Welcome to Silver Pines
Welcome to the first of our Behind the Pines Dev Blogs! We're aiming to share more of these behind-the-scenes blogs in the lead up to Silver Pines' release on October 8th, covering a variety of different topics including the game's worldbuilding, inspirations, and metroidvania elements. But today we wanted to peel back the curtain on Silver Pines' animation and more specifically, the rotoscoping process.
This is a topic that we've been asked about a lot, so grab a cup of black coffee and settle in! It's time to head Behind the Pines.
What is Rotoscoping?
All of the character animation in Silver Pines uses an old-school process called rotoscoping, where animations are first captured on film and then drawn over frame-by-frame. This method was invented in 1915 and was used across animated movies in the following decades, especially when animators wanted to capture the flow of realistic human movements. For example, rotoscoping was famously used in the dance sequences in Disney's Snow White. In the gaming world, the peak of the rotoscoping age was in the 90s, where games like the original Prince of Persia and Mortal Kombat used the method.
The Rotoscoping Process in Silver Pines
We used every resource available to us in the early stages of Silver Pines' development, especially when it came to capturing the in-game animations. We made costumes, filmed ourselves performing animations and then drew over the footage frame-by-frame. It's an admittedly inefficient way to work, but it gets some great results you don't see anywhere else.
The main benefit of rotoscoping is that we capture those little details, like the movement in the clothing, the way hair shifts when you move, the little imperfections in how a body moves; it has a quality that's difficult to get any other way.
The main downside however, is that it's incredibly labor-intensive, and Mattias, our artist and studio co-founder, has lost more than a little sanity working on the game's animations.
As you can see in the examples featured in this dev blog, Mattias frequently had to dress up in different costumes, sometimes elaborate clothes he'd bought or crafted, occasionally walking around on his knees with toilet paper hanging off him to simulate a flowing creature design. Nobody said game development is a glamorous job!
During the recording part of the process, Mattias quickly developed newfound respect for stunt actors and motion performers. While most of the recording could be done at home falling onto pillows from the couch, some motions required a bit more space. We quickly found that the gymnasium at Mattias' kid’s school had the space we needed as well as thick gym mattresses we could use for more intense falls.
As this was quite a physical process for Mattias, it also meant that it was usually not popular with him when we introduced new motions into the game later in development, such as the dodge roll! But he's a good sport, even when we needed him to throw himself onto the floor again.
The rest of the team didn't get off too lightly though, as we often had to step in as the models for other characters in the game. Using members of our team and friends as the physical references for most of the characters you meet in-game also helps to stamp our mark on the world of Silver Pines and make it distinctly Wych Elm.
The decision to use rotoscope animation also came from the 1990s influence that is so baked into Silver Pine's setting. It is a style of animation than many of our team grew up with playing games on the Amiga, and there's a real nostalgia for that type of animation for us. Rather than the flat-color approach seen in classic rotoscoped titles from that era however, we also make use of shadows to create a sense of depth and volume.
While we're on the topic of Silver Pine's art direction, It's also worth pointing out that all of the world art in Silver Pines is achieved through a lot of photo textures captured by our world artist, Calle Schytt Winberg. Calle then modifies and paints over them before bringing them into the game. In-engine, this renders a lot of 2D sprites in a 3D simulation, creating a strong sense of depth.
We hope this was an interesting look into the animation process! We look forward to seeing you all in Silver Pines when it releases on October 8th!