ANIMATIONS
This page is dedicated to the 2D animations in the vertical slice which make up the cutscenes between each battle. The videos below are the final animations made.
Animation 1 - Introduction to the characters and narrative - the events that inspire the revenge story.
Animation 2 - After the first battle takes place in the town the team take what they can from their foes and chase after their fellow outlaw who was taken hostage.
Animation 3 - After the second battle in the swamp the team set off to find where all of this fur was going to...
Animation 4 - The team fends off your tumbleweed opposition... for now
To start this process I used all of the information I had gathered in my research section and made storyboards based on what we decided as a group should be the narrative. I referred back to the mood boards I did right at the beginning of the project and my research studies to create immersive and suitable environments for these events to take place. These storyboards were sketched out, tweaked in a meeting with the project leader so that everything flowed nicely and suited what everyone wanted as a group, then fully coloured and annotated.
PROCESS - SKELETALS
Step 1 - producing skeletal animations based off of the original storyboards. This is the first process in making the animations digitally so they are rough lines to sketch out body movements and object placements throughout the course of the animations. Below is the skeletal version of the first animation.
PROCESS - LINE ART
Next I added new layers over the top of the skeletals, took the skeletal opacity layer down and traced over the main components whilst adding the extra details on top to give me clean lines suitable for the final animations. Below is the line art version of the first animation.
Before colouring my animations I made character sheets for the non-essential characters. All playable characters have been 3D modelled and textured so the colour palettes were determined by someone else. The non-essential characters such as baby bear (before our main character grows up), papa bear, mama bear and the cacti gang members were up to me to design. I also referred back to Bernado's art bible to incorporate some design ideas he originally had and investigate various colour combinations. As a cartoon based art style I wanted to keep it bright and eye-catching whilst still sticking to the wild west genre.
Grid images from Bernado's original GDD (website link on home page)
PROCESS - COLOURING
Finally I added layers underneath the line art layers (after deleting the skeletals) to colour the components. Similar to some of the UI I added a darker shade of colour to the left-hand side of the object and a lighter shade of colour to the right. I did this regardless of light sources to keep the cartoon effect and depth without having to consider the light sources and angles of each frame. I then merged these layers together to make the final product. Below are some of the final images that can be seen in the animations.
Below I have linked a document with statistics showing the time the process took and my final thoughts on the animation process.
Music
The final task when editing these animations together was to find music suited to the narrative. There had been a few suggestions in the group before this stage but we all decided that these weren't appropriate so from my previous research I set out to find some more suited tunes. Click on the buttons below each description for a link to each song.
Animation 1: "Man with a Harmonica" - from "Once Upon a Time in the West" composed by Ennio Morricone
Originally from the 1968 western film "Once Upon a Time in the West", I found this song to have the exact pacing needed for the backdrop for the start of a revenge story. The eery solo of the harmonica with the sharp notes tells the player to be on edge because the bad guys are coming. I found the pace of the song to work with my animation because it starts to pick up when we see baby bear find his fight and this is what hooks in the player.
Animation 2: "Gunslinging Outlaws" - Brandon Fiechter
This next song is a composition which, to me, reflects the nature of setting out on a journey but with intent and purpose. It follows the animation as our band of outlaws go to rescue their friend taken hostage. The strong beat of the song mimicks the determination we see in our characters as they set of on another fateful quest.
Animation 3: "Journey North" - Federale
For the third animation I turned to Federale's 'Journey North'. The strong introductory beat sees our characters realising the true schemes of their opposition linked back the heinous crimes that baby bear once saw. When the guitar kicks in we are instantly transported to the stereotypical wild west films. This connection sees the Sheriff enter the scene and with that our team sets out on yet another adventure to set right what the cacti had tried to take from them.
Animation 4: "Ol' Mining Town" - Derek Fiechter
This final piece draws our animations to a close. It has the plodding beat to make our tumbleweed boss look clumsy now that he has been defeated and embarrassed. It also gives us a nice lead into the credits without a crescendo or harsh change in composition, making it ideal to round off our experience.
