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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperArt (Moderator: JWK5)Cutscenes animation style
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diegzumillo
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« on: February 20, 2016, 11:46:09 PM »

Hi all

I'm making a game mostly with pixel art with lots of cheating involved, like textured polygons disguised as sprites. But it looks pixelated, that's what matters. Right now I'm working on cutscenes. These will be very few, one intro, one ending, and possibly a few extra tiny ones in the middle. My initial idea was to do them directly in the game. Probably the easiest way to do it too. But I'm finding that too limiting for what I want to do and I'm searching for alternative methods.

Here's what I can do: I'm a decent amateur animator. I worked as a freelancer doing 3D animation and I managed to transfer most of that to pixel animation.

What I considered doing: I never seriously tried traditional animation, and it's definitely not a skill easy to pick up, even not starting from scratch like me. But there are other animation styles, like vector animation. People seem to do that with after effects, toon boom and similar softwares. So that's a little less daunting. Then there's the static image approach too! kinda like comic book. Not super exciting but it goes around the limitations of ingame only and I can draw static images.

I could use some suggestions Smiley Or even encouragement to try the hard path.
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Kayzaks
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« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2016, 05:59:19 AM »

I'm in the same boat as you! I've also been thinking about how to do nice cutscenes in a "Pixel Art"-Style game.

What I think would work really well is, like you mentioned, static images with very slight animations. I think Diablo 3 did it best. Of course, we'd probably need to scale down quite a bit, but the overall idea should be doable!





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diegzumillo
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« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2016, 02:40:47 PM »

yeah! that's a good compromise. Animated static images. Animate just camera movement with paralax and small details in the environment just to sell the idea. That could work.

My sister is a professional artist (illustration and comics) and she is just starting to learn animation, I'm trying to convince her to help me. This could be a good reason to pick any method I want, as long that's what she wants to learn.
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mankoon
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« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2016, 09:29:06 AM »

I thought gravity rush rm did a cool job making non boring comic cutscenes.  It's for the most part static images  with simple movements and sound. That wobbling camera movement is just what happens when you move the ps4 controller around. It's not very necessary.
Heres a bunch of their cutscenes if you haven't seen it already.
https://youtu.be/s_-p7q6l0v8?t=1312
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swordofkings128
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« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2016, 10:13:41 AM »

If you're decent at 3d modeling and animation, perhaps created 3d character models and animate them, drawing over the frames in a pixel art style?

One of my favorite pixel art cutscenes:




There is a heavy use of parallax scrolling or just moving sprites without animating, but they're so good because of how well the limited animation is disguised and the beautiful pixel art style!

I'm 100% sure Mech Warrior didn't use this method, but I could certainly see a pixel art mech game with cutscenes doing some kind of pixel art tracing over 3d renders of mechs to save time and create consistent animation/background pieces! Then everything else could just be drawn like normal pixel art.

I have never tried something like that but if I were you trying to do pixel art cutscenes I'd definitely try a 3d/pixel art tracing approach with in game parallax animation!

Another example of 3d to pixel art, King of Fighters 13 did this with beautiful results!
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« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2016, 11:49:45 AM »

I'm in the same boat as you! I've also been thinking about how to do nice cutscenes in a "Pixel Art"-Style game.

What I think would work really well is, like you mentioned, static images with very slight animations. I think Diablo 3 did it best. Of course, we'd probably need to scale down quite a bit, but the overall idea should be doable!

you should check dcuo cutscenes, there's a bunch of them =and it's made with static images with slight animations too.



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diegzumillo
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« Reply #6 on: February 22, 2016, 04:13:35 PM »

Quote
If you're decent at 3d modeling and animation, perhaps created 3d character models and animate them, drawing over the frames in a pixel art style?

What keeps me from doing 3D animation in this case is the time it takes to produce even short scenes, not the style. I chose pixel art for the game because it looks neat, I'm not trying to emulate old systems and limitations, so anything goes really. As long as they look good together, of course.
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diegzumillo
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« Reply #7 on: February 26, 2016, 12:41:48 AM »

Little update: I'm testing 2D animation techniques to gauge how long would it take to learn and produce small sequences.

