Andy Miller

I wrote a bit of an overview of how we animate our Citadel band ("The Wingnuts") using 'silent MIDI' tracks, as well as some of the reasoning behind having them in Badlands Crew. Read more, and see them in action here: https://lnkd.in/eSKcXspE

12

3 Comments

Awful news overnight with Ancient Forge having had to lay off 24 of its 59 employees at the end of August, according to Polish outlet CD-Action. The cuts reportedly affected both new hires and experienced devs, including leads and producers. This comes amid financial struggles reported at the studio in July. (source: https://lnkd.in/eywVcGt8) Those of you who are affected by this, please make use of my resources below: 🥇First, reach out to us at People Can Fly Studio, we have many roles open right now in Canada, the UK, Ireland and Europe, please check them out here: https://lnkd.in/eWpV5PbA 🥈Next, Discipline Games Jobs Resources: Over the past months I have created 9 (at time of writing) Games Jobs Resources to find jobs in a wide range of disciplines, and I would urge you to check them out, if anything just to see what would be available to you: https://lnkd.in/ePywd2kq You can find over 6,000 jobs there. 🥉 Third, the Ultimate list of Video Games Career Resources: This should be your one-stop shop for all information. My dear friend Amir Satvat maintains these documents, he is a legend for doing this - please check them out: https://amirsatvat.com/ I urge you to check out the areas in particular about CV support and mentoring, as these will help you no matter what industry you are hailing from or are looking into going next. 🎖 Finally, do not give up. Ever. No matter how dark things may look right now, I KNOW you will get through this, you have got this! 👊 Remember you are not alone. If you need help, advice, or even an ear to listen, we're here for you. Always! ➡ A request to my community, please can I ask you to repost this post to your colleagues and friends, so that we can get as many into jobs as possible! And please comment if you or your studio are currently hiring - let's help each other! Much love ❤️ #ancientforge #layoffs

20

Animex!!!! looking forward for the portfolio tips and tricks/reviews and the talks of the behind the scenes by Larian for baldurs gate 3!! #animex #teessideuni #conceptart

12

13 years ago I had a failing music studio, debt, high stress levels. 12 years ago I started Bigmouth Audio, focussed on B2B, offered multiple audio services (to see what would stick). 10 years ago I landed my first sound design project, started to laser focus on sound design for animation, started attending industry events relevant to my niche, started going to the gym. 9 years ago we landed our first BIG project, this changed my mindset, asked this client how we could better support them in achieving their goals going forward, started to focus more on voice casting & production. 8 years ago I found out I was going to be a dad, stopped working IN the business, focussed my time working ON the business, read Profit First to tackle more of the debt. 6 years ago pivoted the business to service games as well as animation, moved into a bigger studio, landed our first MAJOR project, this changed my mindset again. 5 years ago I hired project management staff, signed Netflix as a client, signed our first games client. 4 years ago we invested in building a state of the art audio facility in Glasgow, took over the rest of our building for office space, launched our business in Toronto, started doing sauna therapy. 3 years ago saw the end of the busiest spell we have ever had, entered one of the most challenging spells our industry has seen, blew through our cash reserves. only recently we have started to land decent projects again, saw a slight improvement in the market, started to focus on building our / my brand, decided to invest in the basics (finance & strategy). Now I have: - Experience & battle scars - A great team - Great clients - Resilience and better mental health - No debt - A profitable business All things I didn't have 12 years ago. Turning things around takes time. Often a lot of time! It's also never going to be a smooth ride. But it's guaranteed to be one hell of a journey.

