Animation – Gnomic Studios

The Theory of Game Tools

The purpose of most game tools is to streamline process of content creation. They should enable the artists to easily get assets straight into the game, thereby reducing the work load of the programmer. That’s the theory anyway. Right back when we were building Balls Unleashed and Throng, I started making the Character Editor 2D with this theory in mind. The idea was to have an animation tool that could handle a hierarchy of Quads that could move independantly (eg head and arms attached to a body) and do sprite sheet style animation on each Quad at the same time. …

Level Editor

Well it’s actually the Character Animation editor, but it will soon be the Animation-and-Level editor. Lets just call it ThrongEdit for now. Oh yeah, welcome aboard Adam.

New Kid on the Block

Hi all, Aranda and Scott were kind enough to let me help out on their cool XNA game! Just wanted to introduce myself as part of the team on the blog. Ill be mainly helping out with the environment assets, and anything else Scott doesnt want to do :). Have a few props and another character done for the game, thought Id share.

It’s Time to Get Animated!

Just about to start animating a run cycle for this little guy above. I’ve recently been re-reading a book called The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams, and it’s proven to be invaluable. I will be animating his legs in the traditional hand drawn approach, with the rest of his body in a cut-out style. The helmet and backpack should make for some good looking secondary animation, giving a bouncy cartoon look and feel to it. Unfortunately, I wont be animating the gun, as this is controlled by the player. It wont look too bad, it just means the character …