The Importance of Animations (Or lack thereof)

[BlueB]

Not sure which thread I should put this in, but this one seemed as good as any.

Everyone's familiar with the basic VN sprite: a stagnant picture that only moves when the pose or expression changes. Sometimes you get a blink or even lip-flap, but these are few and far between. The most I've ever seen a sprite move was in Record of Agarest War 2, where the girls looked like they were breathing (which gets kinda creepy after a while, tbh).

Obviously, the reason for this is constraints: time, budget, effort, space. Animating takes a lot of work, and so people are accustomed and happy to see sprites that only move occasionally.

But while I was rummaging through my code for my project, I noticed something. While the sprites don't move that often, I have a lot of other elements that do. Take, for example, the butterfly that flies around the window of the title screen:

Code: Select all

xanchor 0.5
    xpos 600 ypos 900
    xzoom 1.0 yzoom 1.0
    parallel:
        linear 0.2 xzoom 0.2
        linear 0.3 xzoom 1.0
        repeat 15
    parallel:
        linear 1.0 ypos 500
    linear 0.2 xzoom 0.2
    linear 0.3 xzoom 1.0
    parallel: 
        linear 0.2 xzoom 0.2
        linear 0.3 xzoom 1.0
        repeat 3
    parallel:
        linear 1.5 ypos 280
    linear 0.2 xzoom 0.2
    parallel:
        linear 0.3 xzoom 1.0
        linear 0.2 xzoom 0.2
        linear 0.3 xzoom 1.0
        linear 0.2 xzoom 0.2
        linear 0.3 xzoom 1.0
    parallel:
        linear 1.5 zoom 0.5.

That's about a quarter of it. Then we have the scrolling background of another menu:

Code: Select all

show menubackground lab at Pan((1024, 768), (0,0), 25, repeat=True)

And we're not even talking about the fighting portion of the game, which has individual sprites for each enemy and playable character.


All this got me thinking, how different would it be if we expected talk sprites in VN to move as much as most other game genre elements? Is that feasible for any VN/KN? Why is the standard different for visual novels, and how would you feel if you saw completely animated talk sprites? Heck, what would you even consider a fully animated sprite? Discuss.

[Kato]

I believe I saw this discussed in a thread a little while ago. There were a few examples of fully animated sprites, 2d & 3d. Although a cool idea, they all seemed a bit off to me. I think, unless the animation is overly brilliant, attempting to animate them completely (especially in 3d) pushes the sprites into the uncanny valley and starts to creep me out . It is something I would love to try in the future though for sure

[BlueB]

Yeah, I think uncanny valley is a tough terrain to cross when making sprites, moving or not. I know the thread you're talking about: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... =4&t=27508 But the discussion there is more whether or not your like static or dynamic sprites. What I was trying to approach in this thread was the lack of animation in VNs in general. With most, you might get a dancing button if you're lucky, maybe a flashing light.

While Emofuri and such are great animating software, I don't think of it as a feasible means to animate a sprite, unless you have 12 billion hours and 12 billion gigs to store each sprite on. I was thinking more on the lines of 999 Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors or Ace Attorney. Where characters have frames and such. Here's an example: http://spritedatabase.net/files/ds/2485 ... Clover.png These games, which aren't really VNs, have animated sprites. Yes, I know they're huge games made by professionals. But if you look at a "professional" VN like Sakura Spirit, there is no movement. At all. And personally, I find that more unsettling than uncanny valley sprites. Why do games like Ace Attorney have moving sprites, but Sakura Spirit doesn't? It just seems odd to me.

[papillon]

But if you look at a "professional" VN like Sakura Spirit, there is no movement. At all. And personally, I find that more unsettling than uncanny valley sprites. Why do games like Ace Attorney have moving sprites, but Sakura Spirit doesn't?

The budget and company size of the people making Ace Attorney is orders of magnitude larger than in Sakura Spirit. Sakura Spirit is not a 'professional' VN in the sense of being made by a large company or even a company at all, it's a tiny indie circle with a better artist than most.

[Googaboga]

It seems kind of obvious to me why a lot of commercial VNs don't do that kind of animation ^^;. if you look at the sprites of 999 and AA it's clear that they don't have the same type of high quality coloring, clean lines, and detailing of certain commercial VNs. I mean if you were to make animated frames with sprites that have this kind of quality:
http://www.otome-games.com/images/revie ... rtbook.jpg

You're going to have a really hard time. So if it comes to really nice looking sprites and animated sprites, nice looking sprites generally seems to win out and that's understandable. Heck one of the people who worked on art for all the Ace Attorney games with 2D sprites also did art for a more traditional VN, Sweet Fuse: At Your Side, and in that game they had nicer looking sprites that just had blinking animations.

