Wow, it's been over a year and finally I have taken some time to update the old blog. Unfortunately this post will not tackle a serious topic but perhaps next time or maybe I'll take another year off.
Anyhow, I was at some dev meet up and John "I hope that's right, and I forgot your last name" over at Naughty Dog asked me to write more about animation systems and theory in the vain of my previous posts. Well that is going to have to wait but in the meantime here is a great article to hold you over.
"Darkstalkers and the Twelve Principles of Animation". If you have already read it, read it again because I do all the time just so I don't forget.
Also here are a few other resources I constantly use to steal ideas from or use to explain something to an animator.
Street Fighter Third Strike Sprite Animation Library
This site is absolutely amazing as it tears apart everything 3S has to offer for your consumption. Each character sprite set is viewable and even downloadable, along with full VFX rips and background rips. In addition to all this, sound and voice files are available along with a nice tutorial for sprite ripping.
The Fighter's Generation
This site is the most complete library of fighting game characters that I know of on the internet! The site has tons of ripped sprites for 2D games, a lot of artwork per character, and news about anything fighting games.
In other news, Mike Birkhead started to blog on all things beat'em up design and a few other things in between. Hurry over to his blog to level up as he has been covering many lessons learned by all the combat designers that have touched the God of War franchise at both Sony Santa Monica and Ready at Dawn.
Combat Encounters
Designing Enemies - part 1
Designing Enemies - part 2
Designing Enemies - part 3
Finally, here is an amazing article "How to steal like an artist" that hit home for me as all I do is steal when I design, I have no misconceptions that I am a thief, fraud, or however you like to phrase it!
Well that is enough pointless stuff for one night.
