You shouldn't notice this video game animation
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- Опубликовано: 2 июн 2024
- The Matrix Resurrections is a movie that's kind of about video games. And one of the most important but under-appreciated aspect of games is the walk cycle. Every character needs a walk, and as humans who are familiar with the concept, a badly animated walk cycle can immediately stick out as uncanny. So game developers have found a ton of cool ways to implement walks in the games we play - making them both accurate, and flavorful. Jenna Stoeber walks through the history of walks and walking cycles in video games, and how they got to where they are today.
0:00 The Matrix Resurrections
0:50 Basics of walking animations
2:25 Early walking cycles
3:43 3D Animation Ruins Everything
5:36 Stylish walks and motion capture
9:10 Animating character-specific walks
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#thematrix #animation 
Игры
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Hello, Polygon will you ever make a video on the history of mirrors in video games?
Hello can you please get BDG back on for one last unraveled about how to maximize survivability in the SCP universe
Are you going to be posting the livestream on here? I missed it :((
My partner, who has an art degree, immediately walked across the room to the shelf, pulled the exact book out that you're using around the 2 minute mark, and showed me the page that you showed us. That's awesome
try to find his Thief and the Cobbler workprint animation, it's nuts even if it's unifnishede
My spouse has that book, too!
While I, on the other hand, pulled out my PS2 copy of Enter the Matrix
I’m just going to assume it’s the animator survival guide
Edit: yep
Yeah lmao I was like oh hey it’s the animators survival kit. We’ve all got that book lmao
The Bible of animation
Jenna is continuing her quest to become an animation expert and I am so glad she's taking us with her
I kinda want a whole Polygon video on "doing things 'wrong' for the sake of stylization or comedy". Because the bit toward the end about intentionally making weird walking animations was really interesting to me.
the extremely "real Benny Hill hours" music is "Runaround" by Ron Aspery, and a very fun example of how library musicians often just get commissioned to do "sound-alikes" of popular songs (the original being "Yakety Sax")
this is a very fun and interesting thing to note, I hope to remember this fun fact
Took longer than I was expecting to reference the ministry of silly walks. I was fully expecting it to be within the first 3 minutes lol
thanks for sticking around, haha
I don’t know why but calling Link “very worried” was so pleasant and cute to me
So glad you included the Silly Walkin' Perk from West of Loathing. One of my favorite visual gags in games.
Same here
Such a great game, and wonderful that the humor of KoL made the transition so well.
Time stamp please
@@buckhunt6832 13:36
@@victoriaj2129 ❤
Mark my words: the next level of 3rd person walking animations will have a character trip over their feet slightly if you change direction too quickly.
As an Anatomy and Physiology teacher for high schoolers, I love that you guys put out videos on subjects that aren't often talked about or do a deep dive on subjects that require knowledge outside of just technology that I can show to the kids to get them thinking about video games in a different light. Awesome!
Walk cycles are the HARDEST thing to animate. I am glad someone is explaining the world the plight of us animators!
Thank you for what you do! - Simone
thank you for going out of your way to point out that the rule of thumb for walk cycles is specific to the non-disabled, visibility is extremely vital for us right now so taking the time to add in just a line or two about it makes a big difference
It's so funny that you said the speed/sliding/turning problem was the most egregious part of lower quality walk animations, because I've just so normalized that happening in games i didn't even see the problem in the examples you were showing for it at first lol
This felt like an epiphany moment for me.
I seriously thought "Wait a minute... that DOES look ridiculous".
One game I feel using walk cycles to good effect is Enter the Gungeon. The pilot and convict both shake their entire bodies side to side while moving forward, making them feel faster and fragile than the more composed movement of the marine and huntress. While the characters rarely differ in stats, their walk cycles convey the FEEL of differences in speed or durability.
Dang. I've sunk over a hundred hours into that game and never noticed that. Well spotted!
I thoroughly enjoyed the outro subtitles.
YOWWWWWWWWW
I remember being so impressed when I was playing the Witcher 3, running through novigrad, and then one foot stepped in a puddle so there was 1 shallow splash sound. Blew my mind
🤢🤢 The Witcher
Nothing can top the Morrowind walk cycle.
