in-game maths.
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy Ah, got it. Still wonder why Dark Souls is the example that comes to mind 😅
The character on the Game Anim book looks a few changes away from a C&D from Nintendo.
Who does it look like?
The dislike must be the solid bodily function
What is the game at 1:43?
Metal slug
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy Thank you!
No disrespect to the author of the book but I'm a bit hesitant to call fluidity a fundamental. I feel like it excludes way too many games, especially ones where you need snappy transitions (fighting games come to mind). Fluidity can definitely help sell the clarity of the action by giving it more weight, but snappiness can also sell clarity in certain situations (hurt/death animations for example). I also feel that realism and immersion shouldn't always be the end goal and don't necessarily make a game "better".
That's not the point of the fundamental, it's the point that you have to think of transition animations, even if you don't have any.
Like you say, it's more important to get game *feel* right first, the previous fundamental.
Mega Man 11 had small transitioning animations but it still felt the same as classic Mega Man games, as the transitions didn't interfer with gameplay.
The squarespace link doesn't work!
Oh! Hmm, it's been approved by my sponsors, I'll double check it and get back to you!
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy I think it's because the link has been shortened with the "..." at the end. Hope you get it fixed soon. Great video btw! (:
It's funny, I type and paste it fully into the description, and when I view it in Studio it still shows, so I'll have to chat to my sponsor.
Okay, try it now!
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy It works perfectly now! There is still a typo in the link on the website though, it says source=videogameanumationstudy instead of animation. It doesn't bother me, but I just wanted to let you know.
Fluidity is something Bethesda games greatly lacks.
It may be serving the *Feel* of the game first though. Fluidity isn't required for all games if it doesn't help anything, or if you don't have the budget (although Bethesda have the budget)
Now we all know Pokémon sword and shield have the best animations in all of gaming.
*360° Rotation*
What about the lack of animation in pokemon games?
Interesting, but not particularly relevant to this particular video, I don't think.
This video was made to gush over British devs
Scottish people hate being called British.
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy Sorry to this day I still don't understand the UK
Nor do we.
God please do something about your voice audio. Your content is pretty interesting, but what an annoyance it was to hear the background noise pop in and out everytime your voice came in. Where does it come from? It's not in your other video's? (although the previous video on feel has it also slightly, but I could still it ignore it there) Anyway just a tip. Keep up the good work man, it's nice to have a channel out here focusing on game animation!
You think there's one about game audio as well? Might be interesting. To me as well as you :p I guess
I dont hear it
How are you watching the video? I test it out on my computer through speakers and headphones.
It's not the greatest audio, but unfortunately I don't have the means or expense to record perfect audio like big channels.
It'll just have to do, I'm afraid.
I just used my laptop's speakers, but I also hear it using headphones. But if I'm the only one noticing it never mind me, in the end it does do :p Probably if you start hearing it, it's hard to unhear it again...
Dude, I have no idea what you're talking about. Even if you can hear popping it's not a big enough deal to comment on, let alone start your 'contribution' with this nitpicky, negative point. I listened to it on my TV soundbar and it was absolutely fine. Dan- it's not an issue. Keep doing what you're doing!!!
@@VideoGameAnimationStudy There is some background noise in the recordings. I dont think its a big deal. It is probably because you use a standard line-in instead of an externeral audio card.
I don't get it. Why are you completely brushing startup animations and tween poses of frame by frame animations under the rug and basically only talking about blending and AI stuffs. Like, yeah, there are amazing tools for skeleton animations out there, but this shit is done in frame by frame as well, like the landing animation you touched upon.
And like, choosing a starting frame that flows out of previous states does a lot to make animations look good. Like, a common one is the frame you pick as the first frame of your walking animation is always the one that flows out of the idle pose well.
Well I can't make the video half an hour long as I just don't have the time unfortunately, but I'll definitely touch upon this again in future, cos I'd love to explore 2D transition frames, as I agree with you, it's much harder I think.