94

14 Comments

Oh wow, you do not hear that often.... The entire staff of Annapurna Interactive, the video-game publishing division of Annapurna studio, resigned this month following a dispute with its owner. Annapurna Interactive President Nathan Gary and his team had been negotiating with Megan Ellison to spin off the video-game division as an independent entity. When Ellison pulled out of the negotiations, Gary and other executives resigned and were followed by around two dozen other staffers. “All 25 members of the Annapurna Interactive team collectively resigned,’’ Gary and the group said in a joint statement. “This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make and we did not take this action lightly.” (source: https://lnkd.in/ehvi33Wg) To those who have resigned, if you are looking for new opportunities, please check them out here: 🥇First, reach out to us at People Can Fly Studio, we have many roles open right now in Canada, the UK, Ireland and Europe, please check them out here: https://lnkd.in/eWpV5PbA 🥈Next, Discipline Games Jobs Resources: Over the past months I have created 9 (at time of writing) Games Jobs Resources to find jobs in a wide range of disciplines, and I would urge you to check them out, if anything just to see what would be available to you: https://lnkd.in/ePywd2kq You can find over 6,000 jobs there. 🥉 Third, the Ultimate list of Video Games Career Resources: This should be your one-stop shop for all information. My dear friend Amir Satvat maintains these documents, he is a legend for doing this - please check them out: https://amirsatvat.com/ I urge you to check out the areas in particular about CV support and mentoring, as these will help you no matter what industry you are hailing from or are looking into going next. 🎖 Finally, do not give up. Ever. No matter how dark things may look right now, I KNOW you will get through this, you have got this! 👊 Remember you are not alone. If you need help, advice, or even an ear to listen, we're here for you. Always! ➡ A request to my community, please can I ask you to repost this post to your colleagues and friends, so that we can get as many into jobs as possible! And please comment if you or your studio are currently hiring - let's help each other! Much love ❤️ #annapurnainteractive #resignations

167

6 Comments

Lots of interesting info in this survey for people in the industry at every level. How does your pay compare? Which areas are struggling/thriving? Do take a look, there's some useful insights in there :)

1

Hopefully this is the first time you're seeing modular control rig working inside #uefn. I saw the hidden menu for making modular control rigs during #unrealfest and tried migrating all the modules over. Not without its kinks, we now have working modular control rigs and modules on the otherside. If people are interested in this process, I'll consider making a longer form tutorial. In the meantime, what should we rig up with the modules in UEFN?

28

1 Comment

That's a red flag to leave that place for good IMMEDIATELY. Insight into how my day goes (I work remotely) >> • If I'm doing graphics stuff, be it 2D or 3D, I have to take breaks to let my wrist and back to chill before continuing. Luckily, graphics stuff is chill in general, so the day usually just flies by. I don't mark the breaks as work hours - the accuracy is usually about 0.5h and the client pays only for worked hours. The best deal for clients is usually a package deal, where the whole price is negotiated beforehand and I can then work however I fff want, like 4am if I want to (assuming it's not part of a team, but some package deal, like company logos or stationary graphics). • If I'm doing a programming job, I might take even 3 hour breaks and head outside for a walk. I am doing work in my head at the same time, but I don't mark it down as work hours. With programming, it's no use to try and force your brain to solve some issue, best is to let the noggin' figure it out on it's own time. This has been partially solved with AI code assists, that can explain complex problems and show code examples, but still - walking in fresh air is the best programmer's assistant. Working as part of a team changes this dynamic a lot, but the team can always coordinate when to be on call and everyone should have their moment of peace at work most of the time anyways. As a comment to the Reddit post >> From a security point of view, having an AI screenshot your screen every 10 seconds to 'analyze' what you are doing sounds awfully close to easily allowing industrial espionage in your company and paying the spies for it. Just sayin' ..

50

20 Comments

In today's little bit of progress, we're working with a little bit of music and setting up some Enemy Animation Blueprints- just with patrolling and idling for the time being. These are called Agonized Hunters and probably for good reason. Lore is so fun to come up with, by the way. I suppose all the stories I started to write even as a kid should've been a grand sign towards my liking of storytelling, but I definitely know about it now. I thought it would be a nice touch for the light to turn red/add in some invincibility frames when the player comes in contact with them, as well as adding in a sliiiight distinction between the breakable platforms and the ones you can walk on regularly. On a semi-related note, something I only learned fairly recently: the Nav Mesh Bounds Volume in Unreal only registers traversable ground. That's why it's only the ground that turns green when you preview it and not the air that the volume may also be in contact with. If you're working with flying enemies you won't want to rely on those or the functions related to them (like GetRandomReachablePointInRadius and co.), since they will bring those flying guys right to the ground at best. You'll want to look into the Math function RandomPointInBoundingBox instead. ✨

