This post is about my new animation system for my new game. I needed a pompous Manowar title because this is the way I feel about it. I believe it’s the best thing in the world and if you don’t like it you can fuck off.
I’ve always been an animation geek. Before Soldat I never liked my games because I had to draw the animations. The world changed when I discovered skeletal animation and ragdolls. This new animation system is an evolved version of the one you can find in Soldat. It took me about 2 years to invent this and create the tool called “Character Builder”. It took so long because I was making it in my spare time and then came Crimson Glory and I ditched it for a while. But most of the time probably went into thinking and analyzing the system. I went probably through every method of character animation I could think of. Finally I settled on probably the simplest but most effective.
My goal was to have exactly the same visual style as traditional 2D pixel art but with a character animated with a skeleton and ragdoll physics. I guess I achieved my goal and that’s why I’m so pumped up about this, this is my dream come true.
For comparison, here is traditional pixel art from my game R. This is a Zorth which you encounter in the later stages of the game. This animation took at least a dozen of hours to create by the artist.
Here is a video I made from my Character Builder with the same Zorth but built with skeletal animation. To build and animate him took less than an hour. But that is not the coolest thing. The best thing is the endless possibilites of animation. All animation can be morphed real-time. In this video you can see smooth transitions between walking, running and crouch walking all with variable speed! So in-game the animation will depend on the speed which you are running and what is happening in the environment (slow uphill jogging, smooth ducking under short passages). Check it out:
Music from R.
Wow, really good improvement i like what you got so far
keep up the good work and i hope to see a tech or mini game demo using the new engine, or just another video!
thats pretty sweet man
keep it up!
Congratulations on your dream coming true !
That animation system does look cool indeed! Ragdolls can be so much fun (painkiller :D)can’t wait to see it implemented in a game ^^
Ragdoll ftw!
The system look nice seriously. Can it be implented to soldat?
Looks awesome!
Can you use that with vectorial graphics like “another world”?
Man that looks awesome!
Damn, that’s impressive! *proceeds to steal ideas*
MM you continue to impress me
Keep up the good work ^.^
We all love you!!!!!!! If u come to our house we will blow you!!!!!!OMG your a genius!!!
i can’t fucking wait for the new game.
>>We all love you!!!!!!! If u come to our house we will blow you!!!!!!OMG your a genius!!!
WTF?
Tallacaps:
This is better than vector graphics. But it uses a similar technique of animation. I can use rotoscoping in the editor too.
It’s awsome it would be great to finish R 😉 saving a lot of hours
Thats freaking awesome!!! Going to document the file formats and make the “Character Builder” tool available?
This is incredibly cool looking. I look forward to your next game.
>>Thats freaking awesome!!! Going to document the file formats and make the “Character Builder” tool available?
Yeah definitely. I’m going to publish it open source, as always with the tools I make.
I’m amazed rfreak hasn’t posted here yet…
I was thinking … will it be possible to make some kind of kung fu mod with that tool ( for soldat :p ) ?
^ to me, looks like any animation would be possible with that new system. so i’m guessing that you could easily make a kung fu mod : D
Customisation ftw!
Very nice, MM.
Ok, sorry for my impertinence, but what I saw up there, I think the soldat engine can handle it already. what’s the new stuff?
FLAB I was gonna post and be the 7 comment
but I think my internet frozed or it worked but somebody deleted it …
Good work MM as always hope to see the tool soon (wen you releasse it is it gonna be on crimson’s site, here or on soldat forum?)
>>FliesLikeABrick Says:
>>I’m amazed rfreak hasn’t posted here yet…
I think he got banned by the spam filter, but its ok now :).
I’ll post more news soon. There will be a whole new website with an announcement what this game I’m doing is all about. So wait for the bigger picture.
>>>FliesLikeABrick Says:
>>>I’m amazed rfreak hasn’t posted here yet…
>I think he got banned by the spam filter, but its ok now :).
>I’ll post more news soon. There will be a whole new website with an announcement what >this game I’m doing is all about. So wait for the bigger picture.
Bigger picture looks likes its gonna be high def. With partial effects and filters and a blood spray and dynamic lighting and a cherry on top. All in 2D =D
But what about Zoldat?
Wow thats very nice. My friend and i were developing our own animation systems, his used keyframes but i stuck with traditional frame by frame stuff. Is it possible to add bones onto the skeleton and adjust their properties?
This is going to be cool. Yay. Keep up the good work or else… Jk.
hege
post the site alreaaaadyyyyy 😀
Will you make the character builder avalible… This would make une extrordinary revolution in sprite animation. I NEED THIS
!
Oh my god, that was freaking cool! The movement is so smooth, and i noticed that some parts of the bodies get streched according the movement sometimes, wow.
This is probably one of the more interesting 2D things i’ve seen since Rag Doll Kung Fu, which in comparison didn’t really offer this kind of flexibility with it’s focus being that there were no preset animations.
I hope this gets released ahead of time for people to mess around with and get used to, looks amazing and should allow even more creativity… If you checked out the awesome walkthrough of iD’s RAGE engine, there are some pretty cool things that I hope can be implemented such as choosing the origin of weapons/effects and the frames where footstep sounds such be played etc. Infact this reminds me of that engine somewhat with the way frames can interpolate between different states.
Awesome new project, keep us updated. :]
MM
you are a genius
do you plan on releasing your program ever?
I have the same problem as you with animating. I really want to get into ragdoll and game dev, though.
thank you
please, send me an email if you can pertaining to your Character Builder
When do you plan on releasing this ?
i’m blown away O_O *dr00ls*
I want Soldat to be with this engine!
Ravey Says:
>>If you checked out the awesome walkthrough of iD’s RAGE engine, there are some pretty cool things that I hope can be implemented such as choosing the origin of weapons/effects and the frames where footstep sounds such be played etc.
I haven’t done that and I don’t know if I plan to. I would like a dynamic system much more. Meaning that footsteps would be generated automatically if the foot touches the ground.
[…] them all in one. This is a video I made today of a Zorth character walking on Arena. This is the new animation system in action. It is not near the final effect, you can only see here variable speed of walking […]
Will it be this tool (or a modification of this tool) that can be used to edit the character,or will it be a completely different tool? The interface on that looks rather smooth and clutterless (from my perspective).
This tool is used to create characters and to animate them, all-in-one.
will you release the tool before or after you release the game itself?
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