New Artsyle = New Mole = New Animations

We are now six weeks in the development of Mole Munch, and we have encountered an absolutely (!) terrible (!!) problem.

During the first of development, me and the team had a vote between two distinctive artstyles/viewpoints for the game: Isometric or Top-Down. I voted for top-down because it's much easier to draw characters and props from a single viewpoint: from above. In a isometric viewpoint, at least in our interpretation of the Mole Munch draft, you need to draw all the characters and stuff to make them look 3Dish, and you need to draw the characters in eight directions. I have drawn the mole in all eight directions, as well as started the digging animation for the mole.

However, as the mole and all artwork for the game was about to be implemented, the programmers ran into a huge problem in doing the collishon department, preventing them to make the entire game isometric. This means that all isometric artwork that both me and the rest of the team artists have made for the past five weeks cannot be implemented into the game. This happened during the same week for the alpha-presentation, so we were completely unprepared for a proper visual presentation of the game. The programmers were forced to do two nights of crunching in order to produce as much gameplay mechanics and key features as possible before the presentation. It was still a lousy presentation, but at least the team's still undissolved.

For now on, the game will be played in a Top-Down Perspective. Me and the artists need to redo most of the isometric artwork and try to find some that can be reused. I found one of my old isometric moles that actually looks Top-Downish. 

 

So I used it as an inspirational image to do the new mole. I built the skeleton for it in eclipses, using it to sketch the mole.

And this is how he turned out.

Now when the mole sprite is done, I immediately started to do a top-down digging-animation for it. But now it's here that I myself ran into some problems.

I previously visioned that the mole would jump up in the air, fall into the ground and dig it; all in a short animation.  The team was prevously open for that idea, but because of the change to the Top-Down viewpoint, and the limited programming resources to make a detailed animation, I needed to simplify the animation, using as few as three/four keyframes for it.  

I used the head of the first Top-Down Mole Sprite to do one of the keyframes for the digging animation. Here he prepares for his majestic leap. The idea for the jumping part, however, was scrapped.

So I got the idea that as soon as the player press the dig button, the mole immediatly spawn an earth hole under it.

                  This is the mole when he digs out of the ground.              

And this is when he digs into it.

But now I don't know what to do next, I need to keep in mind about are limited resources in the animation department. As soon as the mole digs, do I need to get his paws to move before he disappears into ground, or do I simply need to do a brown smoke effect of some sorts to conseal the mole, and when the smoke settles the mole sprite disappears and only the brown hole remains?

I need to consult about it with the team during the friday meeting and come to a mutual decision, because we all have a different interpretation of the digging animation, and now especially for our newly elected art-perspective. 

Mole-directions and digging-animation

In the fifth week of development, me and the team prepare ourselves for the alpha presentation on friday.

During friday last week, I was finaly done with the mole sprite ones and for all. Here's his final look.

I finished fixing his left arm and some minor parts of his body. Now he looks like a fully fletched character.

After friday, during the weekend, I spent the time in my home on the mainland and this was really lucky of me because during saturday all of Gotland had an gigantic power outage for several hours. If I would've still been on the island at that time, I would've not been able to finish all the directions in time.

A total of eight directions was needed in order to make the mole look like an isometric charcter. And here's how they turned out. 

It was much easier for me to the the directions, because now that I'm finshied with the first sprite which presents his final look, I could just free transform parts of his body to which direction I want. I can also dublicate his body and use transform to turn him horizontal. However, I still needed to do four new sprites of the mole.I got help from my mom and got some suggestions from the team to improve some of the directions. I also used a elephant souvenir from India as, I think, a perspective tool of sorts. This really helped to do the front and back of the mole (the two sprites on the top-left). I finished drawing all the directions on sunday, and everyone in the team were very pleased.


This week, I got the assignment of doing a digging animation for the mole, when he digs into the ground. The game designer in the team was assigned to paint walkcycles and do the walking-animations to the mole, while I do the digging animations.

This work required some imagination with accurate free-transforming skills. I wanted the mole to jump in the air and then fall into the ground. When he touches the ground, he starts to dig it in the air. When he does that, brown earthpieces erupts from the position he digs on, and he slowly burris deeper into ground until he finaly disappears. I haven't done that part yet, but I'm atleast done on the jumping part of the animation.

For now, I've done 10 frames for the animation. I don't know how much I'll need to do for it, but I need quite a lot for it to look good and run smoothly. I think I'll aim for... between 15-20 frames. And each frame will run on 0.01 seconds, I.e. no delay.

And this is how it turned out.

This needs some imrpovement, but I think I might avoid drawing more jumping frames, because the mole-animation will go faster than the preview-gif above. After I've finished this animation, I'll also need to do an animation whne the mole digs out of the ground. I hope I'll finish the first animation during next week. The team depends on it.

Well, I'll see you next week. 

Designing the Mole, the hero of Mole Munch

Greetings!

We are now four weeks in the development stage, and we spent the time working with our respective assignments and brainstorming our ideas. Me with the mole sketching and the others with their stuff.  For this week we need to prepare ourselves for the pre-alpha prenentation tomorrow at 10.20, and our Game Designer needs to send the Game Design Document before 13:00.
For three weeks, I have painted four different designs for the mole. I have shown my various design ideas to the three other graphics in the team and received new proposals on how to improve it and make it look like a playable character. Since I haven't drawn isometric characters before, this is quite a challenge for me, because when drawing characters for isometric games (such as Bastion and Transistor) you need to draw them so that they can walk in eight directions, compared with Sidescroller games where you only need to draw two character directions. You need to draw the characters in a square grid, using the lines to build up the character and make him face towards all eight angles.

As soon as I've painted the eight directions of the mole, I also need to animate the mole when he walks in those directions.  Furthermore, as one of our core mechanics for the game is the mole's ability to go under ground, I have to make an animation when the mole digs into the ground, and another one when it digs out of the ground. This will take a lot of work, and I'm not even done with the first mole sprite.                                     

I took inspiration from Team 8:s mole design, at least for the head. Me and the team want a mole to look cute.

And not like this one.

Anyways, here are my own mole designs.

When I began with the first design (below), I colored it in three different colors. The left one looks pretty blurry and the center one looks weird. The right one looks better (I used it in the latest design). I used a bluish grey color for the first three.

The biggest error with the first design is that his body looks completely flat, and crawls in a wrong angle.

For the second design, I made him look bigger and hairier, using a new head design. The hairy part looks weird, as if he came out of the dryer or something. Also his left leg looks quite curved.




For the third mole-design, I got a lot of help from my mom to make it look more rounder and not like a animal carpet or a doll. I also added fur with lighter grey colors. It's a more refined version than the second design, but I think the mole still looks like a small teddybear rather than an mole.

This is my latest picture of the mole, using the color from the right mole in the top pic. He now looks thinner and more mole-like, which the teammates like. I still need to finish some parts of it, especially his left arm.

I really hope that the mole will turn out fine and be properly implemented into the game. Our Alpha presentation will take place in friday next week (February, 20), in front of the entire class. We'll present the core mechanics, the first level and the mole. The enemy character, multiple levels, new props and other stuff will be presented in the Bete presentation on Marsh, 13.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you guys next time. Take care!

Winter and early spring in Visby

I take a couple of walks now and then here in Visby, as long as the weather is alright.

Here are some pictures taken on January 24, showing the snow-covered walls and buildings.

Here is a photo-collection taken during February 8, showing Visby in all its splendor.