Animations: character select

[avaer]

When you select a character, they jump up and down in a 1s animation. We need 5 of these for the 5 main avas.

Ideally it has viseme morph animation as well, but it’s simple enough to do that manually.

[plankatron]

do we need a custom jump for each character ? i ask because we already have a jump animation in our animation glb file.

[avaer]

Yeah it should be custom, and probably not an actual jump because that wouldn't be interesting.

scillia: jump chop with sword, double jump, points sword forward, chops left and right
hyacinth: neko kawaii lick, peace sign/webaverse sign, just makes a face
juniper: crosses arms, runs a bit and stops, "let's shake on it" and fake shake in the air
ann: twirls flowing skirt, fingers in snipping motion, eyes rolling around in impossible directions
drake: typing in the air, points a fake gun, running really fast

[plankatron]

not finished jump chop , but this gives off the jist of an idea i had for it

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127094547-187884e3-2977-4167-bf43-ecb866101661.mp4

[avaer]

Sick. This really shows off @Vianvolaeus sword.

The twitch movement is also cool and cartoony in all the ways it should be, great work!

The single handed handstand should be a two handed “amateur handstand, seems like they might lose balance”, rather than a pro move.

It feels like that final motion flair speaks to a character showing off their very practiced moves, but since this is for Scillia, who is very cool, but does not have time for practice, and is not boastful, it is a slight mismatch. I think two handed would fix this.

[Vianvolaeus]

Nice stuff! Just dropping some possible inspiration here for a two handed move:

[plankatron]

not all the way done , endless tweaks but this at least has the edits that you were looking for.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127214637-701ed1bc-67f4-4714-bd26-81d86c4be189.mp4

[avaer]

That's in the right direction, but I still feel like that one is too capable/showing off a bit too much. I like Via's shot better where it's not a full inversion.

[Vianvolaeus]

The slightly wobbly nature of that gif (mocap / vr tracking) adds a bit to the zeal and takes away the professional / showoff element as well. Just an observation.

This could be useful for a power-up moveset? Should definitely retain it

[plankatron]

timing slightly better, ill make a variant with less acrobatics.. next video i can have it play a few times and have the camera just pop into different angles so you can see the animation in full

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127217397-81ab0457-6af7-4326-b7ad-11b57520e0c1.mp4

[avaer]

I like the “poke” at the end :D.

I noticed the pose starts looking away from the hit location (I know it is based on the concept) but I think if you are attacking you would be looking in that direction before you start.

[avaer]

If the start and end look foward rather than to the side, then it could be loopable.

[plankatron]

just wanted to simplify the last one, going to work on the less acrobatic versions now.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127224644-5f2ed80c-0018-4d9d-8a87-c5f0e2a75ea8.mp4

[avaer]

Yup that's smooth.

Btw this core idea is a better fit for Hyacinth (character with the umbrella), who would be showing off with handstands.

[plankatron]

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127227914-f6a3e1c2-a6d9-409c-86d5-a19264ff71bf.mp4

[avaer]

Nice! I think we should lean in more like Via's example (more like hovering on top of the sword, center of weight above), and hold the cut longer to make it more impactful.

[plankatron]

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127230536-71a789d7-0c75-4f94-adb8-1e99cecd7c38.mp4

[plankatron]

for posterity

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127233789-0b507aa8-8f18-45d3-b3f4-58e3a3a360bc.mp4

[plankatron]

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127384372-8457cd61-a796-4cff-9b59-9281224a43ee.mp4

[avaer]

That's actually looking very cool, but it's hard to see from this angle. The initial pose is not looking forward and it's hard to see how it would loop back to the initial frame.

[avaer]

For these animations, it seems there is an initial idle pose that we start with.

In that case we will also need to make an idle loop to go along with each of these, but that's much easier when we have the animation looping.

[madjin]

Putting these example animations here so they don't get lost

https://gyazo.com/9f75a53758ffe3fede4d4108b35d03ca.mp4 https://gyazo.com/a8177c4e79b1e044caf62f143f0bbf44.mp4 https://gyazo.com/f9a0751d9196d14ca2bdc7a6a1d162c8.mp4 https://gyazo.com/47469ed8fa2f79ba5790d84677c8a14d.mp4

[plankatron]

still a bit more clean up but this loops

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127402051-d4f6ef92-010f-4de9-b2e0-53eb51a8a394.mp4

[avaer]

Nice, that's starting to look really fun!

Two comments:

• the idle pose seems too extreme to be comfortable: the right hand would be hard to hold, and the weight of the sword on the back doesn't come through enough. If it were a heavy sword you would need a lot of weight on the back foot or else you'd just topple over. I feel like the sword would also force your torso back rather than leaning forward.

• There is a moment in whipping around the sword where it feels like the character has lost control, or it's their first time doing this motion; the sword is tugging on them and they are struggling rather than being in command of the sword. It's slightly uncanny since it makes it seems like this character hasn't done this much before and they are just learning, even though the rest of the animation suggests strong capability.

