We're starting in an hour! If you want to start posting questions to the queue early, here's a link to the Vevox session.
See you soon!
https://youtube.com/live/hnUHhGH1qkA?feature=share
2024-03-24 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostIt is time for our monthly hangout!
The Q&A stream is planned for Sunday, March 24th at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.
As always, I'll send out a reminder + link to the stream an hour before it starts. I'll see you then!
2024-03-23 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
The video is complete and released today! I hope you enjoy!
For a relatively short episode, this one actually proved quite challenging. I'm always very particular with these 12 Principles videos because I want them to be a good teaching resource, and Arcs can be a tricky principle to show visually. As a result, I spent like four full days just creating additional assets in an effort to demonstrate various points more clearly.
For example, I finally bit the bullet and learned enough After Effects to create some basic motion trails, which I think helps to make the arcs of human motion much easier to understand.
I was also having trouble thinking of how I was going to demonstrate the stuff about motion capture, so I went ahead and made my own examples for that too, retargeting a mocap run onto this free Zelda rig and making several variants.
The difference is even harder to see in 30fps gif form, but still. :P
I doubt this episode will do big viewership numbers (the 12 Principles videos never do), but I'm glad y'all voted for it! These are important basics to teach, and having videos covering these principles means I can just point to them whenever terms like "Arcs", "Anticipation", Timing", etc come up in other videos.
Welp, time to start on The Animation of Final Fantasy VI. I'm excited to dive in!
Dan
2024-03-23 00:23:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Barring any last minute fixes or additions, the next episode is complete! It'll go live once I've run it past a few peers for additional notes and gotten captions ready (probably tomorrow?).
I hope you enjoy!
2024-03-21 15:38:20 +0000 UTC View Post
We're starting in an hour! If you want to start posting questions to the queue early, here's a link to the Vevox session.
See you soon!
https://youtube.com/live/DqcInN6yrmc?feature=share
2024-02-25 18:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostIt is time for our monthly hangout!
The Q&A stream is planned for Sunday, February 25th at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.
As always, I'll send out a reminder + link to the stream an hour before it starts. I'll see you then!
2024-02-24 19:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostThat vote was way closer than I expected! But with the tiniest of leads, the winning topic is:
And, given how close the race was, I think it only makes sense for the runner-up to follow immediately after. So I guess we have our next two episodes picked!
Thanks for voting, everyone!
2024-02-21 18:16:10 +0000 UTC View PostHelp me choose the next video topic! I have several ideas in mind, but I leave the choice of which comes first to you.
Your choices are:
We're finally reaching the juiciest part of this retrospective series: one of the franchise's most beloved games and the last 16-bit entry before Final Fantasy's leap to 3D.
Part 6 in this animation fundamentals series covering the 12 Principles in Animation as they are applied in video games.
I touched on the subject in my Best of 2023 video, but it's fascinating how these two games solved the "How do we animate this many conversations?" big RPG problem with completely different - but equally successful - production approaches.
Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are some of the best games Nintendo has ever produced, but they have some significant cinematic animation shortcomings which are hurting their narrative impact more than I think most people realize.
or alternatively....
We could fold that previous topic idea into a broader overview of the animation in the Zelda series, not unlike the Big Sonic Video. BE WARNED: this video would, without question, take the longest to produce of these options. Know that you are signing up for a longer wait if you choose this one! Be ABSOLUTELY SURE you are comfortable with waiting months for the next video if you select the Big Zelda Video option.
You can select as many of these choices as you want, so just click on all the topics that interest you! And don't worry, even if your favorite topic doesn't win the vote this time, that doesn't mean I won't be covering it in the future.
I'm excited to see what you pick!
2024-02-17 19:22:08 +0000 UTC View Post
It took much longer than I hoped, but I've finally finished the annual roundup of great game animation for 2023 and I'm quite proud of it. I hope you enjoy, and maybe also learn about a neat game or two that escaped your notice last year!
But hey, while we're here, it's been a while since I gave a general update on things! Let's see...
The biggest reason this video didn't arrive sooner was some unfortunate day job chaos.
As you're almost certainly aware by now, it's been a brutal year-and-a-half for the game industry. Investors have been pulling funding, projects are getting canceled left and right, and thousands of devs have been laid off. My employer had to do several rounds of layoffs over the course of 2023 and, unfortunately, I was included in one of those later rounds, which has made the last couple months pretty turbulent.
Layoffs always suck to go through, but losing this particular job is an added bummer because it means losing that 4-day workweek AND having to find a new Canadian employer pretty quickly in order to continue legally residing here. Honestly, I'm dying to just go full time making videos like these at this point, but I can't legally do so living here without a visa that grants me permanent Canadian residency, and getting that could take a while. So, alas, it looks like I'll have to wait a bit longer.
