Artifact 4- Heartbeat Bat
Our game
project is slowly coming to an end and most of our assignments are getting
finished. This week I am going to write about my work on the dash effect that
our bat is going to use in the game to get to different places faster. The dash effect
will be available to use downwards, upwards and forward by double clicking the keyboard buttons "d", "w"
and "s". Our group got inspiration from the game “Robot unicorn”for creating a dash effect (http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html). In Robot unicorn the dash effect is used to get through different objects but our group wanted to use the dash effect to avoid obstacles or to use it to catch a difficult placed powerup item.
Since we
decided to go with a sparkly and colorful theme I decided to match that with my
dash effect as well. I started with painting a white shape for the dash and
made the shape fitting for the bats dash effect at the time when it is in full shape. I
then started to paint on different effects like glowing stars that I colored in
different colors. I wanted the dash effect to be more colorful so I decided to
change the all-white shape to a shade of green-blue, blue, pink and purple. I made the outer edges of the dash effect more dark and purple and the
front more light to get some kind of feeling of speed.
Here is the dash spritesheet
After my first dash
prototype was done I continued to work on several dash pictures for creating an dash animation.
I changed
the form on the dash shape from big to small and from "normal" to stretched. At the
same time I also changed the color to make the dash effect brightest and more strong colored when
the bat are going most upwards/forward or downwards. I also did the dash effect
lighter when it is at its peak in the animation with the most power.
For
program I used Photoshop with some custom brushes and some of the effects used
was “Hue/saturation”, “selective color”, “brightness/contrast” and “dodge tool”.
When the
dash effect was ready I had to make sure that I also had an animation of the bat fitting
for the dash. I therefor made an animation where I turned the bats body
in an flying upward state and changed the wings position and expression of the
bat to make it fit more properly.
When all
was ready I created an animation using Photoshop’s timeline tool. I created an
animation with 19 different frames plus one with the bat included. 19 frames
might be to many but the effect it gave looked nice.Our groups programmer will then make the animation go faster in game.
Here is the final result
I really like the color scheme for your dash effect. It’s vibrant and the hue shifts are a nice touch for a more magical feel. It’s also great that you aren’t afraid of using reference material, and it’s one of the best things you can do.
SvaraRaderaYou could have another look over your frames, since there’s one frame that looks very different compared to the frame that follows. It’s the part where the glow from the dash effect is at its brightest and suddenly cuts into it’s darkest color, breaking the animation loop.
On top of that the shape of the dash effect changes drastically over the course of one frame. Having a curve upwards and then cuts to the aura being curved downwards. Add some frames in between to smoothen the transition between the frames.
I’m a bit confused as to why you chose to tilt the bat to fit the animation, since it makes more sense to me at least to have the dash effect horizontal to fit the bat. I could just be wrong and not understanding the reasoning behind that decision.
Overall I think your effect look really nice and from what I’ve seen of the games aesthetic, you dash effect seems to fit just right.
Hello!
SvaraRaderaAs previously commenter mentioned, I too believe that the amount of frames might be too high for an effect that is only intended to be there for a very short duration at a time. You mentioned that the programmers would have to speed the animation up by code, which might not be an ideal solution. It is always better to make certain that you set the wanted speed for the animation prior to implementing it to the game, if the programmers would have to make changes to the game speed in general there could be a lot of extra work that could have easily been avoided. (That is, if it becomes a habit to do so with multiple assets)
The effect possibly could have benefited from the sparkling stars to be placed randomly on each frame to make it seem more “alive”. Perhaps also smooth the transition of the colors out a little bit. (I haven’t seen the art style for the game overall so it might fit perfectly as is)
At the last frame the animation is at its brightest point and then suddenly snaps back to the darkest. This is not an issue if the animation is intended to end at the last frame at which point it is at its brightest. However, then the effect could probably benefit from a “dissipating” sort of effect instead.
Other than that, it looks great!
I am looking forward to seeing more!
//Morgan