[plankatron]

not done with clean up , this is just an interim update :

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127512338-ec15879c-330c-4f1f-b7bf-6458b3ab0619.mp4

[plankatron]

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127521983-86022768-816b-4a5a-a3cd-34c9d32dc2f6.mp4

[plankatron]

basic idle pose :

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127554854-fa75c690-7d7a-4185-b690-e7097b412b1d.mp4

[avaer]

I think you got it, we'll just need to rig it up to the real model now and see if it works 👍.

[plankatron]

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127745518-5c72cec7-42a9-4e70-a784-48ea4eb31b81.mp4

[avaer]

Animation looks good. 👍

The rest of the work is in the modeling.

[plankatron]

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/127756513-72d71613-a6bd-489f-8a9c-179751ec3fca.mp4

[plankatron]

about to work on the vertical strike but just wanted to drop this quick horizontal anim that did not look too bad.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/128052596-f67864d1-b621-402d-a3ad-d832aa79952a.mp4

[madjin]

Inspiration from VRoid hub on animations. Short and sweet, looping idles that go into selected animation and back. It's the right flavor, can be more whimsical than these. The length of these is good, don't want to drag it out.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/32600939/128180611-fc6eeb23-961c-4499-abbf-1fe8b6c373e1.mp4

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/32600939/128180941-170d459f-4d52-4cbf-ba8f-986912c7fffd.mp4

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/32600939/128180965-1ba2c559-682e-4cbc-aafb-614293f16587.mp4

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/32600939/128181015-5fa47047-ff57-46cb-a3db-347be48057a9.mp4

[plankatron]

just putting this down for progress update, anim not done

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/128208448-9c5f13cd-625f-4302-a8f4-e9e2954df90a.mp4

[madjin]

When you select a character, they jump up and down in a 1s animation. We need 5 of these for the 5 main avas.

The original post called for a simple idle / selected animation, I feel like we might be getting carried away by putting so much detail into 1 eccentric animation. It looks great as an in-game emote, but it might be too much flair for a menu screen since there's limited space.

The vroid hub examples I posted above are much more toned down but express personality and charm when selected. It's what I was thinking we would go for, and in quantity.

Btw VRoid Hub integration can come with animations from there:

Tying to create animations for every main character w/ weapon is blocked on character design and weapon completion. Also it gives the first impression that this is some kind of action game. That is cool, BUT, I think we can evolve to that point later? Is everyone starting with a megasword? That's like Link starting the journey with the master sword, you lose the lore behind the gear. I think people can fall in love with the characters first.

My suggestion, if possible, create character agnostic idle and selected animations that can be applied to any standard VRM. This is similar to how vroid studio hub does it (all those animations are selected in upload process). Also tone down the flair since there's only so much screen space.

Also, in sandboxed fighting games like smash bros the char select isn't animated.

In the newest Soul Calibur its 2D images then selecting shows a quick 3D animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_0x7Ca39tc

I just wanna see things move forward, hope its useful feedback.

[plankatron]

close to done with this one ,

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/128243677-0bc93785-103c-496d-a5e6-0a681d905cdc.mp4

[plankatron]

redo of the idle pose

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5592454/128248657-a12b7837-d487-459b-838b-5f486fb3928d.mp4

[avaer]

Tying to create animations for every main character w/ weapon is blocked on character design and weapon completion. Also it gives the first impression that this is some kind of action game. That is cool, BUT, I think we can evolve to that point later?

Creating the first impression that we're making an action game is better than not giving that impression, even though that's not really right. One tip I try to follow with writing (especially visual writing) is that you need to start at the action. If you don't do that, people will assume there isn't any, and then you won't even get the chance to say your beautiful piece.

Is everyone starting with a megasword?

No they aren't, even our MC's. In fact I'm trying to put the story of how they all became unusual in our first ep. But even if we do that, we should set our aesthetic delivery in the future where that's already ocurred, with the action and superpowers, for the reasons I said above. Otherwise people won't be able to project forward and realize that we aren't boring.

Also this only applies to main characters, I wouldn't recommend random VRMs from VRoid Hub are superpowered.

That's like Link starting the journey with the master sword, you lose the lore behind the gear. I think people can fall in love with the characters first.

We will have this lore, in ep1. The same characters are great in both.

As an analogy, I think it would be silly to promote Ash as a boy living in Pallet town, on the grounds that if you don't, you'll lose the lore behind Pikachu. The audience understands a story set in a point in time, but if you promote the boring part, nobody's going to stick around for the sick Pokes.

[avaer]

One of the points of the dropstorm event is there should be a cool thing you can make your avatar do.

It's not a walking simulator. You need a fidget spinner. You're waiting for the countdown to grab a drop and you're hyped up. You need to let out that energy by fidgeting. Having a set of mains that all have a trigger action for their weapon, as well as unique animations, is the easy way to create the fidget spinner.

We can do something similar for custom avatars (even technically take the flavor animations from Vroid Hub, since we're literally using their service...), but it's harder to make a fidget spinner out of it and requires more thinking from the user than just clicking a well made character that looks cool. It's the advanced feature for once you realize what's happening and you want to be a part of it.

[avaer]

@plankatron Those are both great and full of life, the only thing that would make it more cool is flowing hairs from the new model.