That's not to say that every commercial VN has super high quality art. But normally VNs that have lesser quality art, have lesser quality art because they have significantly smaller budgets and in that case the issue comes down to the fact that they just can't afford animation even if they wanted it.

However I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more VNs with animated sprites. But I totally get why it isn't a common thing.

[Arowana]

I like adding animation to my VNs! My current game has animated backgrounds, GUI, character emotes, some CG animations, and even a few chibi cartoons. It's mostly done using Renpy's ATL system, like the OP's examples. I'd love to have fully animated sprites too, but I don't think it's doable with ATL alone.

As far as I know, the only way to have Live2D/Emofuri type sprites in Renpy is to use frame-by-frame animation. I don't think you can't make a 3D mesh or anything like that, so you have to save PNG sequences for every sprite. The huge space consumption, and the probable lag, is what deters me from using them (at least in Renpy; other engines are probably better suited to that kind of stuff).

Of course, there are other, more time-consuming ways to animate sprites. You could draw several sprite frames manually like a cartoon (I believe Exogenesis did this), but that's obviously more work for your artist (even just having multiple static poses is a lot to ask for, especially if they each have multiple expressions, outfits, etc.). Some people have also animated sprites in Flash and then converted to Renpy, but I imagine that's a lot of work as well. ^^

[fioricca]

I wouldn't be looking at VNs if I wanted dynamic sprites with a lot of animation, I'd be looking at making a platformer. Completely different genre.

A visual novel is still very much a novel, just with very generous complimentary assets such as art, voice acting, music or code. I'd personally draw the line at where Aro's at now in terms of art dynamism.

[SundownKid]

I would like to add animation, however currently I am not at the level of skill to be able to use the 2D animation programs available that would be able to animate character sprites and loop such animations.

[trooper6]

I played 999 on the iPad and the sprites weren't any more animated than the sprites in Ristorante Amore...actually a bit less so because they didn't have blinking. In my mind, 999 was the same as all the other VNs except it had a higher number of expressions and poses than average and some mini games. I wouldn't call it animated.

As for animation. Eh. I don't complain that a 2D side scroller isn't in 3D, I'm not going to complain that a VN doesn't have fully animated everything.

There are VNs with more animated elements and lots of moving parts. And that's cool. But when I think about the VNs I think are impressive on pushing the envelope in the visual front...The One in Love, Cinders, Leviathan, Ristorante Aoire, Cave Cave Deus Videt...I think of them as *dynamic* rather than animated--with great art direction and camera direction. I think that is great. It doesn't have to be a fully animated cartoon--though if you can do it, that's cool too.

[BlueB]

it's a tiny indie circle with a better artist than most.

Sorry, I put "professional" in quotes, since I was trying to think of one that released in recent memory that has that high quality art style, and Sakura Spirit was the first thing that came to mind.

I think everyone has a pretty similar idea as to why sprites don't move. Just the time and effort needed to do so is much larger than the reward, it seems. However, I was also wondering the same thing with other parts of a VN. For example, the beautiful leon and Uncle Mugen's Imagebutton tutorial shows how well Ren'Py can use animation for simple things like buttons. True, using it too much makes a project look tacky and unprofessional, but seeing a little movement in the interface is (to me) much more interesting than an unresponsive menu. Just a bit of wiggle here or flashing here goes a long way, and Ren'Py is fully capable of providing such with little programming experience, but I just don't seem to see it. Is it because people are afraid of learning code, or are so used to a static appearance for everything in a VN?

On the same train of thought, the same can be said of ATL movement. Small things in the background, or special effects, seem to me to be worth the extra effort. Smoke clouds and butterflies, rotating buttons or glowing lights, all of these seem to be so simple to add, and yet I just don't see it as often as I would expect. Arowana's project demonstrates exactly what I'm saying. Seeing these small details really makes me enjoy a project more, personally. Looking great, by the way.

I know as a medium that VNs are just that, novels with pictures, but with the lack of movement in a setting that makes it accessible and easy (Ren'Py), it seems silly not to include it. Saying that a VN shouldn't be expected to have music because it's just a story with pictures has the same meaning to me as not including at least a little animation.

[Hazel-Bun]

Personally it makes me a little motion sick to see a lot of movement on screen. People don't use it as much because 1). There's a learning gap to overcome and 2). It's not expected of the medium. It may seem silly to you because you can do it, but if most don't see it in truly professional works, and it takes more time to learn (like using ATL because it's not something you just pick up), most people would just say what's the point?