But, on the plus side, being between jobs right now does give me some time to focus on videos in the short term, so I'm hoping to make the most of this opportunity!
Good question! I've got several video ideas I'm ready to jump on, but I can't decide which to do first.
There is, of course, the ongoing Animation of Final Fantasy series, which is just about to touch on some of the most popular entries in the franchise. Those are easily some of the most time-consuming videos to research and produce, but Final Fantasy VI through Final Fantasy X is going to be an amazing stretch to cover.
Alternatively, we could go back to that 12 Principles of Animation in Games series, which still has quite a few entries left to cover. I believe Arcs is the next principle on the list?
But then I've also got some other one-off topic ideas I've been considering, two of which I mentioned in passing in the 2023 video. I could make a video talking more about the Dialog Animation in Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate III. Or I could go into more detail about some of the shortcomings in the cinematic animation of recent Zelda games, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Or I could make an Animator Q&A video answering some questions about game animation from patrons? Or heck, I could just do a shorter video going on a rant about why reusing animations and assets in games is Good, Actually.
Lots of good options, but I can't decide which to work on first. So I may just leave that choice to you!
Later today, I'm going to post a poll listing the possible topics for the next video and let you folks choose which happens first. I look forward to seeing which you pick!
I am very grateful for y'all's support, especially in turbulent times like these. These videos continue to be a source of creative joy for me, and I'm very happy seeing folks enjoy watching them as much as I enjoy making them. <3
The thumbnail redesign is still very WIP and it still needs subtitles, but the 2023 roundup video is finally done and should release tomorrow!
Apologies for the longer-than-usual wait on this one. It's been a pretty chaotic time for anyone working in games right now, but I'm very proud of how this year's video turned out and I hope you enjoy!
Thanks as always to all of you for supporting this series. I very much enjoy making it!
Dan
2024-02-15 20:56:31 +0000 UTC View Post
We're starting in an hour! If you want to start posting questions to the queue early, here's a link to the Vevox session.
See you soon!
https://youtube.com/live/pg7CwcCYwIk?feature=share
2024-01-21 18:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostIt is time for our monthly hangout! Especially considering we skipped one toward the end of last year (apologies)!
The Q&A stream is planned for Sunday, January 21st at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.
As always, I'll send out a reminder + link to the stream an hour before it starts. I'll see you then!
2024-01-20 19:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
We're starting in an hour! If you want to start posting questions to the queue early, here's a link to the Vevox session.
See you soon!
https://youtube.com/live/ZQL2LpSSHLY?feature=share
2023-12-03 18:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostIt's almost time for our monthly hangout! Actually, it's well past time. I've had a hectic month, and I kept having to push the Q&A to next Sunday until - oops! - suddenly our November Q&A is happening in December. We'll just have to do two this month, I suppose!
The Q&A stream is planned for Sunday, December 3rd at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.
As always, I'll send out a reminder + link to the stream an hour before it starts. Thanks for your patience, and see you then!
2023-12-02 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Finally done! The footage capture and sprite work for this particular episode took a good deal longer than usual (this game has so many sprites), but I think it's turned out quite well. I'm already excited to start tackling Final Fantasy VI, and even more excited to finally get to the 3D era afterward.
But first I've got a 2023 animation roundup video to start preparing! Maybe I can even have it ready before the year ends? WE'LL SEE.
As always, thank you all very much for your support and patience! Especially in a year as tumultuous as this one, I am extremely grateful. I'll see you soon with more!
2023-11-30 21:04:14 +0000 UTC View Post
I still might do some audio tweaks (and it still needs captions of course), but it's otherwise done I think!
Sorry for the lengthier wait on this one; footage capture and sprite work ended up being a doozy of a task this time around.
Enjoy!
2023-11-29 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
We're starting in an hour! If you want to start posting questions to the queue early, here's a link to the Vevox session.
See you soon!
https://youtube.com/live/q7VOGzx1DQQ
2023-10-29 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostIt's almost time for our monthly hangout, and we're back to our usual Sunday time! The Q&A stream is planned for Sunday, October 29th at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.
As always, I'll send out a reminder + link to the stream an hour before it starts. See you then!
2023-10-28 18:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
We're starting in an hour! If you want to start posting questions to the queue early, here's a link to the Vevox session.
See you soon!
https://youtube.com/live/USt7VBo7QR8
2023-09-15 17:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostIt's almost time for our monthly hangout! The Q&A stream is planned for Friday, Sept 15th at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.
