The simulation of an in-game entity's motion, such as running or sitting or striking.
67
votes
8answers
86k views
How do I get started making Android games? [closed]
I am new to game development. I am interested in developing 2D games for the Android platform. What is the best place to start with (i.e) What are the basics and how to proceed? I already have ...
40
votes
7answers
7k views
Why don't more games use vector art?
It would seem to me that vector art is more efficient in terms of resources/scalability; however, in most cases I have seen artists using bitmap/rasterized art. Is this a limitation put on the artists ...
33
votes
8answers
12k views
How to learn 2d animation?
Where can I learn how to do simple 2d animation well? Or is it really just literally drawing every single frame of something in photoshop? Is there tips or tricks? Tutorials to help get started?
...
23
votes
8answers
6k views
What is a good tool for producing animated sprites? [closed]
Has anyone come across a software package that allows you to build animations in a similar way to how you can in Flash (i.e. using techniques such as tweens & bones & easings, etc) and then ...
20
votes
9answers
7k views
Tips and Tools for creating Spritesheet animations
I am looking for a tool that I can use to create sprite sheet easily.
Right now I am using Illustrator, but I can never get the center of the character in the exact position, so it looks like it is ...
20
votes
6answers
2k views
Are there any open source or free 3D modelling/animation tools that are widely used by indie game developers?
I have tried out Blender and Milkshape 3D, but my question is mainly asking if there is any 3D animation/modelling software that is open source, free, or has an indie license available that is widely ...
15
votes
5answers
2k views
Sprite Animation Best Practices
I'd like to get a better handle on how people in the real world are handling their animation.
Do you load 1 large image and then draw different rectangles based on the animation frame?
Do you load X ...
15
votes
1answer
827 views
What are the pros and cons of these voxel data file formats?
.VXL
.VOX
.KVX
.KV6
.V3A
.V3B
I am trying to decide whether it's worth going with any of the above, or some other, or if I should roll my own. The deciding factors in order of importance are:
...
14
votes
5answers
949 views
What's the best head-bob formula?
Given a point in space, a direction of travel, and a time since start, what's a convincing, non-sickening formula to simulate head bob? What's been successful in previous games? Has there been any ...
14
votes
5answers
487 views
How to tie a bullet release with a firing animation
Lets say you have an animation that you want to happen when firing a bullet. How would you get the bullet to show up at the end of the animation. The only thing I can figure out is to know the time ...
13
votes
3answers
1k views
How to programatically retarget animations from one skeleton to another?
I'm trying to write code to transfer animations that were designed for one skeleton to look correct on another skeleton. The source animations consist only of rotations except for translations on the ...
12
votes
5answers
750 views
Game actions that take multiple frames to complete
I've never really done much game programming before, pretty straightforward question.
Imagine I'm building a Tetris game, with the main loop looking something like this.
for every frame
handle ...
12
votes
2answers
917 views
How to properly handle the landing part in a jump animation
Look at this sprite sheet.
It is clear that frame 1-3 are the "jump up" frames after which the last frame will be fixed until the "peak" of the jump (when gravity starts pulling back). When moving ...
11
votes
2answers
3k views
Are the Minecraft animations hardcoded into the game?
I would like to know how the animation system works in minecraft. I get a feeling that all the mobs are hardcoded into the game. Did notch really sit there and create the matrices for all the ...
11
votes
2answers
4k views
I can't figure out how to animate my loaded model with Assimp
I have loaded in a model to my C++ OpenGL game. It is a COLLADA file type that I have loaded, and I setup an animation under blender for the file. The problem is I don't know how to animate the model. ...
11
votes
1answer
357 views
Breathing for game/movie characters
Breathing (the movement of chest and face features): I'd like to ask if it is hard to model and whether it is computationaly expensive. I recently noticed the great effect it has in Madagascar 3 ...
11
votes
3answers
1k views
What are some great and useful resources for an Isometric game built on the XNA Framework?
