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My partner, who has an art degree, immediately walked across the room to the shelf, pulled the exact book out that you're using around the 2 minute mark, and showed me the page that you showed us. That's awesome
I kinda want a whole Polygon video on "doing things 'wrong' for the sake of stylization or comedy". Because the bit toward the end about intentionally making weird walking animations was really interesting to me.
As an Anatomy and Physiology teacher for high schoolers, I love that you guys put out videos on subjects that aren't often talked about or do a deep dive on subjects that require knowledge outside of just technology that I can show to the kids to get them thinking about video games in a different light. Awesome!
Mark my words: the next level of 3rd person walking animations will have a character trip over their feet slightly if you change direction too quickly.
the extremely "real Benny Hill hours" music is "Runaround" by Ron Aspery, and a very fun example of how library musicians often just get commissioned to do "sound-alikes" of popular songs (the original being "Yakety Sax")
It's so funny that you said the speed/sliding/turning problem was the most egregious part of lower quality walk animations, because I've just so normalized that happening in games i didn't even see the problem in the examples you were showing for it at first lol
I remember being so impressed when I was playing the Witcher 3, running through novigrad, and then one foot stepped in a puddle so there was 1 shallow splash sound. Blew my mind
Secret for Enter the Matrix that no one cares about but me!!! Want to beat the game SUPER EASILY? 1. Pull out a gun 2. Walk up to any enemy other than an agent (maybe agents too? I don't remember) 3. Press the throw command (circle + triangle on playstation I think?) 4. Victory It's a one-hit kill on almost everything except the enemies in the Merovingian's Chateau and the game never tells you about it! Just in case you want to beat an almost-20-year-old game via cheesing.
there's so much to love about this video, not least of which is how well-researched and informative it obviously is while remaining engaging, but i just want to call out two little things that made me smile, namely the line read on "wiggle" when talking about sonic's ears, and the frankly incredible yakety sax facsimile you managed to find royalty-free which manages to sound exactly right without being yakety sax at all.
i remember the first time i played LA Noir and the characters feet did a quick little shuffle when he went down stairs, and my mind was completely blown
I still the the GDC talk on how the animations in overgrowth were managed is one of my favourites. Shows how different states blended with Inverse Kinematics and algorithms can create some pretty neat animations
nier automata has absurdly detailed and expressive walking/running animations and i am so glad you included them. uneven surfaces, speeding up, slowing down, turning, climbing stairs, it's all incredible
i'm guessing Jenna just wanted to talk about making walking animations and chose the Matrix Resurrections tie-in to make the video more topical, and it just took so long to make that it's not topical anymore
So happy ghost of tsushima animators are getting the love they deserve. It still has some of the best traversal and fighting animations I’ve seen in a game
I remember watching a GDC talk about game animation. The dev giving it built a sort of virtual trundle-wheel to measure distance along the ground and trigger the various frames of the character's walking animation. It started out with just two, (minimum and maximum feet separation) then by adding interpolation, turned it into actual movement. He ended up with a decent variety of possible animations from a bit of code and a dozen or so poses. Can't remember the name of the dev, studio, or game, but I do remember he used an anthro rabbit character for his demonstration.
Calling out Vanille for a silly walk is weird when you, not a minute later, have a segment focusing on silly walks that communicate characterization. If Lightning had Vanille's walk cycle, that would be worth furrowing a brow over, but the way Vanille walks is absolutely indicative of the type of impression she's trying to give others.
If i was a video game character my walk cycle would like one of those physics based walk cycles but it actually just be me randomly changing the way im walking because im nervous
I absolutely love these types of videos Polygon puts out, it makes you really notice and appreciate really small details in games you might otherwise overlook. Also, Jenna is so enjoyable to listen to! (Best 🐀 Lawyer ever)
2:58 one of the first games I ever played, probably the earliest game still vivid in my memory from my childhood. Played it back when it was new & just released. The Animations back then seemed so realistic and uncanny. When I learned it was based on real person motion capturing via Rotoscope (years later) - that fact totally blew my mind away! Even today it looks pretty real, unique and precise.
