Interesting things that may lead to other interesting things.
I forgot to mention it here, but I posted a video tutorial some weeks ago about how exactly I make 2D animation in 3D games, such as in “Drew and the Floating Labyrinth.”
I didn’t think this tutorial was necessary, but some people have asked for one, so I planned to make one for some time now. Sorry it took so long.
Also, I apologize for my quiet and stammering voice, I never was a good public speaker.
When you make a game, project, research contribution, etc., where do you show it? Typically, you take to online and submit it to contests, conventions, conferences, and other places hoping for recognition.
I’ve been to a couple research conferences before, and they tend to be small events with dozens of awkward researchers saying hi to each other, while getting to make a powerpoint presentation of something they’ve dedicated years of their life towards while hoping in vain that someone else in the room is as excited as they are. Typically, this is purely meant as a resume booster, and I feel similar events are the same: it’s good experience, but it won’t change your life as much as you hope. When it comes to game development however, press and exposure is important even if futile, your game will not be seen if you don’t at least try to put it out there, and people won’t flock to you to see it without exposure elsewhere. Also, game conventions also tend to be exciting and get thousands of interested attendees, so the energy is better. The various online contests for indie games probably won’t get you attention, but can sometimes get you money if you win a prize, and can lead to your game being showcased elsewhere, all the better for you.
I love animation.
I love traditional animation.
But how would you make such animation on the computer? Programs like Blender3D offer 3D animation, Flash and similar programs offer modern 2D animation. But I want traditional, draw-every-frame-by-hand animation. I’ve been using Photoshop for a long time, which is slow and cumbersome. But what should you use?
“Can computers think?
Why is time moving so quickly?
Is there life beyond death?
What is the meaning of life?
How much of compassion is just posturing?
Has your greatest fear ever come true?”
– Communications of the ACM, 12/2012, Vol. 55, No. 12 (cover)
(Oddly enough, each sentence can relate to each of my game/research ideas. I like this stanza a lot…)
I keep thinking about better ways to improve my method for pseudo-3D hand-drawn graphics in games. It isn’t a very advanced method, and yet expands older methods that have been abandoned decades ago, creating traditional animation in 3D games in ways that computer animation has still be unable to mimic.
The problem with it? Never mind how it looks (I am not a professional animator in any sense, that it looks as good as it does with my ability alone is enough to convince me of its potential). It takes a lot of work to animate (still less than the typical animated film, which is hardly a comparison). More importantly, it takes a lot of RAM and hard drive space. Unlike CGI models, where the animation takes less data than the model itself (and thus animations can be added to a model with less concern), my method multiplies RAM used with every frame of animation. Every frame is its own, hand-drawn texture.
Add that there are different perspectives of one character (currently 24 in my latest version). If I have one animation with five frames, that’s 24*5 = 120 frames. If I have several animations, or add more frames for smoother animation, you can see how one character can have thousands of hand-drawn frames.
