Hello, and welcome back, to our newest devlog!
Today we will talk about creating animations in our game. Animation in a broad sense is any dynamics on the scene. But here, we divide everything into several aspects: character animation, cutscenes animation and technical animation.
There is only one animator in our studio and Torn Away was a huge challenge for him. When we first started working on the game, no one could have imagined that the number of all animations would become so huge. Add here an almost complete restart — when we heavily redesigned the main character — and you will understand his pain!
Despite the fact that the animator's experience was mainly in frame-by-frame animation, we jointly decided that we would do skeletal 2d animation in the Spine software.
This made the whole process more flexible and customizable. For example, we can remove certain items of clothing without having to redraw all the frames again. This can be done on the engine side.
The same works for the emotions on the girl's face. We can change them, regardless of the movement of the body.
Even though we're doing skeletal animation, the experience of frame-by-frame animation helped us create more lifelike motion. Here you can see how for the animation of running and falling, the linear version was first performed, and then the final one in Spine
Choosing the right tool and approach is a vital part of any development process. It is important to explore all the possibilities in order to understand which one will be the most optimal.
For example, at a certain stage of development, we considered the possibility of transferring the character to 3D. Thus, it would be more convenient for us to build interactions with a three-dimensional environment.
But our animator had no experience in 3D animation, and the character himself turned out to be not as expressive as his 2D ancestor.
We share the first tests of 3D animation using the free Mixamo service, and trained Asya to fight, just for this one occurrence ;)
We also planned to make several different death screens using animation presets. But later we realized that we would not pull the production of truly diverse and interesting screens. The idea had to be abandoned.
Speaking about other ideas that had to be abandoned, I would like to recall the animation of the hands when viewed from the first person. As planned, in all or most of the mini-games, we had to see the hands of the main character. Here is one of the first prototypes.
But doing them all in 3D would be really expensive, and the 2D animation wasn't that convincing.
I would like to say a few words about the iterative approach in creating dramatic moments in scenes.
The main difficulty when working with them is that it is important for us to convey the idea using a visual language - graphics and animation. But at the same time, we want the player not to spoil the dramatic moment for themselves by doing something wrong. Therefore, we have to find a balance between interactivity and prepared animations.
The process usually starts with a script and a rough storyboard.
Then a concept that sets the mood.
Next, we block out and try to understand how it will look in dynamics.
Then in color.
After all of this, the finish line is a stone's throw away! In theory. In practicality, there were many more iterations, especially a lot of time is spent on character animation and coordination of all elements together.
And if in scenes like the previous one, the emphasis is on beautiful graphics and character animation, then in first-person scenes, technical art (shaders, particle systems) and well-thought-out level design rule.
Here you can see some of the internals of the blizzard scene.
After a few experiments, our game designer and programmer managed to get the right feel for this scene. Cold and helplessness is what we strived for, so we keep pressing on!
Yes, for an unprepared viewer, it looks very sketchy, but our artists immediately see how to bring this scene to a finished look.
What this location looks like now you'll just have to find out for yourself, but for now I'm leaving you with a tiny teaser ;)
We often wondered: maybe we should have made a simple game, focusing only on 2D graphics?
But doing different experiments with each scene, we understood that our path, however difficult, is worth it.
The possibilities that open up for setting up light, materials, angles are simply breathtaking.
Nevertheless, no matter how exciting our experiments with technical art are, we do not forget about the emotion evoked by hand-drawn graphics. Our story is filled with dozens of painstakingly drawn illustrations, which we brought to life with the help of the previously voiced Spine.
Here too, everything starts with rough storyboards.
Then comes the stage of preparing illustrations.
Well, in the end - the detailing of graphics and animation. The scene comes to life.
Here I also want to share a few sketches of frame-by-frame animation. Such sketches often help us find the right mood for a particular scene.
We hope you enjoyed today's story as much as the previous ones!
See you soon!