Exclusive Video Sneak Peek at Some Live Mode Animations (Patreon)

Hi everyone, Alice here, your character animator!

As my first contribution to a Patreon post ever, I am very excited to share with you the above video showcasing a few of the many animations we made in the last few months in anticipation of the upcoming live mode gameplay. This post is for Patrons only so please don’t share it!

You might have already seen some of them in videos or older posts, like the “sit on chair” one, but we also wanted to show you new content. In the video, you can see new animations that will be used for our future sitting, exercising and dancing interactions.

Some of these don’t have facial animations, that’s because in certain cases we want the Parafolks’ face to be neutral, as we will override them in game with facial emotion poses.

Here’s an example: a walking Parafolk won’t have any specific emotion on their face while walking. Let’s call it the neutral face. If at one point an event makes them feel sad, a sad face will be replacing the neutral face, on top of the walk that is currently playing.

In other cases, like emotional reactions (e.g. a Para crying after getting bad news), the face won't need to be replaced as this is already a full body emotion animation. We can mix and match part of different animations in order to reuse each part in different contexts, minimizing the number of animations to produce.

Maybe we’ll share some of these with you soon... They’re my favorites so far!

How Does Animation in Video Games Work?

As you can see in the video, in the left bottom corner, a text shows which animation is playing. For example, for the “Sit on chair one”, the game will require 3 clips:

• Sit on chair
• Sit on chair idle → You can play this one as many times as you need as it loops perfectly, that means that the first and last pose of the animation are the same.
• Get up from chair

These cases are pretty simple, but it can become more complex depending on the action. If you want to know a bit more about that and missed it, Anna shared a lot of very interesting behind the scenes in this Patreon post.

A New Parafolk?

I know you will all ask who this Parafolk is, sadly it is just a (cute) random para Sonia created to showcase to you a bit of my work. This character, the skin details and the hair are still being improved by Sonia and Léa.

Please note that these animations might be tweaked later and are therefore not final. We also know that we have some clipping issues (feet through the floor, hands in the thighs…), but worry not, it will all get fixed later.

I really hope you enjoyed seeing a bit of my work, please let us know if animation is a subject that you’d like to see here from time to time.

Until then, here’s my work email for anyone who wants information on animation in general, what software to use, where to start when you’re new to animation, what schools or formations could be useful… I’ll be happy to take a bit of my free time to help: aliceparalives@gmail.com

Have a great weekend, and please take care!

Alice (•◡•) /