Which one?
@@vazzmatazz WALK cycle
I appreciate Polygon's video team for doing as much content as they do on stuff a lot of people just wouldn't spend a lot of time thinking about otherwise.
4:30 Poor Harry. He's just mirroring the player's feeling of shitting himself.
there's so much to love about this video, not least of which is how well-researched and informative it obviously is while remaining engaging, but i just want to call out two little things that made me smile, namely the line read on "wiggle" when talking about sonic's ears, and the frankly incredible yakety sax facsimile you managed to find royalty-free which manages to sound exactly right without being yakety sax at all.
Royalty-free yakety sax for all!! Thank you.
Loved the line about getting a third walk frame and being grateful for it lol. Splendid video as always :)
Ha, thank ya!
Secret for Enter the Matrix that no one cares about but me!!!
Want to beat the game SUPER EASILY?
1. Pull out a gun
2. Walk up to any enemy other than an agent (maybe agents too? I don't remember)
3. Press the throw command (circle + triangle on playstation I think?)
4. Victory
It's a one-hit kill on almost everything except the enemies in the Merovingian's Chateau and the game never tells you about it! Just in case you want to beat an almost-20-year-old game via cheesing.
W H A T
does this work in elden ring
@@polygon yea but you gotta unlock the guns option by leveling up to the industrial revolution stage.
(full disclosure I have never played Elden Ring)
Me, every time a Silent Hill game appeared in this video: "Never Before Have I Been So Offended By Something I One Hundred Percent Agree With"
I still the the GDC talk on how the animations in overgrowth were managed is one of my favourites. Shows how different states blended with Inverse Kinematics and algorithms can create some pretty neat animations
i remember the first time i played LA Noir and the characters feet did a quick little shuffle when he went down stairs, and my mind was completely blown
I just love the fact that, once the Benny Hill Music starts, *it does not stop*. Nobody can stop Benny once he's on a roll!
Nice Walkie-Talkie Jenna!
hey
@@polygon Or is it an Amble-Ramble?
Walks not ridiculous enough. Look up Guilty Gear's Zappa for a horrifying walk cycle. Voldo's got nothing on him.
paragon mention is cool, loved that game :C
They shot the treadmill scenes at the gym I used to go to with my mom as a kid😂
oh, wild!
nier automata has absurdly detailed and expressive walking/running animations and i am so glad you included them. uneven surfaces, speeding up, slowing down, turning, climbing stairs, it's all incredible
2:59 prince of persia is just generally a fuckin crazy game. every pixel, frame and animation was plotted out via manual coding, all position and color values. no pre-programmed assets. Scientists will really look at something and ask "is anybody gonna plot this out by hand" and then not wait for an answer.
i'm guessing Jenna just wanted to talk about making walking animations and chose the Matrix Resurrections tie-in to make the video more topical, and it just took so long to make that it's not topical anymore
This reminds me of a lot of the walking details in the Mad Max game, which like... is objectively not a great game but some parts are clearly made with great love and attention. Part of Max's legend is his busted knee, which isn't mentioned whatsoever in the game but he has the leg brace and it reflects on his movements; he's slow to break into a sprint, stepping forward bracing his shoulders with almost reluctance, his jump is weak and full of apparent effort, and if you drop down from any significant height he walks with a pained limp for a few seconds afterwards.
It's insane how much work goes into every little detail to make a game. great video!
5:10 Pokemon S&S still have this type of turning in the cut scene :D
5:59 Ah yes, Hitman from Hitman, what a classic and memorable character
Round of applause for Hitman from Hitman
He's a real Hitman's Hitman, that Hitman is.
Really loving these "inside baseball" looks at video games!
It'd be interesting to see more footstep-driven animation in games, rather than faking it by moving the model and sorta syncing the speed to the feet. You'd also get things like proper ability to stand on staircases at different elevations too, something many games either don't bother with, or sorta fake.
I loved this video! Seeing the considerations and work behind games makes them even more fun and interesting to play.
