Exclusive Animations Sneak Peek #2 (Patreon)

Hi, Alice here! :y

These last months I have been having fun creating locomotion and emotion animations for our Parafolks and today we’d like to share some of them with you all. I’ve already shared many animations in a past Patreon post so today is the second edition of my animation showcase videos. And, in case you’re wondering, the music in today’s video is one of the tracks that Andrei recently made to try different musical directions for Paralives!✨

What We Have to Keep in Mind

The goal for the animations in Paralives is to make them good-looking of course, realistic, but also generic. That last point is very important because one animation isn't created for a specific Para, but all of them! Therefore, they MUST fit on all body types.

Our animations are also essential in giving our characters life and personality, so "generic" doesn't mean that we want them to look bland! Doing it this way allows us to save time to create other various animations that will give more life to your future Paras!

Here’s a small example: when I created our run animation and tried it on Maggie, our first female Parafolk, it looked great, but then I tested it on Marvin, our most recent male Parafolk. Something about his movement made him seem very feminine, and this is not a specificity we want to be applied to every Para. Later on, we'll be considering giving you the option to choose your Parafolk’s own walk style. It might also be impacted by numerous things like emotions, needs, or even your Parafolk’s personality.

Locomotion Animations

In the first part of the video, you can see 3 of our main locomotion animations: a walk, a jog, and a run. Because they are the ones you will see the most, locomotion animations are very important. This is why I like taking a bit more time to create them, and even start over completely if they don't turn out the way we envisioned (I started over for the walk, jog and run animations, but it was for the best believe me, haha)! The goal here was to have generic movements that have to look good at the right speed. For example, we need a walking animation that is fast enough and has big enough steps so the Parafolk will cover a good distance. This way, your Parafolks won’t take forever to go from A to B.

Emotion Animations

(EDIT: The Uncomfortable and Tense animations are swapped in the video!)

In the second part of the video, you can see our animations for some of the principal range of human emotions, like surprised, sad, stressed and so on. These will be used as emotion reactions of course, but also as reactions to events or during conversations. As you know, we are starting to focus on the live mode, so we will share more details on this later.

While emotion animations also have to follow our main goals, we cannot be 100% realistic and we may need to exaggerate them a bit, as the emotions need to be distinctive and quickly comprehended by the player. Fortunately, we'll have a variety of different indicators on your Parafolks emotions and states, such as the interface and sounds that will help you understand what is going on! Here’s an example: In real life, you would probably never see someone shaking from fear, but as you can see, I decided to add “shakes” in our first scared emotion anyway. In my opinion, that was a good way to make the animation clearer without being too cartoony, but for each case, we have to find the right balance.

We will also have facial animations that, like the name suggests, will only impact the Parafolk’s faces. These will temporarily take over the Parafolks’ facial expressions if they have a significant change of mood, except if an action needs its own expression. In case you missed it, I explained this further in this Patreon post from last year. :)

That is all for me today, I had a lot of fun working on these new animations and I really hope you like them! If you want to know more, I could write another Patreon post going more in-depth about the animation process: How does it work? What software do you need? Are real-life video references really important? (yes they are) and so on. Let us know in the comments below!

I would also love to read your thoughts on emotion animations, so please be sure to participate and share your vision in our new monthly community brainstorming “Emotions & Mood” in the comment section of last week’s Patreon post or on Discord or Reddit!

Happy Friday!!!!
Alice (•◡•) /

EDIT - May 25 2022: This post is now public so feel free to share it!