In the previous posts, I’ve described how you can create graphics. This post will be about animating them. There are some game engines available that offer animating solutions, but not all of them. That’s why I’ve been looking for another solution. I’ve found a program called ‘Anime Studio Pro’ which allows you to animate your graphics pretty well

In Anime Studio Pro there are a few different ways to animate. One of them is to have an image of, for example a character, and add different ‘bones’ on top of it. This way you can create a skeleton on top of the image that represents the character. Once you change the skeleton, the program will bend and transform the image to follow the movement.

I do not really like this method, since the bending of the images creates some weird artifacts from time to time. Things in the picture often get bent while they shouldn’t be able to. This gives me the feeling that I’m not 100% in control.

Therefor I’ve decided to use another method. In this method I take the picture of the character and cut it up in pieces that I want to move from one another. I’m practically making a small picture for every movable bone that I’m going to use.

When I go into Anime Studio Pro and add the bones to the character, I’m able to animate it without bending the picture at all. I’m basically moving and rotating a set of different pictures from one another.

Unfortunately, I can’t show a picture of this process since the file got corrupted and I currently don’t have time to recreate the animation. There are a lot of useful tutorials on the internet that can help you with this process though: This one for example.

Once you have a your character all set up and you are able to animate it, you can start creating animations. I noticed that walking animations are pretty hard to make, so I decided to find some reference material. There are a lot of images available on the internet, this one for example:

By using this image as an example, I created a few walk loops. I basically copied the different positions of the body, arms and legs and created a realistic walk loop this way. I exported the loop as a flash file, which can be seen here.

During a few previous projects, I’ve learned the basics of drawing vector graphics. I’ve used programs like Adobe Flash and Adobe Illustrator to do so. To use vector graphics in my game would be a logic step for me, because of the experience I have with it.

I’ve learned that there are two man methods to create vector graphics and that these two methods work very well together. The first method is to create shapes by using the ‘pen tool’. The second method is to use basic shapes and add or subtract them from each other. You can also add or subtract shapes created with the pen tool and thereby combine the two methods.

Pen tool

The pen tool is a tool that many problems offer you to use. With the pen tool you can select multiple points and the program will connect them for you. In the example below, you can see multiple points that are connected with a line.

But I don’t want to make objects with just straight lines, I also want to create some curves. I can do this when I create a new point. I click on the position where I want a new point to be created and hold my mouse button down. When I drag the mouse the program creates are curve.

When I’m done with creating lines, I can fill them up with colors or gradients. You can make this is simple or as complex as you want.

Adding and subtracting shapes

In many programs, I’m using Adobe Illustrator, you can add and subtract shapes from each other. This way you can create nice graphics by only using basic shapes or you can use shapes created with the pen tool. I’ll first add different objects to each other to create a cloud. To do so, I’ll draw three circles and give all three of them a different color. (this is not necessary, but it’s easier to see the difference this way)

To add these objects to each other, I’ll have to use a tool from the pathfinder window. You can find the pathfinder window on the right of your program. If it’s not there, you can select it from the menu: Window > Pathfinder. In the pathfinder window you will see these options:

The first option will add different shapes to each other, so we will choose this one. The second option subtracts objects from each other, we will use this one later on. Play around with the other options to see what they do. When we select the first option, this will happen:

The three objects became one object and filled itself with the color of the third object. And as you can see we have a nice green cloud.

When we want to subtract one shape from the other, we draw them on top of each other. The shape that is on top will be subtracted from the shape underneath it, so it is important to draw the basic shape first and the cutout second:

When go to our pathfinder window (with both objects selected) and select the second option, the following will happen:

The brown shape, which was on top, is cut out of the green circle. It’s as easy as that.

Combined

With just these basic methods, you can already create big and clean graphics. This is an example that I created by only using the above methods:

Digital painting has amazed me for a pretty long time now. I’ve seen people draw portraits that look so real that you can hardly see the difference between the painting and a photo. The same goes for concept art. Although a lot of it is unrealistic, the detail of the painting is so good that I would almost think that it’s real.

I don’t plan on reaching that level of digital painting, but maybe I can create some nice graphics by just using the basics. So I searched around on the internet for some tutorials and some help on digital painting. And this is what I found out:

There are two very different ways to digitally paint an object. At first you make a basic object, I use Adobe Photoshop for this but any similar software will do.

