June 9, 2020

Fixing the "Fire breathing" animation

So, here is what we changed in this animation, as we were working on it.

First were the trajectories of the arms, as the fireguard was raising them above his head. Now they are smoother and rounder. And when he lowers them down again, his hands move a bit further and his weapon turns outwards with the hands to amplify the movement. At the same time, his hands are now less parallel and less synchronized when he lowers them.

We’ve also added some minor movements while he is breathing fire, to make him look more alive. And the way he gets out of the fire-breathing pose is more fluent too. We thought that his body moved forward way too much, when he was transitioning to the idle pose - it was unnecessary. So we changed that and also changed the way his right hand moves - to avoid making it look like an attack.

Before:

And after: