In need of animator for fighting game.

[Henaki]

Alpha Engine Footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nCdcefcorc

Hey guys what's up, it's your friendly neighborhood Henaki. You probably know very little of what I do in my spare time, but myself and a programmer (Anotak, known for Street Fighter 4: Remix) are creating a fighting game.

What we need (desperately) is an animator. 3D (rendering then tracing, like KoF12/13 and BlazBlue) or traditional 2D are equally acceptable. I myself would transition either linework or prerendered images into spritework. If you would like to see a small sample of my work: http://henaki.sadlife.net/?page_id=36. Notably: http://henaki.sadlife.net/?attachment_id=38 and http://henaki.sadlife.net/?attachment_id=39 for an example of stuff in a traditional fighting game style. As you can see, I can handle it to a degree, but having an animator with a stronger sense of anatomy would go miles in making the project work.

The design is fairly straightforward and can be summarized simply as: "Put in as much bullshit as possible without creating many 3-7 matchups, homogenizing characters or leaving no room for expansion". Character design would be done in collaboration with the artist. We have set archetypes and general design goals for them, but the best character designs convey gameplay information through the art of the game itself, and thus, nothing has been set in stone in this regard. This is our ideal goal along with 8 playable characters (for the time being). The game is being programmed in XNA and our goal is for a commercial release (likely through digital distribution on PC and Xbox 360).

Yes, we are aware of how absolutely time consuming this project will be, and are both extremely willing to go through with it. We are looking for a like-minded individual who is perhaps hoping to put some heart and soul into making something they really want to, similar to ourselves. If you are interested, or even know someone who might be interested, please leave some contact information in this thread. If you have any questions, I will be glad to answer them.

For the record I cleared this thread up with shtkn and he said it was okay.

If you need to contact me:

aim: alotofeffs

email: ken squires at g mail dot com

or use a PM or leave a message in this thread.

[njmamm]

Wow, this sounds pretty cool. Hopefully someone'll step up to the plate.

o and, just outta curiosity, do u and anotak c each other irl?

[Henaki]

o and, just outta curiosity, do u and anotak c each other irl?

No, we just speak with each other frequently. We have known each other on IRC for a while and have talked for a long time now and share extremely similar design philosophies.

The game currently has an editor (it's not clearly shown by the video due to the quality, sorry), which allows for hitbox manipulation, the animation/frame data is handled through basic scripting. The hitbox data is stored along with this, and allows others to change the characters as long as the graphical data is in the game.

We could also use a background artist, but that is less important for the time being, above all else we would like to make at least one playable, original character to show off the game and build a team/gather interest off of that.

[Zero000]

Cool thread. put me in the game as a feature

[article 12]

i wish this project the best of luck! having seen games such as vanguard princess which were done by a single person, and using an off the shelf program like 2d fighter maker. it is indeed possible to create a great game. but you guys are crating your own engine, which allows for a greater deal of flexibillty.

I did animation in uni for 3 years. and I know very well the kinda of work that is gonna be needed ahead of you. It took sugeno (an ex-capcom ans snk employee) 3 years to put together vanguard princess all by himself. and it took me 6 months to put together my 9 minute final piece (which i cheated to hell using Layer animations)

a small demo with just two or mirrors characters would be perhaps the first thing worth trying. because even doing that would a fantasic achievement!

just curious tho. what kind of animations are you guys looking for. the third strike kind which has some bits done on ones or the kof/GG style which are probably done on keyframes with some on 2s.. or that crappy ropey stuff they did in alpha/old versus series?

[Henaki]

Similar to Guilty Gear, we don't need a lot of extremely elaborate + pretty animation, we're aiming for more effective use of resources seeing as we aren't professionals. Basically, if it gets the point across, we're happy.

[Halcyone3]

as an aspiring game developer myself, i wish you fellas the best, looking forward to the finished result.

Sadly, rendering, graphics, and animation are my weakest points, so i can't be of help :/

[Amadeous]

I'm way too lazy to get shit done, plus I'm working on my own project. Still wish you the best of luck man.

[CABINET SMASHER]

If someone can actually teach me how to animate and what sprite programs/rendering programs I could use, I could help in about a year, mebbe!

[Skye]

I'd help, but you don't like me.

But to support you, I'll buy the game, be bad at it and post about it as if I'm not.

[Henaki]

I'd help, but you don't like me.

But to support you, I'll buy the game, be bad at it and post about it as if I'm not.

Are you actually good at animation?

I just dislike shitty posts, otherwise I'd hate Zidane IRL too.

[Skye]

I'm decent enough. Wouldn't say "good", since I've seen far better work.

[Henaki]

I'm decent enough. Wouldn't say "good", since I've seen far better work.

Honesty? PM me your animation work.

[Skye]

None of my hand-drawn work has made it online unfortunately. I can understand if that's a deal breaker.

[2nd_God]

Hmmm.. looking through my photobucket, it appears as if I don't have many impressive animations to show, afterall.