Then you decide where your light source is placed. So you decide where the light is coming from so you can think about the locations for the highlights and shadows. Once you’ve decided that, you can use two different methods to add highlights and shadows. The first one is the following:

In this method, you create a new layer and draw highlights and shadows with the brush tool. Once you’re done, you use a blur effect to smoothen the drawn highlights and shadows. You can do this a few more times if the desired effect isn’t good enough. I found this method to be easier, but it took me a long time to create the desired effect. I had to repeat the steps a few time in order to have some real effect on the basic shape.

The second method:

In this method, you use the brush tool to create highlights and shadows as well, but you do it a lot smoother. It’s often best to create a color palette first and then use the brush tool to add the shadows and highlights. You can easily choose a new color by pressing the Alt-key and clicking on the color you want to use. By holding the Ctrl-key and the Alt-key at the same time, you can change the size and the hardness of your brush by dragging the mouse horizontally and vertically.

I found this second method to be harder, but have better effect and therefor save time in the long run (when you’re more experienced with the method). After some practicing I managed to created the following characters:

The hardest part, for me, was to decide where the shadows and highlights should be placed. I used some reference material to copy these from, but it was still very hard for me to figure it out. I’ll probably have to practice for a few more months to be able to actually create nice graphics this way. Therefor I don’t think that I will be using digital painting in my game.

The minor will consist of three experiments of two weeks each. The student needs to take initiative to experiment something that’s new to him/her and will inspire others. The student will have to draw a conclusion from the experiments and needs to learn from them. The experiments need to be documented by, for example, a blog.

My third and last experiment is going to be about 2D graphics. Although my Minor isn’t about graphics, I’m still interested in creating graphics for my game when the gameplay part is done. So in this experiment I will experiment with a few styles of graphics and ways to animate them.

To find the right way for me to create the graphics, I will first have to analyze a few different kind of graphics. There are tons of different styles out there and I already have a bit of experience on creating graphics from other projects. A few different kind of graphics are:

Pixel Art

When the first games set foot on this earth, the hardware to play on wasn’t as powerful as it is now. Games were very limited back then, especially graphically. Graphic designers were only able to use a few pixels to create the whole game. This is where pixel art is born.

Nowadays we have super computers that can render millions of pixels and graphic designers aren’t limited by the hardware as much anymore. But there are still a lot of people who find pixel art nostalgic and still like to create graphics by using this method.

I’ve tried it, but it is a very complex method which I’m not cut out for. Although I like pixel art, I’m not going to use it in my project simply because I can’t create nice graphics with it.

Digital Painting

We all know what regular painting is. You take a brush, some paint and a clean sheet and you can paint a picture. Digital painting is something different though. With digital painting, you use a drawing tablet (like a Wacom pen and touch which I’m using) and paint a picture on your computer.

A lot of artist use digital painting to create concept art for and do a very good job doing so. I’ve also seen some digital painted games like Braid and Yokai. I’ve tried to learn a few basics of digital painting myself. Read more about it here.

Vector Art

Vector graphics are basically graphics created with mathematical equations instead of pixels. The computer calculates where the points of the graphic need to be set and draws lines and shapes in between them. This way a picture will always be crispy sharp, no matter how far you zoom into it.

I have some experience with creating vector art in Adobe Flash and Adobe Illustrator and I might be able to think of a nice art style by using this method. Click here for more information about my experiment with vector art.

Animation

No matter what kind of method I use to create my graphics, I will have to animate them somehow. I know of a few methods to do so, bone tools in Adobe Flash or Scirra Construct for example, but I found some interesting software that might help me with this. Click here to read more about it.

Every student makes the assignments that are given during the minor. To complete the assignment, the student needs to use: conceptual thinking, creativity, ‘Out-of-the-box’ thinking, independent realization and planning. The assignments count for 20% of your final score.

Our latest assignment was to create an info-graphic about a subject of choice, which does have something to do with your Minor project. Since I just finished my ‘experiment’ about gameplay, I decide to make an info-graphic about the subject.

Click on the image for a higher resolution version

In my search for information about good gameplay, I’ve found an article about Gameplay Progression on Gamasutra written by Mike Lopez. The article is about keeping the player interested in playing your game by changing elements in the gameplay.

In my post about challenges, I’ve already described how the game needs to have a balance between the player’s skill and the challenges in the game. Without a good balance, the game will become too easy or too hard. The article about gameplay progression described a few ways to keep the game interesting:

Gameplay Mechanics

One of these things is to change the Gameplay Mechanic. You can add a new mechanic to the game by adding a new weapon, a new skill, new enemies or the whole environment. For example when Super Mario picks up a flower. His suit turns white and all of the sudden he can shoot fireballs. The gameplay changes because he doesn’t have to jump on enemies anymore, he can now shoot them.