As always, I'll send out a reminder + link to the stream an hour before it starts. See you then!
2023-09-15 01:56:11 +0000 UTC View Post
We're starting in an hour! If you want to start posting questions to the queue early, here's a link to the Vevox session.
See you soon!
https://youtube.com/live/CsSVrU-L1n0
2023-08-19 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostIt's almost time for our monthly hangout! The Q&A stream is planned for Saturday, August 19th at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.
As always, I'll send out a reminder + link to the stream an hour before it starts. See you then!
2023-08-18 18:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
The new video is live if you've not yet seen it!
I've spent a lot of time over the past months brainstorming ways to produce videos more frequently, and this was my first attempt at actually putting some of those ideas into action. Overall, I think it was a mixed success.
1. The scope is more focused. I've been setting my sights on a lot of broad topics for NFP lately, but this relatively small idea was much easier to execute on quickly.
2. I finished this video much faster than my other recent releases! Where the Sonic Frontiers video took months (for a variety of reasons), this one took only 3-ish weeks.
3. Quality didn't suffer. One of my big concerns with pursuing quicker video ideas is the prospect of flooding the channel with a bunch of noticeably worse videos, but I don't feel this particular video's quality was compromised at all.
4. Using Twitch streams to hunt for small topics works! That wrongplay session helped me to not only start exploring the topic of Link's locomotion, but having chat right there also let me gauge folks' general interest in the subject immediately, which is valuable feedback.
1. This particular topic is pretty one-and-done. Which is fine, but it doesn't really point to a new kind of short video format I can pursue in the future. "Guess how many animations ____ has?" isn't a rich vein, especially given I can only guess at that answer myself.
2. It's still bigger and took longer than I intended. My initial (unrealistic) goal at the outset was to find a video I could make in a single 8-12 hour day, and this took closer to 40 hours by the end. This is still an enormous improvement and a promising sign, but I believe even smaller scope and faster turnarounds is possible, and I want to keep pursuing that goal.
I'm currently planning to alternate between the larger videos and these smaller experiments. So the next video (which I've already begun production on) is The Animation of Final Fantasy V. After that, I'll try for another smaller quick one.
It's my hope that, over time, I'll find a format of video I can produce more frequently between these larger behemoths. But if nothing else, I think this exercise will help to improve my production speed overall, even with the big ones.
Anyway, back to it! Enjoy the video and happy Friday!
2023-07-14 22:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
We're starting in an hour! If you want to start posting questions to the queue early, here's a link to the Vevox session.
See you soon!
https://youtube.com/live/sVZszaw0YCU
2023-07-14 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostIt's almost time for our monthly hangout, except this time, we're doing the stream tomorrow! The Q&A stream is planned for Friday, July 14th at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.
Historically, we've always done these streams on Sundays, but I've got a lot of recording scheduled every Sunday for the next several months. So let's plan on shifting these to Fridays temporarily.
As always, I'll send out a reminder + link to the stream an hour before it starts. See you then!
2023-07-13 16:13:59 +0000 UTC View Post
What's this? Two videos in less than a month? On New Frame Plus? That doesn't sound right.
It still needs subtitles (and a less garbage thumbnail) before going live, but the video itself should be done.
Enjoy!
2023-07-08 17:56:41 +0000 UTC View Post
If you didn't already see it, the new episode is out! I am quite proud of it and hope you enjoy.
Coming Up Next
The moving process slowed me down a bit over the first half of this year, but now I'm finally feeling like I've got momentum back. In fact, the next episode is already well underway.
In an effort to increase video release frequency, I've challenged myself to come up with smaller video topics which I can make in 1-3 weeks and squeeze in between these larger videos which take months to research and produce. The first of these "quick" videos will be a look at Link's locomotion in Tears of the Kingdom (title pending). My goal is to have this one ready within the next week or two.
After that, it's probably time I got back to my Final Fantasy nonsense with The Animation of Final Fantasy V.
Thanks, and enjoy the rest of the weekend!
2023-06-25 17:31:39 +0000 UTC View Post
We're starting in an hour! If you want to start posting questions to the queue early, here's a link to the Vevox session.
See you soon!
https://youtube.com/live/qx2HceLLGxk
2023-06-18 17:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
It's about done, I think! I expect it'll go live in the next few days once I've got captions added, but I very much hope you enjoy this preview in the meantime.
Thanks for the support!
2023-06-17 04:21:46 +0000 UTC View PostIt's almost time for our monthly hangout! The stream is planned for Sunday, June 18th at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.
As always, I'll send out a reminder + link to the stream an hour before it starts. See you then!
2023-06-16 18:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post