Whatever though.. I am artist, I'll help if you need anyone.

mour example:

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/psilocyb3/Original_Ahrt/?action=view&current=spriteart_bradley.gif

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/psilocyb3/Original_Ahrt/?action=view&current=psilo_bbstyle.gif

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/psilocyb3/Original_Ahrt/?action=view&current=psi_INTRO_01.gif

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/psilocyb3/Original_Ahrt/?action=view&current=psi_STANCE_normal.gif

An edit i'm currently making as well:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/psilocyb3/Original_Ahrt/GODDESS_hookin004.jpg

[Henaki]

Hmmm.. looking through my photobucket, it appears as if I don't have many impressive animations to show, afterall.

Whatever though.. I am artist, I'll help

Sorry, your best animation doesn't really fit the quality we're looking for. You should keep working at it though. We're seeking someone who actually has some experience in linework animation, either a budding student or a strong hobbyist would be ideal.

None of my hand-drawn work has made it online unfortunately. I can understand if that's a deal breaker.

Considering most of the work would be transferred through the internet, that is obviously a problem.

[sesame]

hummm

are there gonna be key-framers or just one artist doing all the frames?

and do you have any time limit on how long you except how many frames or how long the project(first character) might take?

[Henaki]

hummm

are there gonna be key-framers or just one artist doing all the frames?

and do you have any time limit on how long you except how many frames or how long the project(first character) might take?

Would prefer one artist to do linework, as I can do sprites based off the linework. obviously anything that speeds up the process would be preferred (one animator doing keyframes and others doing inbetweens) along with other cleanup artists.

As for estimations... about 300-400 frames of animation per character, that was kind of a lowball estimate though. We have no time limit for the time being, but we were hoping to make a complete character to show off the engine by Final Round, this was months ago however. We were thinking a (mostly) complete character over 4 months for the time being though, though we aren't insanely picky depending on what situations arise.

It was a bit difficult to discern what you meant, though, if I interpreted something poorly, feel free to rephrase that question.

[sesame]

Would prefer one artist to do linework, as I can do sprites based off the linework. obviously anything that speeds up the process would be preferred (one animator doing keyframes and others doing inbetweens) along with other cleanup artists.

As for estimations... about 300-400 frames of animation per character, that was kind of a lowball estimate though. We have no time limit for the time being, but we were hoping to make a complete character to show off the engine by Final Round, this was months ago however. We were thinking a (mostly) complete character over 4 months for the time being though, though we aren't insanely picky depending on what situations arise.

It was a bit difficult to discern what you meant, though, if I interpreted something poorly, feel free to rephrase that question.

ohh Thankks for the clarification..

Sorry if my question seems a littel vague but yea those are the information i want =D

i'll go as around my friends see if any of them is interested XD...

i would help but i don't really have much time to work on something so big ;w;...

(and style problem D; )

[Henaki]

ohh Thankks for the clarification..

Sorry if my question seems a littel vague but yea those are the information i want =D

i'll go as around my friends see if any of them is interested XD...

i would help but i don't really have much time to work on something so big ;w;...

(and style problem D; )

Style problem?

But yeah, thank you for asking around, I really appreciate that

[Blade]

By animation you working with existing sprites or chiseling/pixelling out your own? I have some experience designing my own FX in M.u.g.e.n. and done a few things for GG and BB (I'm sure a few people seen my sprite stuff) I work with Macromedia Fireworks and have a little Exp with Flash and Dreamweaver and Director. I have some editing skill with Adobe Premiere too but that's just an aside.

Oh yeah, and I'm a novice at Daz3D Studio aka Poser 3D. :8/:

[Henaki]

There's no "sprites" involved here (until I actually do my part of the job), it's doing traditional line work animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWghksKXQjA

This was the best example of something I could find on youtube in 5 minutes. Note that keyframing with important inbetweens is more important than striving for absolutely fluid, 60fps animation. The linework is the most important part as I can make sprites based off consistent and clear artwork, and would split the load of work between artists, rather than placing the burden entirely on one person. Doing hundreds of frames for a single character is tough as hell, and so is drawing hundreds of colored images manipulated down to the pixel. Shading notation (extremely thin lines dividing the primary lit and shadowed areas) would be ideal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwUX4lsb8GY

This is a similar example I found on youtube, although the proportions of the characters are much more cartoony and the linework is less clean, obviously all the art would all be done from the same point of view and with no dynamic camera angles.

I hope that clears things up.

Edit: We're not in a rush to get into this project either, we can line up other stuff to keep ourselves occupied, so if you are busy, myself and the programmer are simply going to make another game over the course of a few months instead. We just figured we'd try and go for one last push before moving on temporarily.

Edit: Oh, forgot to mention the 3D method we would instead use:

http://www.4gamer.net/games/111/G011100/20100820077/index_2.html

Scroll down a bit for an idea of how it would work based on the images. 3D model is exported with consistent lighting source/camera as individual 2D images, which I would then tune up into proper images to use in game.

[Circuitous]

This may be a more relevant example for some people.

[Henaki]

This may be a more relevant example for some people.

Haha I was looking for that image, thank you.

[Gil]

I might know someone who'd be interested and could do the linework. Though with how time consuming it is, I doubt she would do it for free. Would they be payed in some form or? Sorry if that's a silly question. I will talk to them later and get you some examples of what they can do.

:x I would help, but even my stick figures are horrible.