So I announced my newest project “True King” a couple weeks ago… it featured a tiny character you could barely see.

While most of the game will be like that, I spent a lot of time experimenting with my animation systems for the characters in this game. Here’s a cool video that shows what I’m working with.

So, it looks a little better up close… sort of? I admit the hands look weird, the cape looks weird… ok, it all looks kind-of weird. But I also like how it looks when I pause a walking animation half-way and just look at the character from other angles, that’s a really cool effect.

And that’s really the point of this video: to show that I have a rough animation workflow in place, with this scene to test out character animation and a menu on the left to toggle stuff on and off. For testing lighting, for example, this was a huge time-saver. And I don’t think I’ve shown too much of this “3D Cel Animation” technique yet, aside from a blog post way back in June (dear lord, how long will it take me to finish this game?). So, this video is a great example of what I’m talking about.

Generally, the look matches what I’m aiming for. There are a few kinks to work out, but I’m in a good place to focus on the actual game.

If you are really interested in how this works, try downloading the Unity3D asset package of what you see in this scene and try it yourself! https://www.dropbox.com/s/z0dd4phzriy6mw3/trueking_animation_test_20160921.unitypackage?dl=0

Just import into an empty project, drag the prefab on the top folder into an empty scene, and you have what you see in the video! Try replacing the 2D textures or adding more animations! If you do actually try this out, please let me know!