I'm currently working on an isometric game using the Microsoft XNA Framework. I'm looking of resources that would be of use for making this a successful project, such as isometric engines, physics ...
11
votes
4answers
2k views
Ledge grab and climb in Unity3D
I just started on a new project. In this project one of the main gameplay mechanics is that you can grab a ledge on certain points in a level and hang on to it.
Now my question, since I've been ...
11
votes
1answer
726 views
Moving an Object along a Curve while Rotating it
I woud like to move an object along a curve. At particular points on the curve, I wish the object to change speed and rotate itself along its axis.
Imagine an airplane flying to a destination. It has ...
11
votes
2answers
2k views
Animation Blending Basics
Say I have a framework with characters that can run and walk and of course, stand still.
Am I right in thinking that animation blending is the process of smoothly transitioning between these by ...
11
votes
1answer
324 views
Dynamic model interactions
I am just curious as to how in many games (namely games like arkham asylum/city, manhunt, hitman) do they make it so that your character can "grab" a character in front of you and do stuff to them. I ...
11
votes
2answers
537 views
Is there a tool to help quickly define animation frames from non-uniform size sprite sheets?
Many of the sprite sheets online have non-uniform sized rectangles as the animation frames and often use a portion of the image for credits, etc., this makes it hard for a game engine to correctly ...
10
votes
4answers
365 views
How to deal with animated doors in isometric tiles
I've got a tricky issue I'm not sure how to tackle best:
I have an animated tile of a door. When it's closed it should be sorted one way, but when it's openend it will need to be sorted a different ...
10
votes
2answers
2k views
Efficient skeletal animation
I am looking at adopting a skeletal animation format (as prompted here) for an RTS game. The individual representation of each model on-screen will be small but there will be lots of them!
In ...
10
votes
2answers
1k views
Data-driven animation states
EDIT: To clarify what exactly my question is: is this a good way to handle animations / animation state in a game engine with the eye on content creation / management? What are the flaws in doing it ...
9
votes
2answers
733 views
How do character/object interaction animations work in isometric games?
I am planning an isometric business simulation game where the player sees an office with the usual furniture such as desks, whiteboards etc.
Characters (Staff/NPC's) within the game should interact ...
9
votes
2answers
777 views
Rendering characters, with cut off limbs (Blender models in Java/OpenGL)
What aspects should I take into consideration for creating character animation and rendering classes if I want to be able to have detachable limbs? I've developed a detailed body system that can have ...
9
votes
6answers
2k views
Which is the best approach to make a 2D character to be able to use tons of different equipments when in action?
I want to create a 2D game but I'd like to have the character to wear tons of different equipments on different combinations, like a RPG or something.
So let's say the user changes his/her shoulders ...
9
votes
2answers
527 views
Good practices in screen states management?
I wonder what are the best ways to organize different screens in a game?
I am thinking of it like this:
Inheriting a base State class, and overriding update and render methods, to handle the current ...
9
votes
3answers
2k views
Animation in OpenGL using 3D Models
I have created a model in Blender. Now i want to read that 3D model in my c++ program. I figured that a model can be exported to various file formats e.g. .obj, .3ds or COLLADA and then can be read in ...
8
votes
3answers
3k views
Why is the “bind pose” one with outstretched arms?
Something I've often wondered about is the "bind pose". The bind pose for human skeletons is one where their legs are straight, and their arms are perpendicular to their body:
My question is: why? ...
8
votes
1answer
5k views
What's the best way to create animations when doing Android development?
I'm trying to create my first Android game and I'm currently trying to figure out (with someone that will do the drawings and another programmer) what the best way to create animation is. (Animations ...
8
votes
3answers
2k views
Exporting Blender bones
I wrote an exporter for blender models that works great for meshes. I'm attempting to extend that to bones defined in blender. However I haven't found good information for exporting bone data. How can ...
