Case 2

 Animating the character

In the second case my task was to animate the character I had made in the first case. I had to make him walk (both ways), jump, standard idle position and getting from walking to idle position.

I wasn’t too pleased with the first sketch I had made of my character (the fox), so I decided to redo it. I changed the shape a little bit and the color while I made sure there wasn’t way too many vector points, as it would make the game “heavier” to run. The character is still a bit inspired by the fennec fox, but I changed the color to red because otherwise it would blend in with the background. I also made the eyes bigger to make him cuter as well as more “cartoonish”, as I’m really not aiming for mirroring reality. I’m adding the new sketch in the bottom of this text. I’m also adding a version of how the fox puppies might come out, but they’re not totally out of the idea phase. The hunter and his dog also need drawing, but I’ve been way too busy with animating the fox so far.

Walk

I started with the walking because I had the idea sorted out as well as I thought it’d be the easiest. I found the walking cycle that we were shown the other day really helpful. As I had not managed to get my hands on The Animator’s survival kit yet, the walking cycle as well as various other walking/jumping methods we were shown in class was the things I had to hold on to. Although foxes and people walk different, I figured out the theory is much the same. As I started to animate I began with drawing three circles. One for the head, one for the chest and one for the hips.Then I moved them across my scene until I found a smooth moving pattern. I also added three horizontal lines where the top one would indicate where the ears would be at their highest. The middle one showed the head at its starting position. The bottom one was the ground. I did this to make sure that the fox did not change size as he walked, as my drawings tend to get smaller as I draw.  Afterwards I drew simple lines to make a hint of where the legs should be and how they should behave as the body (the circles) moved across the scene. I also added the ears in the same manner because I figured they’d have to move as well. Once I was pleased with how my circles and lines behaved I added a rough outline to check that it still looked as I had intended it, before I redid the outlines and added detail and color. I quickly found out that coloring was an awful lot of work, as I had to color each frame separately. If there is a quicker way to do it, I’d be happy to know.

 As the rough sketching was done I started out with a light, jumping way of walking, which I actually was quite pleased with, but I figured out that a fox that was snapping up puppies behind an evil hunter really wouldn’t walk that way. I changed it to a lower, more sneaking walk where he’s not very high above the ground. Because my GIF doesn't want to work to show my idea, I'm adding a picture to illustrate how I work instead, no matter how boring it might be. As my character isn’t possible (not that I know of anyway) to tween, I had to use the Frame by Frame method. I enjoy that way of working, because it’s both logical and fun, but as I kept forgetting to lock layers it took longer than it should. Luckily I kept everything in one layer when I worked with the walking. I had issues with gaps in the walking for a long time, but I solved it by using the same frames as I had used for animating his left leg. Erasing the lines which made his leg connect with the body, before drawing new lines but connecting the other leg instead, making it look like he had changed which leg he was standing on at the time. I figured that it saved me a lot of time and trouble, than it would if I drew every frame as he changed leg.  The tail gave me a hard time, but I after I redid it four times I decided to be satisfied. 

When I had all my frames in place, I converted it all into a symbol which I dragged twice into my scene, removing my “unsymbolized” frames, before I flipped one of the symbols horizontally - making them walk opposite ways. I exported it as a SWF and decided I’d declare myself done with walking. For now.

Idle position

When I was finished the walking it was already Saturday and only three days left. I did decide (after a short while) that it was smarter to get as far as I could by Wednesday than spending my time panicking. So I started with the idle position of my fox. I wanted him to be sitting with his front towards the player, but I decided it would look dull if he just sat there. Therefore I figured I’d make him swing his tail, scratch himself and howl. I didn’t want it to look hasty so my timeline was long and hard to keep track of, but I was pleased with my timing. I started the sketching the same way as I did the walking and will therefore not bore anyone with the details. Of course, because I had thought that it wouldn’t take as long to make as making him walk did, it turned out to be the project that occupied most of my time. Especially because I had managed to make his head smaller as he did the scratching part and had to redo it until it looked as if he didn’t lose it. This time I threw my frames all across my layers to save time, but as I mentioned before, I tend to forget to lock them so placing the right frames on the right layers took me longer than it should. But, finally, I managed to complete the action without making it look totally off. In my opinion anyway.

 Resuming idle position

As I had made walking and sitting, making him sit after walking didn’t seem impossible. I added a few simple frames between the walking and the sitting position and was quickly quite pleased with the outcome. I did not want to let him take too long to get to sitting position, because I thought it would look odd if it took ages from the player released the “walk –key” until he sat down. I made my frames into symbol and flipped it to make him get to sitting position from both angles and was satisfied. But I had a feeling that it was too easy. I soon realized that as he appeared from the right and sat down his tail lay on his right side before it popped to the left without warning. It was of course because I had made it lie left in the idle position-symbol.  I made a few extra frames in the symbol where he comes from the right, making his tail swing to the left before he starts with the idle position action. It was easy enough but, as I’m totally clueless about programming and similar stuff, I have no idea how it’s going to work and I have the feeling I have to live with some tail popping. But as I have no idea about how the game is going to work in general I guess I’m in no position to think about what’s possible and what’s not. 

Jumping

Although jumping is one of the hard parts I consider myself lucky to already have interested myself enough in it to a point where I actually had made my fox jump once already, before we were told that we should. If I had not I doubt I would’ve managed to finish it in time, as by Monday I had just finished getting him to the idle position and Tuesday is right now disappearing as I try to write my blog. But as I had Monday I used it to tune the jump to the new fox sketch I had made, mostly by changing the color. I also decided I’d remove the anticipation part of the jump. Although I’m quite fond of it and thought it’d look awkward without it, I figured it would be very annoying for the player to wait for the fox as the player pushes the “jump-key”. So, I made it happen directly from walking to jumping. Although it might not look possible for the fox to jump from walking position, I’d rather have that than an annoying game to be honest.

Conclusion

I learned a lot from this experience, about how stuff moves as well as a little better understanding of how simple animation in flash works. I really love using the Frame by frame method despite the downsides, such as the time it takes and how easy it is to make everything wrong, but I find that the end result is more satisfying for my part than with Tweeing. As I have now made all the animations I need for this weeks assignment I look forward to learning how to make this work out in the game, although right now I really don’t see how it can.

A little side note on the group I’m in. I like the people in the group and the idea of it, but right now I’m having trouble getting something out of it, as the room we’re in is way too small to work in, as not even all the PCs can fit on the table. Therefore we cannot ask our questions as they appear when we work. After all, it’s hard to remember all the questions we might have when we worked until we get into the group, and then we can’t try out any answer we might get. For me it is, anyway.  At least this is how I feel about it at the moment. This far it has worked out fine on my part, because what I’ve wondered about I’ve found answers to elsewhere. And I also have experience drawing with a tablet, something which has helped me a lot, but as I begin into the unknown territory of codes and stuff I really hope we’ll get a better chance to use our groups properly. I can only speak for myself, but that’s how I feel about it.