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.