Coloring this comic was playing around with layer modes and unexpected color choices for lighting and shadow! Also color-picking from photos of burning buildings.
2018 and 2014. A rare case of having to reanimate a piece of completed animation. Luckily, most of my revisions are minor but in this case the composition for this shot needed to change to suit huge improvements. The difference between these two shots is 4 years and a lot of experience.
Hey all! Here’s a rundown of things tackled last week:
I’ve begun to notice that code compile time has slowly been crawling up, to the point where it could take 20-25+ seconds for any code change to recompile.
While this might not seem like the worst thing ever, it becomes bothersome any time I need to change one thing in code, or a variable, etc, and then having to wait another 20+ seconds for that to compile, and then roughly another 5-8 more seconds for the game to actually start
So, in an attempt to reduce this time, I went through all of the existing code and begun reviewing classes and methods that could be simplified, or removed entirely.
While initially daunting, it provided the opportunity to revisit a lot of code I haven’t seen in a while, a chance to rename some of the variables/methods to provide better readability, and came to the realization of how much junk I could actually clear out.
I also ended up sorting a lot of scripts and assets around (some things subject to change):
After doing that, I ended up not only getting rid of a lot of junk, but dropped the compile time down to 11-13 seconds! This ended up taking a bit more time than I expected, but overall, it was worth it for both time-save, and improving code quality/maintainability.
Character Art/Animation:
We did some character sheet development on some characters you may or may not see soon 😉
Worked on some keyframes for some of the enemies, as well as for Easton/Weston and another character yet to be seen.
Programming:
Updated combat system to include “multi-hits” in frame data.
Added a new actor state: “Stunned”
Did a LOT of changes to the cutscene system:
One of the biggest problems was something a little more mundane: Finding the best way of moving characters in a cutscene.
Instead of animating characters using an Animation Timeline, I elected to use an Event queue, where you’d pass in an event/command into a list, that event happens, and then that event is cleared from the queue.
For the movement system, I discovered and realized during testing, that my current “MoveTo” events would cause actors to move one at a time. This would be problematic for situations where multiple characters need to be walking at the same time.
I ended up (painfully) rewriting this, and now multiple actors can move in one MoveTo event.
Another thing: Animating the actors:
When the game is not in Cutscene Mode, characters are animated based on the state that they’re in. While the game is in Cutscene Mode, they are only in one state: Cutscene State
The Cutscene State deliberately doesn’t provide any animations or functions, so that it can act as a blank state.
This would allow me to do things such as calling an “Animate” event, which would allow me to change the currently playing animation for an actor.
I’ve found that it’s pretty annoying to have to make an Animate Event to get the Walking/Running animations playing anytime I have an actor move. So instead, in the MoveTo event, I have the code toggle between Walking/Running/Idle animations, depending on their velocity.
Tools:
I also updated the UI/Inspector for making/updating cutscenes. Before, it was not as friendly to deal with:
We’ve also been working on an “NPC Builder” that will automatically create and somewhat configure new characters with all of the base components to get a character working:
Hi everyone! With this new video game and this AWESOME LOOKING movie from Sony Animation, my inspiration for the last Character design challenge been obvious to me….;)
I’ve seen a lot of discourse over Overwatch’s female characters having ‘same face’ syndrome, especially since Ashe was announced (or whenever any female character comes out..) But to be honest, I’ve never really noticed it myself..? I went and found pictures of each character, then cropped parts of them to compare. I even grayscaled the bits so the colors wouldn’t throw off my comparisons.
After looking at them all next to each other.. Yeah, there’s some similarities but all in all.. they are pretty varied. I might go into more detail later and write out each characters facial traits.
2050: Jack becomes Strike-Commander, Blackwatch is formed (McCree is 11; Ashe 13)
2054-2055: approximate date when Deadlock is formed. Ashe is 17-18, McCree is 15-16.
2056-ish: Deadlock founder McCree (17) is caught by Blackwatch. He is given the choice to either go to prison or join the division. McCree becomes an agent
2066-ish: the revolt at the Horizon Lunar Colony occurs. Winston (and Hammond) crash land on Earth.
2067: Ecopoint: Antarctica is lost in a terrible storm.
2067-ish: Hanzo and Genji fight. Genji loses and is rescued by Overwatch/Blackwatch. Genji agrees to cybernetics and becomes a heavily augmented cyborg.
Mid(?)-2067: The side effects of Gabriel’s “condition” get worse. He recruits Moira to try and cure it. (She obviously does not do that.)
Halloween 2067-ish: the main Overwatch group has a Halloween party
2068 (Venetian Carnival in Feb-March): Retribution occurs. Despite his anger, McCree does not leave Blackwatch. Instead, something Gabriel says during his debriefing is enough to convince McCree to stay. It is also enough to convince Jack to let McCree, Genji, and Gabriel himself to continue to operate as agents. Based on McCree and 76’s Recall-era interactions with Moira, it is implied that Gabriel reveals Moira sold out Blackwatch during the mission (or that Gabriel believes that). McCree and 76’s interactions with her show that they believe Gabriel.
2068-ish: Amélie Lacroix is kidnapped by Talon and made into a sleeper agent. After a few weeks, Gérard Lacroix is killed and Amélie disappears again.
Second half of 2068: The Slipstream test flight has a major accident. Lena is lost in time and recovered “months later”.
Late 2068/early 2069: Winston makes the chronal accelerator. Lena becomes a Strike Team agent.
2069: Null Sector rises up and takes over London. One month into the situation, a strike team is sent to stop them.
2069-2070: Akande Ogundimu (Doomfist: the Successor) is arrested in Numbani. It is possible Reinhardt has already “retired”.
2069-2070: Ana Amari engages in a sniper battle with a new Talon sniper. Ana disobeys orders to return to the ship. She manages to discover that Widowmaker is Amélie Lacroix, but Amélie outshoots her. Ana decides to stay underground.
2070: The fall of Overwatch.
2076: Recall and Alive occur (relatively quickly); Rise and Shine occurs (few days - few weeks after Recall); Dragons occurs, Reunion occurs, Hero occurs, Honor and Glory occurs (these three are approximately a few weeks to a few months after Recall)
Mid-2076: Mission Statement occurs. Old Soldiers occurs in the aftermath.
November 2076: Sombra ARG ends. Infiltration occurs.
December 2076: Reflections occurs. McCre might meet with Sombra in Dorado.
2076-2077: Binary occurs.
2077: Masquerade and Searching occur.
—
Math is relatively straightforward:
Real world game launch: 2016
Recall occurs “60 years in the future”: 2076
The fall of Overwatch occurred six years before Recall: 2070
Omnic Crisis occurred “thirty years ago” (before Recall): 2046
Jack Morrison spent 20 years as the OW Strike-Commander: 2050-2070
McCree’s age when he joins Blackwatch is given in Michael Chu’s GDC talk (Fareeha is 11-12 in Ana"s Origin Video, making Jesse and Angela 17).
shoulder blades: most of the upper back muscles attach to them directly, placement is affected by the arms. They can get obscured on very muscular backs, but most people these are the most dominant features!
7th cervical vertebra: neck bone that sticks out in most people, it sits in the center of that diamond shaped tendon in the middle of the trapezius
Also, obviously always keep the general shape of the ribcage and spine in mind, it was too much of a pain to draw them all in lol.
BACK MUSCLES
Erector Spinae: make the column-like structures around the spine,
they extend all the way up to the neck, but you really only see the
bottom part.
Latissimus Dorsi: are very thin, so most of the time you only see the structures underneath (such as the erector spinae). But when flexed, (for example, when climbing), you can see here on Jimmy Webb’s back that swooping curve it makes under the armpits.
The lats are also responsible for most of a person’s upper body strength and are the “V” shaped part of the back. For example, it’s how Bruce Lee was so strong despite being a small guy. Just look at those wings, man.
Infraspinatus, Teres Minor, and Teres Major:
sit on the shoulder blade itself, and connects it to the top of the arm
bone. These are responsible for a lot of the crazy shapes you see in
bodybuilders’ backs.
Underneath them is the serratus anterior, which technically isn’t a back muscle but sits on the side of the ribs. These form that zig-zag pattern on the ribs that makes people look super ripped when visible with the external obliques, both wrapping around the sides of the torso. They’re not technically back muscles but fill out the silhouette, so it’s good to keep them in mind.
the glutes/butt muscles… they go farther up the back than one might assume and they, along with the pelvis, do affect the surface appearance of the lower back.
Rhomboid: simple shape, attaches from the inner edge of the shoulder blades to the middle of the spine at the 7th cervical vetebra to about the 4th or 5th thoracic vetebra. It does not overlap with the latissimus dorsi
Trapezius: divided roughly in the top, middle, and bottom sections. The top is quite thick and cylindrical and makes the sloping shape from the neck to the shoulders.
The bottom part is very thin; like the latissimus dorsi, the forms underneath it are visible when relaxed, making the rhomboid visible if it is flexed and the traps are not. Also not where the bottom part’s tendons attach to the shoulder blades; it outlines the curve of the shoulder blades even in people who are covered in brains muscles.
When fully flexed, it doesn’t taper into a point, but makes a small “w” shape at the bottom.
The 7th cervical vertebra sits at the center of the diamond-shaped tendons between the first and second sections of the trapezius. This part appears recessed in very muscular people.
Deltoid: not really a back muscle, but they overlap with the Infraspinatus and insert into the upper ridge of the shoulder blades, so it’s good to see how they interact with the others.
Ah, now for an example, featuring Thor himself. Note the curve where the traps meet the shoulder blades, the diamond-shaped tendon, and the rough “w” shaped contour of the lower back. Also note the two dimples, which is formed by the pelvis bones. They tend to be more prominent in women, although they are found in both men and women.
Try to find the back muscles on other people yourself, and then GET DRAWING
(PS, Generally it’s best to be able to simplify the forms instead of trying to render straight away - that’s how you know you really internalized the anatomy! I… honestly still don’t understand the back enough to do that yet, hence the lack of examples, unlike with the forearms post. But nonetheless, I hope that this is still useful as a general reference. I know it’s helped me at least remember what the different parts are, even if I don’t yet have a grasp of how they interact in motion!)
