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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

iAnimate Games Workshop 2 - the cannon hammer



Ric Arroyo is a badass. He knows how to be hard, and he knows how to push people. Ric, if you ever read this, keep being that guy. I'd love him to be my boss one day.

This animation started out with an idea I've been playing with, a single-shot cannon that doubles as a hammer. If you look at ancient infantry cannons, they were built with a long wooden rod to be planted in the ground, and the iron cannon mounted at the opposite head. I went through several ideas of how to juggle the box and get a cool shot in there somehow. My favorite was flipping the box in the air, and shooting it on the way down. But, I went with this combo, because I wanted to work on the physics of the slide and the knockback -- some real-world physics to work on (mixed with the fantasy of the weapon, of course.)

The idea wasn't fully fleshed out right away, as you can see from the progress reel. I make some pretty big changes partway through. The original flick of the butt end of the cannon just didn't feel powerful at all. I ended up switching to two-hands, which made a huge difference on that hit; but then I had issues with hand rotations, and shoulder alignment. And throughout the whole thing, I struggled with the slide/jump back just looking natural. It was hard to reference, because I specifically wanted all in one motion; not a skip and not a stumble. But hey, that is what learning is about.


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