I played around with Pencil2D, which is a software I have always been curious. And I discarded it. Spent an hour doing a run cycle, fighting with lack of features on the drawing tools and then the whole thing crashed on me.

Now I'm playing with a trial for ToonBoom harmony. It's pretty good so far. I'm trying to come up with a rough looking style that looks interesting and doesn't take forever to make.

I'm also considering a hybrid method. Use the game graphics for the main scene, and some comic book panels sliding on top of it with animation in them. I'll make a mockup as soon as possible.
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Ger
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« Reply #8 on: March 18, 2016, 04:18:10 AM »

FLash would be perfect for doing cut scenes like these.







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Ger
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« Reply #9 on: March 18, 2016, 04:19:43 AM »







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Ger
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« Reply #10 on: March 18, 2016, 04:20:30 AM »







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diegzumillo
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« Reply #11 on: March 18, 2016, 04:55:13 AM »

Those are nice. But I discovered they don't go well with the cartoony vibe I'm going for. For my case, I prefer to have things moving in game space than a movie with this animatic style (like storyboard animated).

I made this with toonboom


It was not hard to make and didn't take long at all. Specially considering I was also learning how to use the software. Even as a rough proof of concept I like the results! it could actually work. But now my trial is over and I don't know if I'll buy it. It's the subscription model, which is nice, but I rarely have a free month to work on my hobby so it might be wasted money.
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kshankin
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« Reply #12 on: March 18, 2016, 05:30:43 AM »

That's a great prototype, especially since you're learning the software!

If you're hesitant about investing money into a software suite, you could try an open source alternative. I've played around with Synfig (http://www.synfig.org/cms/ ) quite a bit and I think there is some good stuff in there, and I'll bet blender has some tools in it for doing some cut scenes and rendering out mp4s.

To be honest, I haven't used toon boom ever so I'm not sure how it would compare.
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diegzumillo
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« Reply #13 on: March 18, 2016, 05:46:57 AM »

Thanks, I'll give that one a shot Smiley I always try free alternatives when available
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Poya
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« Reply #14 on: March 21, 2016, 05:39:47 AM »

A couple of years ago I released a children's game on iPad. Having never done any real drawing before I knew animation was out of the question for me so here is what I opted out for in the cutscenes:




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Μarkham
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« Reply #15 on: March 21, 2016, 01:01:33 PM »

I know I'll be playing with this next week, and you might want to as well.
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diegzumillo
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« Reply #16 on: March 21, 2016, 01:05:18 PM »


Absolutely! It's on my radar since it was announced. Can't wait to try it out.
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Tattie-Bogal
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« Reply #17 on: April 05, 2016, 11:41:34 PM »

Regardless of your approach, directing a cutscene will require decent story boarding which can be a hurdle for most people. I'd honestly recommend commissioning an animator to do some work if you have the budget just for the sake of the animation quality, because those sort of things go pretty far. Ive heard from a few people that the motion comic approach to animation can still cost a pretty penny to make. If I recall correctly in Fooly Cooly the manga style scene took a massive chunk of the studio's budget.






Shovel Knight did a pretty good job of getting exposition out of the way with extremely basic (but pretty) artworks coupled with dialogue.





The more recent Hyper Light Drifter has a bit more animation mixed in, but is still fairly basic/effective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB-pG7wEnzM
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diegzumillo
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« Reply #18 on: April 06, 2016, 12:43:21 AM »

My budget is zero dollars, unfortunately. But that's good advice nonetheless. Also, my cutscenes are not overly ambitious. I have some small experience with animation (worked as a freelancer doing 3D animation and other 3D stuff). I'm new to traditional animation but it's been a fun learning project.

I'm also considering a hybrid of in-game scenes with animation. Either by going back and forth between the two or by superimposing comic book-like panels containing small bits of animation over the game itself.
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