The way a person moves, stands, and talks is part of who they are. It can be an essential part of making observations and judgments about their character–in fact, doing just that is a trick actors have been using for centuries! That’s why animations are such an important part of a video game like Cognition.<\/p>\n
Not being an animator myself, when I stepped into directing Episode 2, I was surprised by how much I had never thought about in terms of animations. Every single unique movement that a character makes has to be animated through several stages of revision. Picking up a pen might seem like a simple thing, but it’s not. You’ve probably never thought about just how many parts of your body move when you pick up that pen: your head turns over and down to look at it. Your arm reaches out, and chances are your back bends towards it as well. Your fingers–all five<\/em>\u00a0of them, don’t forget–move as you open your hand and then close them around the object. You’ve got the pen! Congratulations. Now move all those parts of your body back into exactly<\/em>\u00a0the same position they were in before, plus one pen poised for use.<\/p>\n Oh, did you want to use<\/em>\u00a0that pen, too? Well, roll up your sleeves, folks, we’re gonna be here for a while!<\/p>\n Being a part of the daily animation meetings, I quickly appreciated just how much detailed work our animators do, and I also saw as they got better and better over time. Someone might forget to animate the spine for one animation, but the next time around they’d remember to incorporate that into their work. I also learned about the stages of an animation as it progresses. Below are two of the earlier passes on a much more complex action, where Erica jumps out of the way of a speeding car, done by animator Dan Long<\/a>:<\/p>\n