Video Game Production Techniques - Creating Five Character Animations

Following on from the facial animation and lip sync work, I was tasked with creating five animations which could be used with my character in-engine further down the line, these animations being otherwise unavailable in resource from Mixamo.

As this unit presented new elements of work which I had not yet encountered, and having onlt animated a face so far, I feel as though I started out small and then finished well, creating two animations which will be absolutely essential for my forthcoming project, and taking inspiration from both the internet, music and other videogames in order to create some others.

In conversation with my peers, whilst batting around ideas for animations I could potentially make for my character, the emote system within Destiny came to mind, as their animators have created multiple popular dances, poses and other animations to allow players to interact with each other in social spaces.

When thinking of popular dances, poses and internet content in general, Marlon Webb's 'Band of the Bold' came to mind and can be seen below.

Others have been inspired to create their own versions, going on the original content and as such, I decided to make my first animation an interpretation of the Band of the Bold.

I raised both arms via rotation on either shoulder, then keyframed the shoulders and elbows to give me a point of reference to return to when straightening the arms back to that point, I left the fist aligned with the forearm.

From here I rotated the arm at the elbow and keyframed again, using a specific set of numbers so as to make the repetition easier for myself throughout the process.
Once each arm had been moved to both respective positions and keyframed, I copied the animation values via keyframes and pasted the values in, alternating between the more bent and less bent elbow position to give both arms the desired animation.

I did the same for the legs, creating the initial keyframe, positioning the leg at the alternative position and keyframing again, taking care to note that the knee control must also be moved from its original place to the next so as to not warp the mesh during animation.

I once again copied and pasted the values for both the legs and the knee controls until I had the alternating pattern lined up perfectly with the arm animation.

I also added a slight arched back and bounced the character up and down at the hips to emulate a hop from one leg to the other.

The end result of my first attempt at this animation can be seen below:

I made some slight modifications to this later on when watching the source video back again, and having not actually implemented the base idle stance into this animation first time around, added this in retrospectively too.

I began with an idle pose, from which I would begin all of my animations and and where possible, moving the hands down by the sides and keyframing to make sure that the animation began there.

I added a slight amount more bounce to the hips, left the back arched as it was, and set the elbow angle to a lesser value by default, bending both of the elbows upon the character raising his arms to begin the animation, below is the edited version of the animation.

The second animation I created was to be a taunt in which I envisioned my character punching his own fist and flexing his neck. The inspiration wasn't particularly taken from anywhere, and was just aimed to be more of a taunt than anything else, with the use being aimed at other players and/or AI for nothing but cosmetic effect.

As with the edit of the first animation, I made sure to use the idle position as a starting base. proceeding to raise the hands, bending at the elbow, whilst loosening up the fingers in the right hand, enough to effectively wrap around the wrist with each coming together of the hands.

From here, I placed keyframes on the shoulders and rotated outward on both sides, keyframing again at an extended point, then bringing them back to their original point.

I also added a nod to the head to add further animation and a sense of emotion to the taunt, then followed by a rotational flex of the neck.

Whilst a simple animation, the taunting effect could be used within both solo play and possibly more adequately multiplayer games, to taunt an enemy.

The animation, in its current state, due for review, can be seen below:

My third animation was inspired by both existent videogames and the movie industry, and as such I produced another basic emote for use in-game, whether aimed at another character or not.
I took inspiration directly from Destiny's collection of emotes, and also from The Karate Kid to produce my iteration of a Crane Kick.

I began by raising bending the arms at the elbows, and raising them via shoulder rotation, whilst at the same time lifting the foot to bend the knee and raising the knee control to make sure the leg once again bent the right way. I also relaxed the ankle using a downward rotation, to let the foot hang somewhat loose, as would be done in a real Crane Kick.

From here I added a bounce to the hips, which in turn bent the standing leg adequately to suggest the character is readying to hop up and perform a crane kick, after three complete hip bounces I shot my character up slightly higher to show the jump, then bringing the right leg upward as the left leg returned to its normal position.

The arms were animated to be brought down to the height of the kicking leg, then brought down to the sides as the leg was returned to its idle position. this completed the draft of my first animation for review and subsequent tweaking if required.

The animation in its current form, ready for review, can be seen below:

My fourth animation was created as a simple template to allow my character to pick up items in-game, with the idea being that health, stamina, and other replenishment items would need to be picked up and applied to an inventory system within Unreal Engine.

I once again started from my idle position, and began by moving the lower half of the characters body first. I keyframed the foot and knee control elements and made my character take a single step forward, followed by his right arm being brought up in front of him. I animated the fingers to open and grab the item in front as the arm was being brought back down to the character's side, at which time the foot was also brought back into alignment.

Whilst simple, this is more of a crucial animation and one done more out of necessity than for visual effect, as I will definitely be using this animation in-game. It can be seen in its current form below:

My fifth and final manual animation for this unit was also aimed at 100% confirmed use in-game.

For this I needed to slightly edit the skeletal rig which had been applied to the mesh, modifying the rig in the process.

I will be using a gun which I have created in my own time in my game, to save some time in the creation of assets at a further point, this will aid me in allowing me to create either a higher quantity of assets or add more quality to my assets across the board.

I added a bone to the base of my Glock, and moved it into place, I then parented it to the bone at the base of the hand in the skeletal rig provided by the Fuse/Mixamo character generation process.

I animated the right and left hands to upward and together, with the right thumb pressing in onto the magazine release button, which would in theory release the magazine from the gun allowing my character to then grab the magazine as it falls from the firearm and place it away, then pick up a replacement full magazine and insert it into the firearm ready for use.

As such, the left arm, which was grabbing the ejected magazine was rotated toward the rear of the character as if to place the empty magazine in either the back pocket, or a pouch on the rear of the character, a fresh magazine would then be pushed into the mag well and pushed in with the palm of the hand.

Whilst this animation may be done slightly differently in a professional environment, for example the gun may be attached to the character differently, or may even be removed after animation completion so that multiple guns can be used, I am happy with where this animation stands. Bearing this in mind I will still be gaining some opinions on this animation from my peers, to see if they have any opinions on where I could improve along the way with this and the other four animations also.

The animation in it's current state can be seen below:

Through my animation creation and the modification of the first animation, I have come to gain a simple understanding of basic animations and some more complex movements.

I feel as though I have done well with most elements of my animation and may potentially have more work to do, some minor elements with things like finger positioning and possible over extentions may yet be highlighted by peer review, by my own eye for now though, my animations look like something I could use within a game.

They are by no means 'Triple A' game worthy in their current state, but I feel for a first shot at bodily animations using manual positioning and keyframing, I feel it has been a success.

I may also be able to utilise a motion capture setup at some point soon, if this comes to fruition I will add more to this post, detailing the animation data gathered from the Motion Capture suite.