An environmental change takes place when you enter the first underwater level in Super Mario. You can’t jump on your enemies anymore, because you’re now swiming towards them. You’ll have to adapt to these changes and change the pattern you’ve learned in the previous levels.

Another environmental change takes place when your screen moves at a certain speed. If Mario can’t keep up with the speed that your screen moves, he will die. So you will have to play a bit faster than usual to keep up with the game.

Experience Duration

In some games you will notice that, once you get further into the game, the levels will get bigger and bigger. This is called ‘experience duration’. To keep the game interesting, game designers might decide to make the levels bigger so it takes longer for you to complete them.

This is often used in racing games where harder levels take a lot longer to complete. You’ll have to concentrate on your race for a longer time and your opponents have more time to pass you by.

Ancillary Rewards

Visuals or audio can also be used to keep you motivated to play the game. Beautiful environments and scripted events, for example, that keep the player interested during the game.

I can still remember the the open levels in Halo 2 where I saw the marines battle aliens in the distance. I really loved that level because it was so big and open.

Practical Rewards

Unlocking practical rewards can be another system that keeps the player interested in completing more levels of your game. Modern games often use this kind of system, where the players can unlock new cars, weapon, levels or entire new game modes.

Unlocking new elements in the game doesn’t have to mean that the gameplay mechanic changes. Sometimes changing the visual aspect of the car can keep the player interesting. I’ve played a lot of racing games where I was able to unlock new colors for my racing cars. And there are a lot of games where you can customize your characters and unlock new features for them.

Difficulty

In his article, Mike Lopez states that not only the difficulty of the challenges can be changed, but also the risk that the player has to take to overcome a challenge. Less health packs and ammo can make a shooter game a lot harder even when the enemies stay the same. Same goes for the amount of mushrooms Mario runs into in his adventures.

Conclusion

There are more ways to keep a game interesting than only designing harder challenges. New gameplay mechanics, longer experience duration, ancillary and practical rewards and the risk that comes with the challenge are all proven to be effective in the games that are published today.

Everything that happens on your computer screen is visual feedback. The computer tries to tell you things by offering visual and often auditive feedback. When I receive a new email, my computer tells me this with a little pop-up in the upper right corner of my screen and by playing a short sound. This is called feedback.

Feedback is also very important in games and is, in my opinion, a part of gameplay. When I play Call of Duty and I get hit by a bullet, my screen turns red and my character makes a sound. If this wouldn’t happen, I wouldn’t know that I got hit and maybe wouldn’t even know that there was an enemy near.

Gameplay feedback versus game art

When designing feedback in gameplay, you’re not designing the sound of the character or the visual effect that takes place when you’re hit by a bullet. You’re only stating that a certain effect or sound should be played to make an event in the game clear. The graphical presentation or the sound itself are not part of the gameplay and are part of the art of the game.

So when you’re creating a Mario game and decide that Mario can collect coins. You probably think that there should be a coin counter somewhere. This way your players can see how many coins they’ve gathered and how many they still need for something to happen. How this coin counter is displayed, is a game art aspect and is not important for the gameplay.

Using feedback for difficulty

Some games hide certain feedback elements intentionally to make the game easier or harder. Halo 2, for example, does not show a health bar. Because there is not health bar, you’re not worrying about your health all the time and you’re focusing on other elements. Thus making the game a little bit easier for your.

Call of Duty, on the other hand, offers the option to play on ‘hardcore’ mode. This game mode is more difficult for various reasons, one of them because the visual feedback is brought back to a minimum. When playing on hardcore mode you don’t have a radar to see other players on and don’t have a corsair to see what your exact aiming point is.

Feed-forward

After presenting my second experiment to the DMP Minor class, Michel Kooper told me that I should also look into feed-forward in games. Feed-forward is making the player aware of a certain event, before he/she reaches it. For example, when you encounter the first gap in the floor in Super Mario. The moment you see the gap, a Goomba falls into the gap and disappears. This makes you aware of the gap and that you should probably avoid falling into it.

I’ve seen feed-forward in a lot of games before, without realizing the effect it has on your awareness. I can remember a 3D game where I encountered strange poles in the road. A bird flew in between these poles and got electrocuted by the poles which then briefly showed an invisible force field. Without the bird, I wouldn’t have known that there was any danger ahead and would probably have died.

Conclusion

Feedback is important to let the player know the status of certain game elements. When used wisely, feedback can have an influence on the difficulty of the game. There’s also something called feed-forward, which makes the player aware of a certain event before they have encountered it.

After reading ‘A Theory of Fun for Game Design’ by Raph Koster, I learned that challenges are a lot of fun and very important in gameplay. In his book, Raph Koster explains why challenges are fun and why we learn a lot from them.

Raph Koster explains that our minds are designed to recognize patterns. Faces for example. Whenever we see this :) we see a little smiling face. That is because faces are important for us to recognize. We’ve been using patterns to see the differences in faces since we were a baby and are very well trained in doing this.

We also use patterns to overcome challenges. When you first start playing Super Mario, you will probably die a few times because you’re not used to the controls and don’t know what Mario can do. After a few tries you remember the right patterns and you’re able to jump over the holes in the floor of the level.

The same thing happens when you’re learning to drive a car. At first you don’t really know what you’re doing. But after a while you know exactly what to do when you’re, for example, passing someone on the highway. That’s because your brain remembers the pattern.

Learning patterns

I’ve just recently played a game where the first level was full of obstacles, traps and enemies. Before I could accustom to the controls of the game, I had to overcome all kinds of hard challenges. Every time I made a mistake, my character died and I had to start all over again. I stopped playing after 10 minutes because I couldn’t get any further.

What the game designer should have done (in my opinion), is create a basic first level to let the player experiment with the character and the controls for a bit. Some minor challenges like a box to jump on or one single enemy to overcome. This way the player can create some patterns which he can later apply in harder levels

When you design a game with lots of game mechanics, you should keep in mind that the player needs to learn how to use these mechanics first. Most people can’t learn a lot of things at the same time, so it would probably be best to learn them one thing at a time.

So instead of letting a player jump over a box while dodging enemy bullets, it would probably be better to first let the player jump over a box. And when they’ve learned how to do this, you can learn them to dodge bullets. After that you can combine these two to let the player jump over a box while dodging bullets.

Balance

To keep a game interesting, there needs to be a good balance between the skill of the player and the challenges in the game. When the challenges are too easy, the game becomes boring. And when the challenges become too hard, the game becomes too hard.

To create a good balance, you can focus your levels on a single gameplay mechanic (for example the jump) until the player masters this skill. If you then focus your levels on another mechanic (for example shooting enemies) you can combine the mastered jump skill with the new shooting mechanic. This way the player will master the different game mechanics and the challenges get more difficult at the same speed.

You can also add extra objectives for the players that have mastered some elements of your game already. For example when you’re focusing your challenges on jumping, you can add additional harder jumps for the players that have mastered the jumping skill already. These jumps should be an option so that the players who haven’t mastered the jump skill yet, can continue without missing something important.

Conclusion

Our brains use patterns to overcome a challenge and learn how to use these patterns when we run into a similar challenge. This way we learn how to master these challenges. It is a lot harder, however, to learn different patterns at the same time. So it would be best to give the player some space to get familiar with the different challenges, before you put them all together. To keep the game interesting, the challenges need to match the player’s skill level. But be careful with the difficulty level of your challenges, the player should be able to keep up with them.

When a group of kids are running around on a field, it’s called play. When you add rules to this play (for example that you can tag one another) it becomes a game. These rules are called the ‘gameplay mechanics’.

Video Games have game mechanics as well. Super Mario, for example, has got a lot of game mechanics. When Mario hits a Goomba, he dies and loses a life. When he jumps on top of the Goomba, the Goomba dies and Mario is awarded with points. When Mario hits a coin, the coin count goes up and he is awarded with points. When the coin count reaches 100, Mario gains an extra life and the counter hits 0 again.

The player control is also controlled by the gameplay mechanics. When the player presses the right arrow, Mario moves to the right with a certain amount of speed. When the player presses the green button, Mario jumps a certain height. When the player presses and holds the green button, Mario jumps even higher.

Mario’s speed, jump height, gravity, amount of lives, etc. It’s all part of the gameplay mechanics.

Actions

There are a number of reasons why gameplay mechanics are important when you’re designing a game. First of all, the gameplay mechanics define the actions the player can perform. A lot of games copy these actions from other games, take a look at shooters for example. Most shooters offer similar actions in their gameplay: Walking, aiming, shooting etc. A game with new and unique actions can therefor be interesting for a lot of players.

