Sunday, 8 January 2012

12 Fundamentals of Animation - Pose to Pose, Slow In Slow Out, Timing, Appeal

The Assassins Creed series uses Timing with great precision and success in it's fight scenes. Each blow delivered by Etzio/Altair is pin pointed to affect the victim in a certain way, and it is the chaining of such blows together which makes some moves so poetic;


Unlike the mis-match of jolty and almost 'stiff' movements of 'Bayonetta' as she fights adversaries;


The fighting style does seem to be more Pose to Pose animation style, with very little in-between. Whereas the Assassin's style of conflict is far more fluid and suggests more work has been concentrated on everything between each pose as well.

As for Appeal, Creed has a distinct style and setting to its games. The games have become iconic, and thus their appeal is great. For me, the detailed towns and cities of Tuscany were the biggest draw, and meant that every cut scene was appreciated, every viewpoint enjoyed.

A bad example of appeal would be a game such as; Metro 2033. I found the game trailer didn't really give any information about the plot of the game, or what game play would be like bar a lot of explosions and the hint of radiation being a problem. Therefore it did not sing the game's praises and was not appealing.


Another bad example of Pose to Pose animation would be the PS2 game Genji; Dawn of the Samurai - see below;


I found it quite hard to find examples of Slow In Slow Out, but I thought this Burnout 3 trailer featured a lot of high speed movement towards and away from the camera angle which utilises Slow in Slow Out. 



Another great example showing speed through Slow In Slow Out ; Forza 4 Trailer (0:23-0:26) Great setting to music too as it happens!


A terrible example of Slow In Slow Out  is the way that the ping pong ball in ping pong does not seem change in shape or size even though it is quite clearly moving across the table and back and forth between two players. This is but the tip of the iceberg for the lack of considerate animation in Wii games, though this example is enough for what I want to illustrate;






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Robin Silcock

I am a Second Year Games Art and Design student at Norwich University of the Arts. After exploration of a number of roles in my first year, I am now looking to graduate as a 3D Artist with applicable skills in Maya, Mudbox, ZBrush and Photoshop. I understand that my skills in this field are not there yet - but I aim to achieve this goal through consistently working through the programs in my University and Personal Projects. I love to be busy - I have always had a lot of things on my plate since the age of 7 where I successfully balanced school with Ballet, Tap, Horse-Riding, French, Piano and Singing Lessons! In the same fashion, my university schedule is just as hectic and varied; I am a Peer Mentor to first year students, Student Rep for Second Year, and President of the Enterprise Society. Like I said, I love to be busy! I am a Games Hippie - so to speak - I believe that Games if designed and harnessed in the right way, will be able to help solve many of the global issues we have today - even if it starts off in a small way. Just look at the positive effects that Facebook and Twitter have already had... When navigating my blog;
  • Works in Progress - This section is a constantly running account of all my current projects - personal and for university. It will contain reference images and website links and sometimes less than coherent posts, so be prepared!
  • Finished Pieces - This is where you will find my more polished artwork. Looking for help with Maya? Check out the posts tagged "Maya How-To's"