14

Here's a timelapse of our main menu in Badlands Crew (screenshots taken by our regular build process). You can see how we really started with nothing. Towards the end where it starts jumping about is where we introduced animated cameras to the intro, and the process doesn't capture the screenshot at the exact same time through the motion (you can also see that because we're working on things much deeper in to the game, the main menu changes a lot less later on). This has been a complicated project to work on. We're still just a team of 4 (2 programmers, 2 artists - with anything that falls outside of those disciplines being covered a bit by all of us), and this game is huge. I've learnt a lot along the way on this one (but that's always the case). We've built a lot of stuff to help hold it all together. One of the most interesting things we've done (which we experimented a little with on the last project) is to ditch using Unity's "Update" (etc...) methods pretty much entirely in favour of our own update scheduler. This allows us to have stuff which updates infrequently, or only actually when it has something to worry about... it also means we can have things which aren't inherited from Unity's MonoBehaviour receiving the same update tick as things which are. We can also make this work nicer with jobs and raycast batching, too... so, there are many benefits. I have more timelapses which I will post another time, perhaps with some hashtags or banal motivational sentiment.

29

4 Comments

Thoughts about Cynefin Narrative Assemblage Panel (Video game people, sorry for not niching down my content enough) Some time ago I was lucky to assist in a presentation led by Anna Panagiotou, Eleanor Snowden and Beth Smith about Narrative Assemblage and how it relates to #sensemaking and #anthrocomplexity. It was also a very good glimpse into The Cynefin Company higher level thinking and its links to neo materialism. Here is a few things i got from it. Observing complex systems like organizations, markets or worse, societies from a neutral position is not possible because as human observers, we’re embedded in the material/social reality, and transform it by our perceptions and our mere presence. “Humans, situated in, create wider social cultural webs who are materially embedded.” Eleanor Snowden The relationship between agency, perception and action is complex as they are deeply entangled (Karen Barad!). The classical obsessive western dichotomy between matter/conscience, materialism is outgrown by complexity, assemblage and the possibility of circular, dispositional causality (Alicia Juarrero!). For queer people like me, this perspective brought us Anne Fausto-Sterling Sex/Gender circular notion. There is no clear opposition between “Facts facts facts” or “It’s all narrative” explains Anne. “We make sense of fact through narrative, narrative become fact and constraints reality.” Anne Pagiatou In that way, narrative has material agency. “World make stories, we make stories and in turn, these stories make the world.” Narrative is not stories or storytelling. A narrative can exist without an author or with lots of it, and is not confined to a classical structure. Actions in space can be narrative. It’s a fundamental way we understand reality. I see profound links with Ajit Maan, Ph.D. “Inter Narrative Identity”. “Why is it that old wives tales are called old wives tales, when old men's tales are called Philosophy and religion.” Beth Smith Epistemic injustice is the lack of resources to understand some situated experiences that are so systemic that it gives a worldview that is deceiving and unjust by ignoring the agency of some actors. A lack of epistemic ressources is when you have no words like “conjugal violence” to describe your reality because it has not been told, retold through multiple stories and then understood and abstracted into an expression. Responsability, objectivity also need to be reframed if you can’t see and talk from an astral body like white cis dude philosophers do. A good beginning is the idea the effort to maintain awareness of the network of the relations to other actors and respect their dignity. Make stories in French, “Faire des histoires !” also means making a fuss, creating problems for everybody. So I guess it’s also about stirring up the pot a little. Again thanks to Beth, Eleanor and Anne for your generosity and brilliance. (Rare picture of a non human/ human actor network)