The creators of World of Goo came up with new gameplay actions. In this game, you can drag around little balls of goo and connect them to create constructions. These gameplay actions were unique and caused the game to be very popular.

Feel of the gameplay

Another reason why gameplay mechanics are important in game design, is the feel of the gameplay. Gameplay mechanics can go into great detail of a single action. Take jumping for example.

Every game handles it’s jumps in a different way. Super Mario, for example, responds really fast to a jump and allows the player to change direction while they’re in mid air. Other games don’t allow you to change direction in mid air, and will therefor feel completely different.

Other factors that have influence on your jump:

• Jump height
• Jump length
• Jump height vs length
• Jump sustain
• Air resistance
• Responce time
• Jump animation length
• etc.

Other actions in the game have a lot of factors as well. Take running for example. When the player releases the run button, does the character stop immediately or does he slide a bit before he stops? These are important details that define the feel of your gameplay and often define the difficulty of your gameplay.

Realism

Most games have unrealistic gameplay. Take Super Mario for example. There isn’t a plumber in the world that can jump as high as Mario can jump. His jump height versus his body height is tremendous. And that is for a good reason.

Imagine playing Super Mario where you can only jump as high as Mario’s hips. The gaps he would be able to jump would be really small. As well as the enemies. It would be a totally different game. Mario would probably walk a lot slower as well, which would make the game very boring.

When I designed my first gameplay mechanic, I tried to create a game with realistic gameplay mechanics. That didn’t work out really well so I figured that it would probably be best to have unrealistic gameplay mechanics in a game.

Unless you’re creating a simulator game of course.

Conclusion

Gameplay mechanics define the rules of the game. The player is able to do things, but is also limited by these rules. Unique gameplay mechanics offer new kinds of interaction between the player and the game and can therefor get very popular. The gameplay mechanics have great influence on the feel of the game and the ability for the player to play the game. Gameplay mechanics are often unrealistic to offer the players a more interesting and fun experience.

The minor will consist of three experiments of two weeks each. The student needs to take initiative to experiment something that’s new to him/her and will inspire others. The student will have to draw a conclusion from the experiments and needs to learn from them. The experiments need to be documented by, for example, a blog.

My second experiment is going to be about gameplay. I think that gameplay is the most important thing in any game. A game can look beautiful and have a great story, but I’ll not enjoy playing it when the gameplay isn’t any fun. In this experiment I’ll try to find out how to make a game with good gameplay.

To find out what good gameplay is, I’ll first have to know exactly what gameplay is. After searching around on the internet for a bit, I found out that gameplay is the overall experience of a playing a game excluding graphics, sound and the storyline. Since this is a pretty broad description, I’ve broken it down in three parts: Gameplay Mechanics, Challenges and Feedback. I’ve also written a post about gameplay progression, which includes methods to keep the game interesting.

Gameplay Mechanics

The gameplay mechanics are a set of rules in the game. These rules say what you can and cannot do. In the game of Tic Tac Toe, the rules are simple: There are two players ‘X’ and ‘O’. The players take turns to mark one square in the 3 x 3 squares playing field with either ‘X’ or ‘O’. The goal of the game is to mark 3 squares in a row. The game ends when this goal is achieved or there are no empty squares left.

These few rules allow the players to take over a square each turn, but prevent the players from erasing or taking over squares that are already filled. The rules also prevent the players from adding additional squares to the playing field etc.

Go to the article

Challenges

To make a game interesting, challenges are added. Challenges prevent the players from achieving their goals very easilly. In the game Tic Tac Toe, there are a few challenges: The playfield is 3 x 3 squares big, so player has to choose the right squares to mark. If the playfield were to be 5 x 5 squares, it’d be very easy to mark 3 squares in a row and the game would become boring very fast.

Another challenge is the other player. The other player will prevent you from marking 3 squares in a row by marking squares as well.

Go to the article

Feedback

Feedback is important to let the player know the state of the game. In Tic Tac Toe, the player can see how many turns are left by counting the empty squares. He can also see which squares are his by reading the marks.

Tic Tac Toe would probably still be playable without this feedback, but it would get confusing pretty soon. Try to imagine a game of chess without visual feedback. It’d get pretty hard to remember the location of all of the objects after a few rounds.

Go to the article

Gameplay Progression

To keep the player interested in the game, you can make your challenges more difficult. But there are more elements in the game that can be modified to keep the player interesting. For example by changing the gameplay mechanic or by introducing a reward system.

Go to the article