Think of it more like VA rather than saying adding music in VNs. It's a nice touch (to some if not most) but less cost effective and a bigger hassle. Ren'Py fully supports it but, again, it's not the first thing you think of when you hear VN I believe.

All this got me thinking, how different would it be if we expected talk sprites in VN to move as much as most other game genre elements?

I'm not... sure what this question is asking. Standard game genre elements are not expected in VNs because, they're not the same thing. If you're saying game genre elements as you see in shooters, platformers, and so on, and not just a mini-game and a puzzle here and there. If we expected that we wouldn't be expecting a VN I think :0

Is that feasible for any VN/KN?

Yes. There are programs and ways to animate sprites though Ren'Py can't support other game elements like full 3D.

Why is the standard different for visual novels, and how would you feel if you saw completely animated talk sprites? Heck, what would you even consider a fully animated sprite?

Well seeing as VNs in Japan started out that way, that's why the standard is different. At least that's what I know of its origins, static pictures and text, but I may be wrong? A few otomes I've played have been incorporating it pretty well. I'd say full 2D animation would be body movement, lip sync, blinking, and maybe some shallow breathing? At least, that's what I've seen done with EmoFuri in that game.

[Lesleigh63]

If I'm trying to read text in the text box, I don't want a lot of animation going on (I'd miss it while I'm trying to read the words).

[trooper6]

Note. I don't think that lots of animations would *exclude* a game from being considered a visual novel. I also don't think of visual novels as just being books with some extras. Therefore I don't tend to favor exclusionary definitions of what can be in a VN. I think VNs can have minigames, they can have combat, they can have choices or not, they can have a great variety in every conceivable way. So they can also have lots of animation...or not.

For me, everything come down to artistic appropriateness. I think all the animations in Cinders worked really well and were appropriate to the aesthetic of the game. On the other hand, there are games where I could imagine animations would not fit into the aesthetic.

For me it all comes down to if it fits the art direction of the game.

[papillon]

There are games with background animations going on - and at least one* of them gave me motion sickness because of it. Constant looping motion can be pretty annoying.

A little bit of wiggle in the interface is nice to see, though, and I think largely doesn't happen because people don't think of it. The people in charge of projects are usually not artists, and features are not added unless the lead says "hey, we should do X".

And they're not likely to suddenly think of it now, either, because most of them won't read this thread or will think this thread is only talking about big animations.

(Of course, lots of games do experiment with these touches, but since you can't see that from a screenshot, you wouldn't know unless you'd played that particular game... and reviews of VNs rarely comment on such details or call them out as good, so they're probably not seen as incredibly desirable features. Certainly I remember my frustration with a review of one game* calling the interface "stock renpy reskinned" considering the number of changes, including subtle animation, that had been added...)

* - this post is intentionally no names named because the individual examples are not the point.

[Arowana]

Even though I like animations, I don't think they should be required by any means. In fact, I had to add an option to turn my game's animations off, because they were annoying people.

I've not heard about motion sickness issues before (apologies if I have ever made anyone sick with my looping cloud thing ), but I did get complaints about lag. Even the simplest sliding buttons can cause trouble for older machines. One person even said that they play VNs because their computer can't handle more intensive games, so having too much animation defeats the point.

Just a bit of wiggle here or flashing here goes a long way, and Ren'Py is fully capable of providing such with little programming experience, but I just don't seem to see it. Is it because people are afraid of learning code, or are so used to a static appearance for everything in a VN?

Though maybe not the norm, there's a good number of Renpy projects with animated elements. Some examples off the top of my head:

• The Censor and The Iron Heart Witch are both short games that feature heavy (and, imo, very stunning) uses of ATL throughout.
• Touhou Mecha has some pretty awesome ATL-driven action scenes.
• The Dolls' Stories combines ATL with “comic book” panels to create dynamic action sequences. Also has a neat sliding textbox.
• Exogenesis uses more traditional frame-by-frame animation in sprites, CGs, and backgrounds.
• Kendo Crush, Destiny Fails Us, and others have anime-style emote animations (e.g. sweatdrops, angry veins, etc.).
• Heartful Chance, Zayay, Milk, Seasons of the Wolf, and many more have simple background animations.
• Errant Heart, Clockwork City, and many many others have animated GUI elements (sliding menu buttons and whatnot).

Whoops, got a bit carried away (I pay too much attention to animations, I think ^^;). So yeah, I don’t think animation is actually all that uncommon, at least not the ATL type things I’m talking about here.

(I do agree that the more subtle animations near the end of the list aren't noticed by most players. When I get comments on GUI animations and such, it's usually from other devs who are more sensitive to those things. ^^)