How to Do Game Animations

When designing animation for games, begin on paper.

Creating effective game animation demands striking a balance between overall quality, and any time- and money-based constraints. Use limited animation, or animation built on the fewest number of drawings possible, and rely on animation cycles -- loop-able series of drawings -- to bring your characters to life while enabling you to deliver the completed artwork to developers on time and under budget.

Things You'll Need

• Sketchpad
• Graph paper
• Animation pencil
• Eraser
• Pigment pen
• Scanner
• Drawing tablet
• Animation software
• Walk- and run-cycle templates

Instructions

1. Sketch out rough ideas for your actors -- or characters -- on paper with an animation pencil. As your basic designs take shape, continue polishing your work and adding details until you know exactly what your actors look like and their sizes relative to each other. Though personality traits are less important in game animation than in feature animation, make sure that your basic choices -- including heights, weights, costumes and facial features -- grow out of the actors' relative roles within the game.

2. Take your actor sketches and use them as the basis for a model sheet, a scale diagram of your game's complete cast that includes drawings from all angles and examples of the actors performing their most basic common poses. Draw a draft of your model sheet on graph paper. Look over the draft and make adjustments to your designs to increase contrast between the actors. Ink the final version of your model sheet with pigment pen and erase all pencil marks.

3. Scan your completed model sheet and pre-model sheet character sketches. Referring to a walk cycle template, draw one of your actors in each position on the template using your drawing tablet. Play back the drawings in Photoshop, GIMP or your animation production software of choice. Make slight adjustments to your drawings. Move on to the next actor and repeat the process until you have basic walk cycles for your entire cast. If your characters will also run during game play, repeat this process using your run-cycle template of choice.

4. Design detailed backgrounds. As in traditional 2-D animation, the background designs for many games contain a higher level of detail than the actor designs, and often add charm and visual interest to game-play. Because backgrounds remain stationary and do not require multiple drawings, you can afford to spend time making your them vivid and specific. Is your game set in a forest? Does the action occur underwater or on the surface of an asteroid? Look at photographs and paintings of similar locations and use them for reference as you draw your backgrounds with your drawing tablet.

5. Export vector-based or lossless bitmap versions of your completed to the developer who will code the back-end of your game. The developer will take these digital assets and write scripts that will connect user input on the destination platform with the actions of actors -- and decide how those actions will affect game-play as a whole.

Tips & Warnings

• You can find walk- and run-cycle templates in most introductory texts on traditional character animation, including Preston Blair's "Animation" and "The Animation Book" by Kit Laybourne. The simplest walk cycles only use two frames. For non-pixel art games you may need up to eight or 12 frames for a believable walk cycle.

• If, upon examining your model sheet your character designs and roles within the game seem mismatched, consider revising at least some of the designs. Remember that in games with a humorous or quirky element, irony can be used for comedic effect.

• Consider drawing a simple, two-frame idle cycle of a stationary action to use when your character stands in one place. Stationary actions for idle cycles include blinking and breathing.

References

• Producing Animation; Catherine Winder
• The Animation Book; Kit Laybourne
• Animation; Preston Blair