r/godot • u/wissah_league • 19h ago
selfpromo (games) Be brutally honest with these animations
https://reddit.com/link/1nc2wk8/video/ylkmwuxav0of1/player
https://reddit.com/link/1nc2wk8/video/07r1f81cv0of1/player
I just figured out Inverse Kinematics with godot so i updated my pet project game with hand models, please rip the animations apart
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u/Bob-Kerman 19h ago
Animations fit the aesthetic. The foot step sounds need to be fixed.
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u/wissah_league 18h ago
yeah its placeholder sounds right now, i plan on adding dynamic foot sounds based on the terrain you're on.
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u/Pendientede48 18h ago
I like how chunky they feel, they match the aesthetic. But the way the arm bends takes me out of the immersion.
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u/terivia 17h ago
I'm going to be brutally honest: These animations are fucking beautiful. It's giving a bit of "B Game" vibes, so I understand why your goals may be something different.
But I love them.
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u/wissah_league 17h ago
yeah i am by no means an animator, im a programmer so i know they are pretty wonky
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u/dfendt 13h ago
Gameplay animator here 👋
These are the three things I would start with and make sure works:
- The poses are undercooked, the joints are stiff and looks somewhat broken.
- No snappy movements, it has the feel of a linear lerp from A to B.
- No power in the attacks.
After this has been iterated on, do more iterating! Then look at camera movement to enhance the action, camara shake to sell the effort, VFX, SFX, etc. Animation is the action, but just like in real life, punching a heavy bag at the gym would be really boring without the sound, the impact that makes "your camera shake", etc. Juice it up! And while there is sounds already, I'd love more umph!
Undercooked poses: I don't know if this is assets with IK on top or just IK. But the same feedback applies. You always want strong poses, especially when there's a pause or a slowdown that allows you to see the pose clearer. What constitutes a strong pose is based on action and intent: a physicallly weak action still needs a strong pose to sell it, strong doesn't mean might. It should be easy to read/understand, and it should convey the idea. For example, the overhead strike has the arm end up in a Z-like shape. When the intent is a deadly attack, the Z-shape tells you it's weak because there is no solid line from the shoulder to the wrist. It reads more like a cartoon character that ran into a wall and turns into an accordion.
IK is great for linear movements and having feet stick to ground, locking two hands in a handshake, anything robotic, etc. IK is not great at creating natural human movements for the same reason; as soon as you move your body in any way, you do it in arcs by rotating your joints. One way I've used IK in melee combat is to apply it for a few frames during a hit to make the impact a bit "stickier"/heavier while keeping it procedual (less assets, bit more dynamic result). An alternative would be a freeze frame, but it all comes down to direction and flavor.
Another very important thing with IK is the pole vector. Essentially, a pole vector dictates the alignment of the IK. Think of how your arm changes its position based on where your elbow points. Now imagine you have a rod that sticks out from your elbow with a ball on the end, that's you arm's (IK's) pole vector.
Snappy movement: Again, not sure if this is driven by IK or assets, but same thing here. Timing and spacing is really important to sell an action, and example can be running, you need to accelerate to reach your top speed, and then deceleration to stop. You don't move.your legs as fast in at the start or at the end as you do at the top speed. Another way to look at it is to study different types of splined interpolations since they in them selves visualize how they affect timing and spacing.
No matter if you play Zelda or Elden Ring, attacks are always snappy. In Zelda, you do this by almost finishing the attacks as soon as you press the button, and then holding the attack for a while, which creates sort of a whip-lile attack. Very snappy. If you play elden ring (and you aren't overencumbered or using a weapon you're not proficient with), you have a more detailed animation with anticipation, action, and settle. Each animation/attack is divided into these sections to help make the action feel appropriate of the attack. In general, the longer the windup (anticipation), the longer the settle. If you want a more responsive attack, then shorten the windup and out emphasis on the settle. As a general rule of thumb: keep the action short, or it will feel mushy and lack impact and snappiness.
No power: One concept of animation is called "follow through." What that means is that things in motion like to stay in motion, so the faster you swing your sword, the more energy it takes to stop it. Having something stop immediately, or really quick, makes the action less impactful. You want to "follow through" the action to help sell the effort, and it doesn't really matter if it's a light attack or a heavy attack, without follow through (any amount), it will always feel lackluster.
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u/wissah_league 5h ago
A lot of feedback noted, thanks!
As for the follow through, i thought it would be cool or impactful where if you hit the enemy, your weapon stops on them, and if you miss it does the full swing, but it would be easy to change if it looks bad/off to do so. (i realize that system isnt shown in the video at all but trust me its there)
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u/Aplutypus 17h ago
I don't know what to bash, it fits perfectly with the graphics. They are very nice and even polished for this game. They good to go.
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u/aptek 17h ago
That is not how human bones/muscles work. That being said it’s beautiful. As others have said make it even weirder.
