Respawning Animation

Craig suggested we have a re spawning animation so that our game looks cooool. So I started working on in. The process was kinda similar to drawing the explosion but much easier. I drew a yellow outline around the character fading into white and then played around with different shapes, a nice amount of frames for a build up.

This is how it turned out, I was stoked with the outcome:

This one has a little blink at the end just before it becomes the character

This one is better as it smoothly fades into the character

New Robot Explosion

So, a few times, making a new explosion was suggested. By tutors and friends. Michael was in charge of doing it because he has a really nice drawing style but he got a bit busy with his world map. I decided to do it since we really needed it. I recently got a drawing tablet and it was time I put it to good use. Here follows the development:

I found that explosions have a dark outline and fade into a very bright colour, where the explosion is actually happening. It was a bit tricky getting that nice aesthetic. I started using similar colours to real explosion.

Then I moved on to blue since the energy sphere that the character throws is blue.

Drew it several times until I really understood the core essence of the drawing.

Then I used the Warp tool from Photoshop to add little sharp explosions in it too.

This is how it turned out : D

Dying Animation

Next thing I worked on was a dying animation for Omnix. One where he falls through the screen, like many other 2D games. It was pretty easy to do, I just closed his eyes and made about 5 frames of his falling on back towards the groud.

Robot Bullets

So Mohsin asked for me to work on some robot bullet, but he wanted me to make small ones so that the collision wasnt too big.

This is the bullet I first made for Fritz

And I made this optional one for any other robot it fit into, but I didnt end up suiting any other robot

But by flipping it 45 degrees we were able to use it for Reptar

After a while Mohsin said that Fritz's bullet was too small and player weren't realising what was killing them,

so I made this slightly bigger animated one

Robots Development - Reptar

This was my favorite one out of michaels robots. Reptar! Pretty much because of his foot. I love how organic it looks.

This was my first animation for reptar. I play a lot with his feet because it really added a unique look to him.

The group was happy with it! But I wanted to do more. Then I improved his walking again.

Added left arm movement.

I still thought there was something odd about his walking, it's easier to see in this slower version. So I decided to do it again.

And again.

Once I was happy with it I moved on to head movement. If you pay a lot of attention to this one, you'll notice that his head pops out of his body for 1 frame showing that his head is being held by his back pipes.

Then I added movement to his right arm.

After sorting out his Idle animation, it was time to decided about his future. What is reptar there for??? So I created an animation where he crouches to shoot afterwards.

I did it but I screwed it up a little bit, forgot about the back pipes, haha

Did it again, but head moved at the end without the pipes moving.

Did it again, but pipes moved too fast at the end /\

Did it again, it was fine, but arm was lifting too much. /\

So I finalized with this one \/

I was really happy with it

And then shooting was pretty easy once I got him in the right position.

And then added a triggering effect :] Done!

Robots Development - Bumblebee

Same went for Bumblebee! I had already had a good idea of what to do after doing Kettle. A little bit different since bumblebee collects resources.

This was my very first animation for Bumblebee, where he is just collecting resources. Obviously, I wanted to develop it further.

Craig suggested it would be nice if I added a bit of a shake to his arm when he is cutting the ground, so I did that

Mohsin said it would be cool if I made him an animation where he just lifts his arm from collecting resources to follow the player, so I did that. But his left arm was weird

I changed it but I think I went too far

Then I simplified it and it looked better

But then Mohsin said he expecting his arm to be higher so it looked more harmful and pressuring.

Then I also worked on an Idle animation for him just like Kettle's so that we could be two bumblebees with different personalities.

Shoulder movement

Right forearm

All together!

Robots Development - Kettle

Then I started working on Kettle, I learned a LOT by animating this one:

This is the first animation I ever made for him. It was just to have an idea. The left arm was looking weird and I didnt have the rings going.

Then I changed it quite a bit and added the rings. The group was happy with the animation but they said it would also be nice we if had an animation where he is just idle, not just attacking the whole time... So here I go...

I tried this Idle out but it just looked so static and crap

So I looked at heaps of examples and I decided to go for a new approach and try and move as much as I could from the character. First thing I sorted was the body movement.

Then I added shoulders movement, but something went wrong with this one, it doesn't look right.

So I fixed it.

I added movement to both forearms as well which made it much better.

Then the only thing left was to add the rings. And I was really satisfied with it! So was the group!

Robots Development - Fritz

So as michael was finishing his robot drawings (and they were looking so cool!), I started animating them asap.

This is Fritz:

I first did a shooting and cruising animation

Then the team told me it would be nice if he also had a just wandering around animation

After that we ran into some troubles with the code and we were struggling to get Fritz to shoot at the right time, so I made an animation where fritz just shoots down to make it easier... But I got the booster the wrong way around when I made this one -_- 

So I fixed it :)

Timelines

So the group seemed to be a little confused as to what they needed to get done by when, and what was it that they would have to do as a whole. I realized that instead of just giving them tasks based on what I wanted, I should sit down with them, go through the things I was expecting and let them create their own timeline.

We went through the things we needed to accomplish, the things we needed to establish, and also discussed about the narrative. So after doing some ugly writing, I made us each a nice uniquely colored PDF file with a clean explanation of our timelines: