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Animation in Ren'Py

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2019 6:40 am
by Kinmoku
Hey all,

There was a thread on this a few years back, but I'm wondering if there's been any cool examples of animation done in Ren'Py since then? I'm thinking of animated sprites, use of 3D camera, cool transformations etc, rather than video cut-scenes. I'd love to check them out :)

Re: Animation in Ren'Py

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2019 2:05 pm
by trooper6
One Night Stand has cool animated sprites.

Re: Animation in Ren'Py

Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2019 12:26 pm
by Morhighan
I love using the 3D Camera. It helped me make an effect to lightly shake a background that was also otherwise animated. When I tried without the 3D camera, I got a bit motion sick, so it really saved me!



It was thanks to this Träumendes Mädchen's blog post that I started using ATL at all, and for background art, it pairs nicely with the 3D Camera. A recent update on their Kickstarter really impressed me with the next logical step: dynamic shots. I feel that visual novel backgrounds can be awkward-looking, a la Umineko, so using objects in the foreground and changing up perspective could really improve things, if adopted by other devs.

No more of these weird moments if you instead do something like this.


I think that using animations and the 3D camera in Ren'Py can really add a nice touch, even if it's only used subtly. :) It's great because as a dev you don't have to go super overboard.

Re: Animation in Ren'Py

Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2019 12:55 pm
by trooper6
I love the 3D Camera too. Though I'm not using it for animation...just for staging. Ah well!

But thanks for alerting me to Träumendes Mädchen...I'll have to follow them along!

Re: Animation in Ren'Py

Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2019 1:01 pm
by Morhighan
trooper6 wrote: Sat Jan 05, 2019 12:55 pm I love the 3D Camera too. Though I'm not using it for animation...just for staging. Ah well!

But thanks for alerting me to Träumendes Mädchen...I'll have to follow them along!
Absolutely! I think using it for staging is a great idea, with or without animation. :D Träumendes Mädchen is great, a very friendly developer who has an eye for techniques that I rarely, if ever, see used in western VNs.

Re: Animation in Ren'Py

Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2019 6:46 pm
by mikolajspy
I'm not sure if it's "cool example", but some time ago I recorded a small tech demo of frame-by-frame animated CG/sprite inside Renpy with simple camera movement. (Video below)
But, there's one great downside to this method - time. You have to draw each frame of the animation and make sure it looks good when played.

My previous game [I know, self advertisement, but it's about subject] - NEKOKORO - uses heavily ATL to make characters feel a bit less static, while my upcoming title, Courage for a Kiss, uses even more complex ATL code to somehow emulate Live2D (although it's far from it) for a bit more natural feel, like breathing etc., semi-randomly.
The issue with that method is a lot, and I mean A LOT of coding, testing, rewriting, testing, fixing, testing and so on.