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u/wissah_league 17h ago
hahaha yeah i am pretty limited in anatomy or animation skills, im winging it
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u/hyrumwhite 17h ago
Nothing to contribute but I dig the vibes. The more lofi fps’ out there the better
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u/Space_Socialist 16h ago
They look a little janky but honestly the jank is mostly stuff on the edge of the screen. If you are able to cut off these edge janky segments it would look good. Though the jank is charming in it's own way.
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u/rgmac1994 16h ago
For the first, the hand should follow through offscreen a bit more instead of the wrist making that wierd angle (that would kinda make your wrist sore).
For the second, the wrist is still at a weird angle. Instead, rotate the hand 90°, either direction so that it is sideways during the stab, could kinda work there. Think like a kind of punch, but with the blade angled more toward the enemy.
This is how I would make these look a bit more natural. Overall, you've got a really nice strong base here. Keep it up!
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u/wissah_league 15h ago
i agree with the follow through, however i implemented a system that plays a different "hit" animation when you deal damage to an enemy, i feel it makes sense for the weapon to stop on the enemy when you hit them, but the actual weird wrist thing could definitely be fixed
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u/SpyJuz Godot Junior 15h ago
I like the FOV shift on the thrust attack, but I think it needs a little bit of work. Typically games use this to simulate the feeling of a lunge, but yours doesn't feel like that because the decrease and increase of FOV are the same speed. I'd experiment increasing the speed that FOV returns to normal during the thrust attack to get that across
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u/wissah_league 15h ago
yknow, i agree. the fov change is tied to the state machine of the weapon, so instead of having it await the weapon swing animation finish, and then reverting the FOV on the idle, i'll just revert the FOV as soon as the animation plays, so as soon as you swing the fov goes back to normal, it feels a lot more natural
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u/SpyJuz Godot Junior 15h ago
Happy to hear! Love how it looks btw, as someone just starting in 3D now - this is basically my goal lol. Best of luck!
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u/wissah_league 15h ago
I'm glad you really like it, this is months of work on this project, with alot of free assets, if I had to 3d model I think I'd go insane. definitely don't sleep on plugins and itch.io free assets
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u/SpyJuz Godot Junior 14h ago
That's really surprising, the visual style is really cohesive. Any resources or plugins you found helpful learning?
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u/wissah_league 5h ago
godotshaders.com gets me all of my shaders, the dithered lighting is custom, itch.io for a lot of free assets
for plugins i use Terrain3D, Godot State Charts, Beehave (for enemy ai behavior trees)
and i have really just been doing mostly trial and error for learning 3d otherwise, other than a couple tutorials here and there for things like inverse kinematics, or making sure the player viewmodels always render on top of everything
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u/Silveruleaf 13h ago
Feels like it's a hold and release thing right? If it gets stronger by holding it needs a clear indicactor for it. Maybe have the arm shack or grow. The over head slash could show the sword off screen and have the hand and arm more in focus and have a camera shake as it slashes. I feel the issue is you are showing the extend of the sword on screen which is nice but then the slash itself hardly moves, so the slash feels less impactful. The stab also needs more impact. Something animators do is exaggerate the impact, you can have a frame where the hand and sword are exaggerated in size on the frame of impact. This will sell the impact a lot more. The stab feels like a moving forward attack like a lunge. You can make it more exaggerate by making the character move forward to stab the target. You could also pan the camera a little to the side and have the arm go off screen to sell how strong the stab will be.
I would recommend to watch overwatch animations. It sucks that for the longest time they refused to do third person, but the first person animations they did are super good and very clear. Look at how genji's ult slashes. The impact of reignhearts hammer
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u/wissah_league 5h ago
It is a hold and release thing, but holding doesnt increase damage, its directional based attacks.
I also have a system set up where if you do a normal swing without hitting an enemy it does the full swing, and if you hit, it stops on the enemy, i thought it would be cooler if it did that, but if it throws it off or looks bad i can remove it.
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u/Silveruleaf 4h ago
Ah I see. Just try things out. To see how they feel. Have people test it to what what works
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u/detachedheadmode 4h ago
i LOVE these animations exactly like they are. they have charm and character. i want to play this.
also, as someone who’s trying to figure out an IK workflow in Godot (to do stuff like this honestly), mind sharing how you’re doing IK?
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u/wissah_league 4h ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSP1pqGsWXo I used this tutorial, its straight to the point and very easy. I ended up attaching the TargetIK nodes to the weapon itself so i can just move the weapon around and the hands will follow.
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u/Arkaein Godot Regular 5h ago
I'm not much of an animator myself, but if you're doing IK based animation it might be worth watching these videos:
Animation Bootcamp: An Indie Approach to Procedural Animation
Giving Personality to Procedural Animations using Math
Disclaimer: it's been a while since I watched the first one, and I'm not sure if I've fully watched the second one, but I think both could be relevant to your approach.
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u/sytaline 19h ago
They look kind of janky and awkward but please dont change them. I think it fits the lower poly low res retro atmosphere beautifully