Greetings and salutations!
It's time for another update! This time we have our game's main character under the magnifying glass.
As you might've seen from the screenshots, Bob is a gruff-looking fellow. As his animator, my task is to bring him to life and make him look as badass as a solitary lumberjack should.
Now, you might think that animating is a simple task, just draw pictures one after another, but it's a lot more than that. The pictures will have to sync with each other to make the animation look smooth and reasonable. I'll give you a little tour on how the process in Bob's case took place.
Let's start with the base concept; Bob is an american guy who lives in a cottage somewhere deep in Finland's forests. Being the secluded man he is, his appearance isn't the top priority in Bob's life. During our brainstorming sessions, a hobo-like look was agreed on, and this is what came out of my pen as Bob's concept.
A handsome guy, isn't he? ;) This was accepted as his final looks, so no edits were necessary. The animation process could begin.
Next up was putting Bob into the game's isometric perspective.
After a handful of hours (I didn't really take time, but I think it was around a total of 3-4 hours), I finished Bob's very first walk cycle! Huzzah!
I couldn't have him walking down only, so naturally I had to make walking animations in other directions, too. We went for a total of eight separate directions (down, down-right, right, upright, up, up-left, left, down-left), so I had my work cut out for me.
Fast-forward a few days, and Bob was able to walk in all eight directions!
That was only a part of the work, though. Since our main dude is going to be standing, fighting and doing all other kinds of stuff in the game, my work didn't end there. I still have a good deal of stuff to do, but that will be a story for another time.
See y'all next time!
- Vesa-Pekka Koivisto
