So how do you develop unique and smooth character motion for your game without spending a dime? One method involves harnessing the power of friends and family to mock up the movements in real life.
Chrissy (my girlfriend) and Eileen (my sister) got together with myself and Liem (Marian’s animator) this weekend to explore how our protagonist would move in the game.
Actually, we’re not really doing motion capture (“mo-cap”) – we’re creating a collection of animation references. For this game in particular, its much more effective to have an animator interpreting aspects of reality to create interesting dreamlike movements.
Here are some outtakes from our afternoon session:
Dan T points out that this form of animation reference is quite similar to the one used in the original Prince of Persia.
P.S. The interview mentioned last time is now up on Gamasutra.
P.P.S. If you’d like to help us pay for food and get your name into the credits of the game, check this link.
Eric McQuiggan wrote a Comment on December 7, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Animation Reference is so much fun! I had to do some for my 3d animation class and that was a blast.
I’m excited to see this come along!
Kert Gartner wrote a Comment on December 7, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Awesome
that last sword-jab move at the end was great 
shoe wrote a Comment on December 7, 2009 at 9:55 pm
chrissy’s movements are so fluid. she must be a dancer?
Dan T wrote a Comment on December 8, 2009 at 4:36 am
Totally reminds me of the Prince of Persia animation reference vids:
http://vimeo.com/1854745
http://vimeo.com/2492685
Chrissy wrote a Comment on December 9, 2009 at 12:10 am
@3: used to be! Nice call
I had a great time doing this, and seeing some of Liem’s renderings of the references is AWESOME.
Barton wrote a Comment on December 9, 2009 at 4:27 am
When I was a kid I used to put poster rolls on my arm just like you guys did and pretend I was Mega Man. It’s strange to see somebody do it again but with such focus and grace (except for the part where Eileen (?) hit the ceiling light).
Alec, have you considered using Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/) as a mechanism to fund your project rather than PayPal? I’m also prototyping a game on Unity and was considering using this to have us hit the ground running when we are done prototyping.
Alec Holowka wrote a Comment on December 9, 2009 at 7:07 am
6: I’d have tried Kickstarter, but its only for Americans. (so far…?)
Pretending to be Mega Man is awesome!
Elmernite wrote a Comment on December 10, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Wow! The were really pretty with the dresses…. then they get this huge oversized sword thing and they’re stabbing people!!
I need to do that more for my animation, use actual reference. Can we see any snippets of the resulting animation?
@ #3: I thought the same thing, Ballet maybe?
-Elmernite
Mike Blaguszewski wrote a Comment on December 12, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Hah, the Prince of Persia motion-capture was the first thing that occurred to me too. If you haven’t read the original developer’s journal you really should:
http://jordanmechner.com/old-journals/page/11/
Hiro wrote a Comment on December 13, 2009 at 4:46 am
Hahaha. Sword arms eh?
I saw once somewhere that Marian will be for the xbox; is there confirmed a computer version too? (I don’t have an xbox..)
Infinite Ammo » Blog Archive » Marian Mondays: Interior wrote a Pingback on December 14, 2009 at 3:24 pm
[...] Previously… [...]