Ultimate Dodgeball had some pretty cool animations, but this
FPS has posed some new challenges to overcome.
To begin with, a first person game needs two sets of animations for every
action; one animation of a player’s hands that will appear on his own view, and
a second full body animation that all other players will see.
In addition, I can now play two sets of animations on a
character at the same time, so a strafe animation can play for the character’s
legs and torso, and a fire or heal animation can play on his arms and
hands. I was also able to tilt a
character’s head and weapon arm when players look up or down. All in all I am very pleased with how my
animation system has evolved with each new game.
Now that animations are done, I’m one step closer to being feature
complete. My next step will be making a
final pass of all visual effects. I
integrated two different special effects systems into the code early in the
project, but now I need to pay them another visit and make sure that all
effects are complete and that they meet my quality and frame rate requirements.