50

17 Comments

Animated Retro Poster NO.7; Logarhythms 🕺 🕺 🕺 🕺 🕺 🕺 Something a little funky for this one, no animation, just a bit of mucking around with footage and effects. Looking at the figures on the poster, it was pretty clear this needed to be some footage wizardry, it was never going to be a result accurate to the original design but I'm proper happy with it regardless. 7 posters in and I still haven't thought of a decent name for the series though😥  ----- This is my quest to inject life into some excellent retro design. I'm treating it as a mini client brief and have set some rules 👮‍♂️ 1- Can’t spend more than half a day on these, ideally a couple hours, mimicking the sharp turn around often needed for social content, this includes the “layer recreating” and animating. 2- Less is more. The motion should not distract from the design, but compliment and celebrate it. 3- Don’t sweat the small stuff, it’s gonna be impossible for me to get a pixel perfect recreation in my time constraints, if something isn’t going to work, skip it, or just get as close as I can in the time…. It’s going to be moving anyway, just capture the ✨vibe ✨ And of course, I’ll drop the original in the comments, so you can compare and rip my recreation to shreds 😩 😘✌️ #motiondesign  #animation  #poster #creative  #motiongraphics  #design  #graphic  #graphicdesign

20

1 Comment

Monday knowledge share because I’ve been doing it wrong and maybe you have too! I recently received some incredibly practical advice and insight tailored specifically to my situation as a 2D Artist currently working freelance and short-term contract roles in games with the aim of securing a full time position, and I’d love to share it with you! 𝟭. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗼𝘀: 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀. What recruiters and freelance clients are looking for when they go to your portfolio are totally different.(Freelance clients need to feel reassured and confident by seeing a huge range of styles and a diverse history of past work to prove to them you’ve got what it takes to handle their unique project. Recruiters however, want to see one or two specific styles applicable to the exact studio they’re hiring for). As such, these opposing needs cannot be catered to in the same portfolio. 𝟮. 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀—𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹. Instead, choose a few pieces (between 6-15, 20 max) that accurately convey the work you’re looking to do and that is highly relevant to the studio you’re applying for. (For context, I had been showing recruiters over 120 artworks in a million different styles 😳.) 𝟯. 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝟭 𝘀𝘁𝘆𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝘆𝗹𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗲 𝟭 𝗼𝗿 𝟮 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁. Up until now, I had been trying to showcase my style versatility to recruiters, sharing over 120 artworks including everything from anime, to Dota 2, fine art, cartoons, comics and photorealistic, when that is not what they want to see at all!) 𝟰. 𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗼 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗶𝗻, 𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗼𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿. Then emulate their portfolio, because that portfolio is what got them hired. 𝟱. 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀. Only show the most extremely polished high quality work that’s AAA standard. (You can still showcase your work in progress and your art process by using the multi-image option on your posts on Art Station or Cara etc.) If anyone else has other points to add or opinions to share based on their own experiences as either a fellow artist or a recruiter, I would love to hear them! *Me visiting a beautiful 9th century village in France before work. #remotework #games

4

A small letter to Ubisoft. Ubi has said "𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘹𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘦, 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴, 𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 𝘢𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳-𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘤𝘩, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘢 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴." Come on UBI, we all want you to win, stop being such a silly goose. These two things are at odds with each other and this is why they are struggling, whilst you can marry up a "player-centric approach" whilst providing value to your shareholders, it's the fact these things even exist on an even playing field that they are struggling. Everytime, at least I can think of, that the shareholders pockets are considered as important as the game itself, the game does not do well, or at the very least it does poorly and has to be saved later by ripping all of that stuff that was put in to "make shareholders happy" out of it. Games make significantly more money when people actually want to play them, it's not complicated. So Ubi, as the creator of some of my favorite games, as the place I dreamed to work at as a kid, as a megalith of our industry, please go back to basics. go back and look at what truly made far cry 2 amazing, what made half the planet fall in love with roof jumping assassins and what ultimately led to your gargantuan success, because it's not pleasing shareholders, it's simply making games we all want to play. I know it's nowhere near this simple but for the love of god, we could all be playing the best pirate game ever made if you had focused more on the fun and less on the 1. All the best, your once biggest fan. P.S bin off live service outside of siege, you're clearly not cut out for it.