8
votes
2answers
791 views
Easing Functions
I started to involve myself with easing functions (Flash AS3), came about in trying to understand TweenLite and Robert Penner's website: http://www.robertpenner.com/easing/
The question I have is ...
8
votes
2answers
243 views
Following a path in a smooth fashion
I am currently making a 2d tower defense game with a static, predetermined lane that the enemies follow (i.e. towers cannot block the path and path finding is not the problem I am trying to solve).
I ...
8
votes
6answers
380 views
Is there a (family of) monotonically non-decreasing noise function(s)?
I'd like a function to animate an object moving from point A to point B over time, such that it reaches B at some fixed time, but its position at any time is randomly perturbed in a continuous ...
8
votes
2answers
1k views
Sprite sheet or multiple resources
When animating for the Android platform is it a better practice to create a sprite sheet with multiple states for each sprite on a single picture or should I instead export individual images for each ...
8
votes
1answer
602 views
Abstracting Entity System animation states
I recently started designing a Game Engine using the Entity System paradigm, i.e. having entities as an aggregation of components, and systems that implement the actual game.
Whereas I've had ...
8
votes
1answer
156 views
How to dynamically animate a part of a 3d model towards something
I'm curious about how this sort of animation is typically done code-wise.
A few examples:
A character picks something up - only hand is animated towards the target
...
8
votes
1answer
1k views
What are the common character animation techniques used in tile based hack&slash games?
I wonder what kind of animation techniques are used for creature and character animation in modern hack&slash type tile based games? Keyframing for different actions may be one option. Skeletal ...
8
votes
1answer
330 views
Separation of world state and animation in a turn based game
How do you handle the separation of animation from the world state within a turn based game? I'm working on a 2D grid based game currently. The below code is simplified to better explain.
When an ...
7
votes
2answers
342 views
What is the necessary know-how to write an animation library ( IK & FK ) ? - in C++
I can't find any good library for animation, the ones that i found are just really old and discontinued, but i have noticed that this library are relatively small, so I'm thinking about coding one on ...
7
votes
1answer
468 views
How to represent a game character in code?
In a previous game I wrote I had a game character class. This class tracked the location, velocity, and a set of states. Except the states were tied very close to the animation. Each state would have ...
7
votes
5answers
860 views
Multiplayer synchronization and pathfinding
I have a point & click type interface on a client, which runs an A* on the server, for path-finding.
The game is controlled like an RTS, but the world is persistent, so players should be able to ...
7
votes
1answer
2k views
Common way of animating 'motion' for walk cycle animations
I've just posted this at the Blender artists' forums before realising I would probably get a better response from a more game development-specific audience, so apologies for cross-posting! It's for ...
7
votes
2answers
1k views
Better animation of elements in SFML/C++
This is not about animating individual characters or elements, I'm happy with spritesheets for that. What I'm looking for is the animation of elements on screen.
For example my game starts and the ...
7
votes
1answer
1k views
Creating a 2D skeleton animation system for use with Panda3D
Hey. I want to be able to create a system for 2D skeletal animation in my game. I'm using panda3d as my game engine. I'd like to be able to make simple bone structures and skin them with my sprites. I ...
6
votes
6answers
1k views
How come the 3d graphics and animations of MMORPGs are usually worse than non-online 3d games?
I have noticed that in general it seems like the 3d graphics and animations for MMOs and MMORPGs seem not as seductive and polished as the graphics for normal, non-online 3d games.
How come this is ...
6
votes
4answers
1k views
Which image format to use for sprites in an HTML5 game?
In a 2D HTML5 game, what is the best image format to use and why? Should I use different formats in different situations? For example, .png for the background image, .jpeg for the animation frames and ...
6
votes
3answers
1k views
Character Animation Architecture
Can anyone explain the general architecture typically used for 3D character animation?
Are movements like walking and falling scripted against the skelton, and simply executed on input? If so, is ...
