Animations

I've been doing animations of our 3 animals basically non-stop this weekend.  Our game is due on the 31st, so we need our stuff.  I still have some work to do with the tiger, but basically for now I'm all done animation wise.

We were told that it would be nice to see more of the animals so the player feels more connected to them.  So, I thought maybe that maybe when the tiger and rabbit hit something, they could do some sort of somersault and flip around.  Albeit, the player would only see the flip happen in a short amount of time (like a second or less), they'd still at least see something.  It also is good feedback that the player hit something.

These animations aren't perfect.  Animals don't do straight somersaults.  I figure when the other artist remakes the rigs I can go in and be able to make the animals move more naturally.  However, I don't want them to move exactly like they would in real nature.  They are still made out of paper.  So, I have to wonder what a could way to animate it would be.  Do I make it as natural as I can?  The player will sees a tiger, so do they think it will move exactly like a tiger or will they see that's it's paper too and won't expect it to move naturally?  I'll have to test it out.

I've also been researching on how animals flail when they trip.  I haven't been able to find a tiger flailing, nor a rabbit.  I did find a documentary about the Out of Africa Park in Arizona.  It shows the caretakers playing with a lot of the animals including tigers and panthers.  I haven't seen any tripping or too much flailing, but it's giving me an idea on how these felines move.



I also found a live stream of cats! So, I've been watching what they do and how they move. Not to mention they're super cute :)
http://new.livestream.com/FosterKittenCam/TheSpiceKittens

So, the other artist had sent me a rigged goat for me to animate.  Over the weekend I did a run cycle and realized a lot of the rig was broken or weird.  At school, I showed it to the other artist and it turns out her version was correct, so something happened when she saved it out and sent it to me.  She did it on Maya 2012 and that version of the software has been very buggy, so it's possible and most likely that the rig broke while she saved it out.  She re-saved it out and gave it to me and it worked.  So, I am re-doing the animations.  I have a run cycle and am now trying to work on a walk cycle, a jump, and ramming for the goat.

Other than that, I finished the caves and sent it off to our level designer to populate and put it around our track.  The bamboo texture isn't there on the entrance because the other artist is creating a texture for them.

So, we've decided that there will be different "biomes", if you will, in our game that will benefit a specific animal that the player can transform into.  These include: highlands where the goat will travel faster, jungle where the tiger will travel faster (grass on track), and the cave where the rabbit will travel faster. I've already started on the cave and some environmental stuff for the jungle and highlands. Now I just need to do a cave that's turning and a cave that's splitting along with other plants and environments for the different areas.