78

10 Comments

Carrying all of those new changes back to UE5

104

We are underway with our next assignment, which is local split-screen multiplayer. I had thought there would be far more complex systems for creating a split-screen game, however, it turns out it is fairly easy when using the new input system with its built-in input manager. There was no need to set up any special coding for managing the two cameras separately, or a need to set up different render planes to render each camera to an individual render texture, just select the allow split-screen option and set up keys in the control map as joining actions. And enable the option to join the game via said actions. And then we have a split-screen multiplayer, well a very basic one, now we need to focus on the rest of the systems and mechanics that need to be added to the system. #srudentgamedev #indiegamedev #madewithunity

1

As someone from an underrepresented background who's had a rough time finding and keeping work in the games industry, I'd say this is required reading for anyone who works in or wants to work in the UK's games creation field. ⭕It's 4 times harder to get work in this sector, especially with the additional challenge of being from a low income background and/or marginalized group. ⭕Routes for non-university applicants to get experience or skills are almost nonexistant, and even if you spend ££££ on uni, you're in competition with as many as 3699 other graduates per year for the (very small) pool of junior jobs. ⭕Hiring figures directly from university could be as low as 5.5%, possibly lower! I'm curious what this could indicate about both the quality of HE games courses and the expectations employers have of fresh university graduates. ⭕The games industry is a risk averse sector which adds to the challenge of fierce competition for jobs. (Implication being, studios are reluctant to hire and train and/or feel there are skills mismatches between what they look for in candidates vs the talent pool available?) It's a bleak picture for now but it's good to know that if you're struggling like me, chances are the problem is systemic and not personal. I also have a hard time believing it's long term sustainable for studios or their people to keep the status quo as is. So, I'd love it if the industry could do better at giving all these talented people who need jobs a good home and stable work, and I'm optimistic that pointing out the state of things might be the first step to changing them.

Happy Wednesday all! Today I want to talk about hiccups setbacks and what to do when a troll enters the dungeon! Today as I was prepping an exciting review meeting with my technical artist on all the amazing VFX applicants I logged in and saw nothing. All gone! Poof! Not sure what happened possibly a glitch in the matrix or what not but plans had changed for the entire day and rest of the week in a flash. All I could do was to try and get things moving forward again. Can’t get mad about a setback no time! So I hopped on here sent the SOS to all the amazing individuals interested in the VFX role and stated the facts. -emails gone -review delayed -follow ups complicated And now it’s on to being a bit humble and asking for support. Anyone interested in the SENIOR VFX ROLE please reapply 🧡. Mistakes happen and hiccups and delays are all part of the startup life. It’s important to remind oneself to be professional under the hardest of times but also keep the larger picture in mind. This may have flipped my week upside down but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the weeks, months, years ahead. Much love everyone!

7

1 Comment

Hot damn, week 5 already! This week was a bit of 'aha!' moment on 'Feed The Birds' development. Getting in the scoring and collision for the 'good balls' and at least collision on the 'bad balls' felt like a big milestone in the development of this minigame. It's technically a game, yay! I also didn't run into too much trouble with the collision and the scoring, which was a bit of a relief after last weeks debacle with user events. The collision behaves slightly differently for the green balls and red balls. As the character will be 'eating' the green balls, I wanted them to disappear when they collide with the character. However, I don't want the red ones to disappear just yet. I have a few ideas of what the red balls will be when 'arted up' but for now I will keep them visible. Next I'm going to look at a game over state when you hit the red balls. On the art side of things I worked out an idle state for my current character design. The run is all well and good but it would look a bit weird if you weren't pressing left or right and our bird was just running on the spot. It was still important for the idle state to have the snapping beak aspect to it, so that he can still be eating up those green dots falling from the sky. This one was a lot easier to animate than the run cycle, most obviously because he's just standing still, but also I was able to recycle the snapping animation from the run cycle and create this 6 frame cycle. Although it looks as though 4 of the idle frames are identical, they actually vary slightly in the sketch texture, to try and get a traditional pencil animation feel. Definitely feeling this minigame is starting to come together a little more now, I'm excited to keep working on it! --- P.S. I'm currently available for freelance and contract concept art roles #IndieGameDeveloper #IndieGame #FeedTheBirds #GameDesign #ConceptArt #Animation #Freelance #OpenToWork

18