Dev Diary: Character Animation Sequences (Patreon)

Hey there!

How was your week? Ours was really great. We made some progress on exciting things that I can’t wait to tell you about in the future! Today’s Patreon post is exciting as well and it’s about the character animations in Paralives. This post is for Patrons only so please don’t share it, thank you!

Animation Sequences

In Paralives, performing interactions often require playing a sequence of animations. Playing multiple animations on a character one after the other might seem simple but there are quite a few things to consider.

If Sebastian wants to do push ups, he needs to:

1. Play the animation to get in plank pose
2. Play the push up animation a random number of times between 5 and 10
3. Play the animation to get up from the plank pose
4. End the interaction

Sebastian doing push ups. The whole interaction requires 3 different animations. It could have been one long animation instead of 3 but then, we wouldn’t have control on how many push ups can be done.

We will also need to be able to define conditions in these animation sequences. We haven't made final decisions about the skill system but here is how the sequence could be affected by a potential fitness skill eventually:

1. Play the animation to get in plank pose
2. Play the push up animation but
   If the Para has a low fitness skill level: Play a different push up animation that is slower and where the Para shakes. Play it between 2 to 5 times
   If the Para has a medium fitness skill level: Play the default push up animation. Play it between 5 and 10 times
   If the Para has a high fitness skill level: Play a different confident push up animation . Play it 30 times
3. Play the animation to get up from the plank pose but
   If the Para has a low fitness skill level: Play a different animation where the Para gets up more slowly and painfully
4. End the interaction

These kinds of animation sequences will be used everywhere in the game. Another example is when your Para stands there doing nothing when they have no interactions in their queue.

Maggie standing idle and yawning. Please excuse the low quality of this animated GIF.

1. Play a soft breathing animation between 4 to 7 times
2. Randomly pick an animation to play once. Possible animations:
   - Sneeze
   - Yawn
   - Bigger and happier breathe
   - Swing arms
3. Go back to step 1 and repeat the whole sequence
   

Developers and modders can define these animation sequences in our in-game modding tools. Here is the Standing Idle animation sequence that we have right now:

The Standing Idle animation sequence as defined in our in-game modding tool, the Control Panel.

Right now, we can already do a lot of things with these animation sequence tools and it opens up a world of possibilities. When we work on needs and skills in the future, we will integrate them as conditions, as mentioned with the push up example. Also, maybe the yawn animation could only happen if Maggie is tired. If she is stressed out, it could show in the way she stands, she could have her arms crossed and tap her foot. We’re also looking into the ability to multitask which we can’t confirm or share more details about just yet. This way, for instance, Sebastian would be able to talk to someone close by while doing push ups, unless he’s out of breath because his fitness skill level is too low, maybe!

Hope you liked today’s Patreon post and have a great weekend!

Cheers,

Alex