Hey, it’s me Ashley, one of the artists and designated animator for Inconvenience Store. I’ve been creating the main character’s animation sequences, along with the randomized NPC models that make an appearance in our game.
When approaching any kind of animation, I like to think of what I can do to give our player a personality. Since the model can’t talk, it’s up to me to translate what they are trying to communicate into motions and gestures. As I do with many other projects, I usually like to start with a simple walk and idle cycle. You’d be surprised as to how much you can understand about a character just based on how they move. Here’s a quick comparison.
Old Idle Animation
Newest Idle Animation
Notice how in the top idle, the character looks like he just got done running a marathon vs the bottom one, where the character is bouncier and more rhythmic.
When it came to the walk cycle, we wanted to give our player a little pep in their step to really make the movements reflect the theme of the game. So, when animating the character, I wanted to make them a little more bouncy and cartoony, and really show off the long arms and legs.
Player model walk-cycle
Animating the NPC was approached in a similar way, though we wanted to keep the movements a little more generic since we were working with only one model that would be duplicated several times. I also wanted to add a bit more of a tilt and sway to the NPC’s walk, since the legs and arms were shorter compared to the player model.
NPC walk-cycle with visible bones and nurb controllers
Currently, we are working on some event and special animations for both the main character and the NPC. Thank you for supporting our team as we continue to work on Inconvenience Store. We hope that you’ll have fun shopping at Happy Mart, wacky animations and all!