Last time, we started talking about our engine (YokaiEngine) and how we were able to make art changes during any part of development with little to no cost. Today we're gonna talk about what we call Real Time Object Transformation.
Recalling a bit, one of the big strengths of the engine lies in how we can include Flash animations in the game without too much hassle.
Now, when doing Flash animations, it is highly advised that you separate your characters (assets, etc) into separate objects, either for when you're drawing or when you're animating. In our case, following again our hero Siegried, we gave a name to each part of his body, as in:
Now, since the engine maps all quite nicely to code, we are able to access each of this objects and transform them whenever and however we like.
We can substitute one object for the other:
We can play with the alpha:
We can rotate each part:
We can scale!:
We can speed up or slow down the animation speed:
We could even change color:
As you can see, it get's fairly easy to make transformations this way. From then, our character is capable of changing with the environment: tilt the head, simulate wind, improve or change weapons and costume. Coordinates and pre-render worries, be gone! It's all subject to change.
What do you think? Could we be missing something?