So happy ghost of tsushima animators are getting the love they deserve. It still has some of the best traversal and fighting animations I’ve seen in a game
Really great breakdown about character animation and personality of walk cycles, nice!
Walk cycles are one of my favorite things. So glad you did this
Great video as usual! My first appreciation of character animation was with Mario 64 where you can get up to 4 different movement animations
This is a fantastic exploration! Thank you so much.
I really appreciate that note about disability. An important topic that gets forgotten far to often.
The run cycle of Raymond Bryce from Disaster Day of Crisis was one singular moment that made me smile and love a brand new character. It’s unbelievably silly, determined and somehow clumsy.
Jenna, you are an absolute delight to listen to. You could talk about paint drying, and I'm convinced that it would be entertaining.
1:34 I come home after school and check your channel every day. I love you bro
I wonder if any games deliberately unsync walk speed for nightmare sequences. It'd be pretty authentic to have that 'stuck in sludge' feeling.
I try not to think about the fact all characters just slide around frictionlessly and just play an animation while doing it.
10:17 I own the Midway Arcade Classics on PS2, Joust was a blast!
Man you guys are exactly what I needed for game dev
OMG THANK YOU FOR TALKING ABOUT ENTER THE MATRIX
Stop mentioning Paragon I'm still in mourning.
sorry for your loss
Calling out Vanille for a silly walk is weird when you, not a minute later, have a segment focusing on silly walks that communicate characterization. If Lightning had Vanille's walk cycle, that would be worth furrowing a brow over, but the way Vanille walks is absolutely indicative of the type of impression she's trying to give others.
What an incredible video. This is so useful to me as an animator. Thanks!
another Stoeber banger about animation, yesplz
I loved watching all those video game characters walk :D
I absolutely love these types of videos Polygon puts out, it makes you really notice and appreciate really small details in games you might otherwise overlook.
Also, Jenna is so enjoyable to listen to! (Best 🐀 Lawyer ever)
This is the good stuff. Great put together.
and looking back at early and crude 3D characters were a delight.
Enter the Matrix's locomotion is just irresistible :D
Syphon Filter's 'drive and trudge' is also something that will always be a warm memory
This is the exact reason why as someone who has coded video games for school I will always make all characters a slime or amorphous blob. No legs, no animation...
great video!
There are some truly hilarious walks in Dark Souls 2. At long range from the player, Alonne Knights do this weird slanted moon walk sort of thing.
Also the falconeers that willpower themselve into moving forward while their legs fight to move to the side
If i was a video game character my walk cycle would like one of those physics based walk cycles but it actually just be me randomly changing the way im walking because im nervous
Your videos are alweys so interesting to watch =D
While I was on the seat h for comparison of 2D or pixel art cycle frame comparisons, I stumbled upon this. I really like it! I never personally thought of a walk cycle being important, or well at the service level, but it for sure makes sense! Thanks for the knowledge I gained!
So this isn't just walking animation but... Luigi's animation in Luigi's Mansion 3. It's just so dang good!
having 'dragging a dead body' and 'walking on slick ice' right after each other, as equally important gameplay info xD
Killari? Paragon? COME BACK!
Jenna, I love your sweater!
My favourite locomotion animation detail is from State of Decay 2, where if you run fast enough, and then slam the stick in a different direction, your character will dramatically slide, their hand even touches the ground! But I don't think it always happens, or it's just really hard to trigger, and it is FAST. The animation begins and ends almost faster than you can notice it.
I'm so mad you refer to most characters by their names but call Agent 47 hitman. That's like calling Samus Metroid or Link Zelda.
Halo is a pretty cool guy, he shoots aliens and doesn't afraid of anything
My favorite protagonist is Portal, she's an interesting silent character and Glad0s is mean to her but in funny way
Is "Donkey Kong Country" Donkey Kong 64's maiden name?
My name... is... The Matrix
I know that he's called Agent 47, but those are different situations though. Link is not a Zelda, Samus is not a Metroid, but Agent 47 is a Hitman
Oh my god, you put in a clip of ALUNDRA, a game that I have never seen anyone mention literally ever.
