Robot Animations
- Jul 25, 2016
- 2 min read
I was tasked with creating the animations for the RobotEnemy and also integrating then into the game engine.
As the basis and inspiration for the robots were mimes, I went to research and try to replicate the same movements and poses that mimes are known for. And so for the idle animation, I started with the 'trapped in a box' pose, which might just be the pose everyone thinks of when the word 'mime' comes to mind.
For the running animation, I started by creating a in-between for the idle to running state, then continued by creating a looping animation for the actual running state. My teammates suggested making the robots wonky and a little crazy so I tried to make the robot run like a madman, as if it was charging at the player with its arms flailing about.
Attacking the player is a little difficult for the robot, as its arms are relatively short while its head is huge. I tried to make the robot pull back and then quickly stretch the punch all the way in order to make the arm-head dilemma (which the T-Rex also suffers from) a little less obvious.
I began with the damaged and death animations by experimenting with several different styles, and in the end decided to use the head movements more as it is huge, thus any movement of the head can be easily seen by the player. As such, the damaged animation shows the robot getting hit in the face, recoiling from the impact, and then coming back to idle. The death animation slightly follows the damage animation; getting hit in the face, and recoiling from the impact. But instead of recovering from the impact, it falls back and lands on its back, with its head, arms and legs following, giving it a bit more realism similarly to how a lifeless human body would look like if it fell over.
As the main camera is pulled quite a distance away, I decided it would be better to make the overall animations a little more exaggerated than usual, in order for the players to be able to receive the feedback.
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