Animations attract very much the audience and that’s why animators have to keep up with the latest trends and to create more sophisticated and more real projects in a short time. For that reason we decided to present you some tips and tricks that can help you to make great animations for 2D games. Here are 7 tips that we thing will help you in the process of animation.
1. Plan all in detail
Even if you think you’ll miss much time planning this thing will help you to save more time when animating. You should know exactly what you have to do before starting the animation. So before starting animated you should:
- take notes and write what are the exact movements of your character,
- imagine how the scene will play out and write down all interesting things,
- draw some thumbnails and figure out the character’s gestures,
- and last but not the least thing about timing, how much time each section will take to happen.
If you will follow this steps you will transformate the concept into the scenario and then you can give life to your imagination.
Image source: http://www.gamedesigning.org/career/2d-and-3d-animation/
2. Push the animations to the limit
For more interesting animations you should use extremes – exaggeration, attraction, etc, think at other’s people reaction and take them to the limit. If animations use realistic expressions and movements they don’t succeed because people are familiar with these gestures and they are not impressed. Extreme animations draw the attention of audience and surely will have more success.
Image source: http://giphy.com/search/2d-animation-screaming
3. Make all more alive and more bouncy
When animating you have to be careful at your character, not to look rigid. Even if is a simple animation you should do more and always keep your character moving. Also, you have to add bounce to your character, move their fists, their knees, make breathing sprites that give the impression that your character is alive and real.
Image source: http://giphy.com/search/2d-animation-screaming
4. Pay attention to facial motion
Your character must express a natural emotion and to view the emotion in your animation you should be careful to facial motion. Study the movement of the face, observe the gestures and you will be able to communicate a certain emotion only by the movement of the face. For example, you can make a character crying by animating a lip quivering or if you want to animate a character who wants to avoid laughing you can do it by pressing its face tightly.
Image source: http://michaeligafoteo.blogspot.ro/2015_10_01_archive.html
5. Create strong keyframes
When animating your sprites it is very important to have strong and extreme keyframes to highlight a particular movement. For a great animation you must also be careful at sprites to be all in order, not to have an arm inside the torso area, etc.
Image source: http://giphy.com/search/2d-animation-screaming
6. Limit animation’s frames
Animators may exaggerate sometimes with keyframes, they tend to add too many because they think it will have a more impact to the animation. But this is not always a good thing, you have to limit the amount of frames and highlight the important movements.
Image source: http://giphy.com/search/2d-animation-walking
7. Don’t care too much over the craft
On 2D games, animators can care too much about the craft, particular details and lose sight over the content. You should give more attention at the whole image, to take care it transmit the wanted message to the viewers.
Image source: http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/2299-Creating-a-2D-Animated-Character-for-Unity
Bibliografy:
Some articles that inspired me to write this post and can be useful for you:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/176663/5_tips_for_making_great_animations_for_2D_games.php
http://www.creativebloq.com/10-best-animation-tips-tricks-6113065
http://www.rubberonion.com/5-ways-to-become-a-faster-animator/
http://animation.about.com/od/relatedtopics/a/2d-Animation-Tricks-For-A-Distinctive-Style.htm
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