8:55 this was a very Griffin McElroy sentence lol
5:59
I got so pissed when you called Agent 47 'Hitman', even though it's probably a joke. lol
i played syphoon filter during the ps1 days and have never forgotten that walk cycle
That swapped Batman animation is the thing of nightmares
1:38 This is why you're my favorite youtuber you make amazing content for us every day
2:03 thank you for including this note! i'm a cane user and i was actually just wondering how mobility aids might factor into walk cycles like this :)
Nice piece! Root motion animation helps with foot sliding today because the mocap position in space is just transferred to the game. No code is moving the character anymore - it's all mocap.
off to listen to the benny hill theme for an hour.......thank you for the in-depth look at walking. Can I say, the bb with the bouncy flouncy walk is precious, I wish I had that break-my-stride kind of walk.
Engagement for the engagement god!
That swapped Batman and Catwoman animation is hilarious
Is that Lode Runner at 2:28? Man I haven't seen that game in ages! It was one of the only two games my Dad had for our desktop when we bought our first computer when I was a little kid. Well before we ever got internet there was good ole Load Runner and Jane of the Jungle.
Not a SINGLE shout-out to Naughty Dog's motion-mapping in TLOU2?!?! Literally the best to ever do it.
Appreciate the inclusion of Jade from Beyond Good and Evil. I haven't forgotten Ubisoft. 😞
one of my favorite video game walks is kiryu's in yakuza 6.. for purely unhorny reasons i promise
I remember all the articles about how intensely motion-capped Enter the Matrix was. The first thing I remember doing when I was given control of my character was pressing the jump button and then I laughed for a good long while. That laugh, however, was mild compared to the one elicited by climbing a ladder.
I just assumed it was animated that way on purpose to convey the idea they're not actually physically exerting themselves in the matrix
"You think that's air you're breathing?"
@@Feasco Your headcanon abilities far outweigh mine.
Hello, Polygon will you ever make a video on the history of mirrors in video games?
A great way to deal with foot sliding is turning the character model around and saying "they're always moonwalking". Now it's a stylish feature!
Jenna, I hope you see this: what are those cool framed pictures behind you? (Great video btw!)
Aww, I love seeing Jin!
2:58 one of the first games I ever played, probably the earliest game still vivid in my memory from my childhood. Played it back when it was new & just released. The Animations back then seemed so realistic and uncanny. When I learned it was based on real person motion capturing via Rotoscope (years later) - that fact totally blew my mind away! Even today it looks pretty real, unique and precise.
My pet peeve is when a game has exactly one or two discrete movement speeds, like we have analog sticks, let me use the full rage of motion to control my speed, for most close-quarters exploration type stuff I want to go faster than walking and slower than sprinting, and most games just don't support this.
Related is when there is no momentum, with zero ramp up or ramp down in speed/animation. I get that it can make a game feel more responsive but I usually prefer this to be smoothed out, for comfort if nothing else; especially when combined with the first problem, to modulate speed I often end up having a lot of start-stop movement, which makes the camera movement really jarring, and there have been a few games where this was so bad that I just stopped playing altogether.
And this is why developers love makign floating characters, if they jsut float and bob you have so much more freedom, and so much less work ahead of you.
Bayonetta has the best walk in video game history.
Paragon was so good. I'm still sad they shut the game down.
Hey this kinda reminds me of this pretty niche youtuber called uhh.. Pat something. He mostly works for a gaming/media company, but I mention him because he did a video on walking in certain video games once. I thought it was 10/10 and you're amazing aswell so I think if you collabed you could both totally blow up.
I had a debate (read: argument) with someone recently that video games aren't immature or childish. Their argument was that video games are for children and adults shouldn't play them. This video backs up part of my argument that, among other things, they're modern works of art. It takes a lot of skill and talent to pull this off and make it look, not just right, but good. This was so well explained and an excellent video. I'm totally sharing it and tagging the person I was arguing with.
That's such an odd opinion for someone to have in 2022! - Simone