Is that Lode Runner at 2:28? Man I haven't seen that game in ages! It was one of the only two games my Dad had for our desktop when we bought our first computer when I was a little kid. Well before we ever got internet there was good ole Load Runner and Jane of the Jungle.
While I was on the seat h for comparison of 2D or pixel art cycle frame comparisons, I stumbled upon this. I really like it! I never personally thought of a walk cycle being important, or well at the service level, but it for sure makes sense! Thanks for the knowledge I gained!
One game I feel using walk cycles to good effect is Enter the Gungeon. The pilot and convict both shake their entire bodies side to side while moving forward, making them feel faster and fragile than the more composed movement of the marine and huntress. While the characters rarely differ in stats, their walk cycles convey the FEEL of differences in speed or durability.
I had a debate (read: argument) with someone recently that video games aren't immature or childish. Their argument was that video games are for children and adults shouldn't play them. This video backs up part of my argument that, among other things, they're modern works of art. It takes a lot of skill and talent to pull this off and make it look, not just right, but good. This was so well explained and an excellent video. I'm totally sharing it and tagging the person I was arguing with.
Nice piece! Root motion animation helps with foot sliding today because the mocap position in space is just transferred to the game. No code is moving the character anymore - it's all mocap.
This is the good stuff. Great put together. and looking back at early and crude 3D characters were a delight. Enter the Matrix's locomotion is just irresistible :D Syphon Filter's 'drive and trudge' is also something that will always be a warm memory
It took me a long time to pinpoint why the sims 4 basic walking animation looks off to me, but it's probably the body position, maybe because the sim doesn't lean a little bit forwards when they walk.
My pet peeve is when a game has exactly one or two discrete movement speeds, like we have analog sticks, let me use the full rage of motion to control my speed, for most close-quarters exploration type stuff I want to go faster than walking and slower than sprinting, and most games just don't support this. Related is when there is no momentum, with zero ramp up or ramp down in speed/animation. I get that it can make a game feel more responsive but I usually prefer this to be smoothed out, for comfort if nothing else; especially when combined with the first problem, to modulate speed I often end up having a lot of start-stop movement, which makes the camera movement really jarring, and there have been a few games where this was so bad that I just stopped playing altogether.
Hey this kinda reminds me of this pretty niche youtuber called uhh.. Pat something. He mostly works for a gaming/media company, but I mention him because he did a video on walking in certain video games once. I thought it was 10/10 and you're amazing aswell so I think if you collabed you could both totally blow up.
The Last of Us Part II had almost 2.5h of locomotion clips just for the player. That's walking, running, crouching and crawling, none of the combat or interactions.
Anyone ever compared the walk cycles in Assassin's Creed 2 vs 3? Ezio from 2 was pretty straight forward, but Connor from 3 seemed like he was trying to peek over a crowd,
I notice. It's one of the things that can make me hate a game. Because I feel like if they run like they are walking in a way that is visually distracting I lose focus on things in front of me. One best example is dark souls running/walking animation. It looks so bad like a lil Muppet in slippers trying to steal from Santas workshop, like a little rat or roach running, but let's use hellblade or the latest God of war. The walking animations have weight and muscle movement are more focused on making it feel like the character is actively a part of the world you are playing in. Also assassins creed games walking animations have gotten more terrible over recent years.
Your characters' walk cycle in Pokemon Legends Arceus looks kinda janky when you look at them from the side, since the walk cycle was made to be seen from behind. Not to mention the (lack of) turn animation for not only the NPCs but the Pokemon too. I wish the Pokemon company had more faith in the franchise and that fans are more than willing to wait for more than 2 years for a new game so the developers had more time to really polish everything up.
Oh ye RU-vid comment section gods, I invoke thee! Can ANYONE tell me what game the footage at 4:39 is from!? I recognize it very strongly from my childhood, but have no memory of the name of the game.
thank you for going out of your way to point out that the rule of thumb for walk cycles is specific to the non-disabled, visibility is extremely vital for us right now so taking the time to add in just a line or two about it makes a big difference
