Animator Guidance Example (Patreon)

I've said it before, but the majority of work I do is not related to writing code. It's speaking with 2D artists / 3D modelers / animators. The majority of my time is spent reviewing their work, testing their work, and requesting changes when necessary.

When I need to explain to a volunteer how their work can be improved, I do everything I can to provide guidance and help them understand what needs to be changed. This usually involves finding reference material online (images or videos) that can serve as an example of the standard of quality I want to see from them. If I can't find reference material online, I load up a game (such as Hitman) and record footage of the asset/action that can serve as an example.

In the cases where I can't provide a visual example, I record a video and try my best to explain through words how to improve the work that is being provided to me. 

I am currently preparing the assets required for Amai's Befriend/Betray stealth mission. The modeling of the environment is nearly complete, and now I'm requesting the animations that will be used to access various parts of the environment. One of those animations is a "jump from one ledge to another" animation, like the jumps that can be seen in games like Assassin's Creed.

The animator who has been given this task has produced some acrobatic animations in the past, so I figured that they would be a good fit for this task. However, some guidance is always required to bring out the volunteer's maximum potential. In this case, the "push off from wall" part of the animation didn't look right, so I recorded a video walking the animator through each part of the animation that I felt could improve.

A lot of time, effort, and care goes into the creation of videos like this one; I would say that the majority of work I do in any given day is spent communicating with volunteers and explaining how they can improve their art/models/animations. To show you an example of what I'm doing the majority of the time, here is the video that I provided to the animator that was working on the "jump from ledge to ledge" animation.

On a normal game project, there is an "Animation Lead" who provides this guidance to the project's animators, an "Art Lead" who provides this guidance to the project's artists, etc. Because Yandere Simulator is a one-man-plus-volunteers project, I am simultaneously the Animation Lead, Art Lead, Voice Director, etc, in addition to being the game's only programmer (and writer/director/producer).

There is no easy way to explain this without sounding egotistical, but Yandere Simulator is a project where one man is doing the work that is usually done by about ten different men. This is the primary reason why the game has been in development for so long, but it's extremely difficult to communicate this to people and make the understand it, because "I do the work of 10 men!" intrinsically sounds like bragging, which causes people to dismiss the explanation rather than accept and understand it.