Why designers should learn animation Christiaan Moleman “Now Play This: Why designers should learn animation”, a micro-talk by Christiaan Moleman. (revised) originally 01-04-2016

ANIMATION Stuff I’ve worked on My name is Christiaan Moleman and I'm an animator. I've worked on animation for a few different games... Stuff I’ve worked on ANIMATION

INDIE GAMES Stuff I’ve worked on … and I also make indie games. ... one of which (Guppy) is showing at the festival today. ... but this talk is about: Stuff I’ve worked on INDIE GAMES

Why designers should learn animation Well...

Animation is communication

In games, the player needs to understand what is going on in the game world and how it’s reacting to their actions. If there are characters, the player needs to understand what those characters are doing and why.

Body language and facial expression are the oldest form of communication… Before anyone told any stories we were gesturing and making faces at each other.

Animation is the art of communicating thought & emotion Animation is the art of communicating thought and emotion through drawings (2D or 3D). Animation is the art of communicating thought & emotion through drawings (2D or 3D)

Expression change = thought-process In the 1930s the animators at Disney figured out that you could show a character thinking by changing their facial expression. How a character moves and the expressions they make can tell you what that character is thinking and feeling at any given moment. Expression change = thought-process

People are really good at reading expressions.

Quickly communicating an idea Say what you will about memes, but they know how to quickly communicate an idea. Quickly communicating an idea

Why not use this in games? Why not use this in games to show what our characters are thinking?

No, cutscenes don't count. And no, cutscenes don't count. It has to be interactive. No, cutscenes don't count. (has to be interactive)

I saw a quote recently by Emily Short that said: It’s pointless simulating anything in AI that you can’t communicate to the player. If the player can't read the AI's behaviour, it just seems random. You can do some of this with dialogue, but why not animation?

Reading their next move By showing a character visibly reacting to the player's actions and their environment you can show their thought process and emotional state… by having AI observe things you can communicate both their awareness of the situation AND their next move. Reading their next move

People (and creatures) look at things before they interact with them. When you see a character looking at something and pausing to observe that means they've noticed it and odds are they are going to interact with it in some way... Oh, hi!

I wish to express disagreement. Their expression will indicate their intent. I wish to express disagreement.

AWARENESS (Mark of the Ninja guards) By showing the AI's thought process, anticipating their action, you create an opportunity for the player to react to it. This creates a more interesting back and forth than if the player is just reacting to seemingly random actions from the AI. (Mark of the Ninja guards) Clear AI behaviour creates opportunities for the player to react.

For example For example:

Is this character running to something…

… or running from. or running from something? Maybe there's something interesting over there and something dangerous over there. … or running from.

show player state in animation Works on player characters too… show player state in animation And this kind of thing doesn't have to be limited to AI characters: You can use animation to communicate player state…

HEALTH (DOTA2: injured character) … like health (DOTA2: injured character) hurt/exhausted idle indicating low health

CONTEXTUAL ANTICIPATION … or contextual interactions, where you have the avatar visibly preparing to interact with something (anticipating) to show that the player can perform this action right now. [NOTE: image is an animated gif, view as slideshow to play] (Uncharted 2: stealth attack) crouched pose signals attack window

All sorts of things… All sorts of things…

Also: things that are not stealth and combat And while this stuff can be used for your typical combat and stealth scenarios, animation is especially suited to creating other types of interactions. Also: things that are not stealth and combat

… like, say, talking to people. If you want to explore social interaction outside of text, you're going to need facial expression and body language. … like, say, talking to people.

Now, that's all very nice, but maybe your game doesn't have characters Now, that's all very nice, but maybe your game doesn't have characters. You probably don't care about poses and facial expressions if you're making Tetris.

WHAT MAKES: “JUICY” SATISFYING GAMEPLAY GOOD ANIMATION BOTH ... but even without characters, there is a lot of overlap between what makes good animation and what makes for satisfying "juicy" gameplay.

SQUASH & STRETCH Things like squash & stretch,

ARCS & OVERLAP arcs and overlap,

WEIGHT & IMPACT weight and impact,

APPEAL & STAGING appeal and staging… It's kind of a gold mine.

Possibilities Animation remains seriously underused in games as a tool for creating dynamic interactive characters and believable reactive worlds. I think we should do something about this.

So you want to learn animation So, OK, you want to learn animation...

Where to start? Where to start?

Recommended reading If you're going to read ONE book on animation, read this one.

Recommended reading If you're going to read TWO, read this one as well:

ninjadodo.net/animlinks More resources: ninjadodo.net/animlinks For more animation resources I recommend all of these: ninjadodo.net/animlinks

Questions? cmoleman@ninjadodo.net twitter: @ninjadodo And that's it. www.ninjadodo.net