Animation Student *u*
Animation for the Creative Industries – Petrol Station Horror, “Five Nights at Tescos”.
I made up the time clock and punch card for my team, which will be used to access save files and ‘clock on’ for their shift (begin their game). I paid particular attention to the following references:
I also referenced the following for the overhead fluorescent Light:
Ryan was able to get the character model sorted so that it takes the animation from skeletons, and so that it takes the skin textures and facial features:
I also made up a quick cash 3D model:
I hunted on Sketchfab for some references for topology and Aesthetic:
Money Pack by bariacg on Sketchfab
I also offered to help, but wasn’t sure what I could do – Ryan has been working to consolidate everyone’s assets into one UE5 file, however has been having a lot of issues whilst trying to import:
This is my last assigned animation for the minute, the payment animation. Again, I referenced simple animations from Animal Crossing. I want to ensure that the animations are clear in their action, however I have to be aware of other deadlines and the time that I need to invest in them! That being said, in the coming weeks I will likely look at polishing these up a bit – I’d like to add a bit more secondary action to this one (I was finding it a little difficult, as the basket clips the desk when I try to add it at the minute), in the basket, the head and the left and right arm. I could probably also have the left leg moving forward a little as it looks a little odd completely stationary! However, I believe the animation communicates the action well enough to be implemented for Monday’s play test.
I started to work on my step up animation:
Again, I tried to go for something kinda goofy and overexaggerated. I’m actually pretty pleased with these, I think they’re probably good enough to be implemented to the game for Monday’s play-test, at least. I took a little reference video of myself to get an idea of the stride, and I referenced a simple stop-walk sequence on mixamo. Additionally, I took a little look at some octodad animations:
Obviously I haven’t gone quite this ridiculous, but I I do quite like the stretchy, silly limb movements.
I offered to help Amy, our animator, with some animations as she is working on those alone and it seems like a lot for one person to take on. I am not feeling very confident in this, it took me a long time to get myself back into the head space of animating digitally. I managed to finish my first pass of an idle animation today:
I think it’s OK for a first pass, and will work well enough for our play demo on Monday. I’m not too happy with the hands, I think I need to go back in and edit so that the swing is slightly more subtle, and so that it occurs from higher up on the arm.
I spoke to Amy about this, and she made some good suggestions:
I worked on the animation more after I spoke with Amy:
I added Amy’s given coordinates to make the arm ready for the basket rig. I also sped up the movement from leg to leg, as it was feeling very slow for me after a night’s sleep.
I took reference from simple idle stances in animal crossing:
I also took some inspo from mixamo animations:
I liked that these were quite simple – I really liked the 3rd one as it’s very exaggerated, so I tried to emulate that with my idle animation.