Character poses and animations

[Hyouryuu-Na]

I'm almost done with the visual things of my game i.e spritesheets, busts, menus and all other stuff. But I found myself thinking, should I make poses for my character where they hold a flashlight? Or bend down and get an item from the ground? Open or close doors, or even the open close animagions for every cabinet or locker. Are these even important? Do you feel disturbed if they aren't there in the game?

 

[ShadowDragon]

I dont mind if its there or not, but its more realistic if its there.
I'm not using it personally, but if our character a tall enough or good visible on screen what they do, why not?

its also a question to your self: do you want it? do you have the time? is it a good looking add? etc
if its fits the game, why not polish in it?

 

[Kes]

@Hyouryuu-Na 'General Discussion' is for looking at broad themes affecting the making of games. It is not for feedback on individual, specific projects. Therefore replies here should be addressing the general question of character animation, irrespective of which game it is. It follows that some replies could well be irrelevant to your particular circumstances, and that's fine.

I personally don't mind that such animations are not present in a game. Some games have a couple of particular ones - Ara Fell comes to mind. In that game the heroine has 2 - one when she jumps out of bed and into her shoes and the other when, as a game mechanic, she is crawling on her hands and knees. The first is not necessary, but nice. The second is required by the mechanic, as the sprite must, for example, get into small caves or crawl in order to avoid a trap where blades come out of a wall. Obviously there are 'down' poses when characters are injured or sleeping, but that is normal. Those 2 animations were, in my opinion, enough.

In my last project I had a sprite fall to its knees and bend over in grief during a cut scene. Because it was so out of the ordinary, it had a far greater visual impact than if there had been regular animations for lots of other things. I also had some NPC sprites with behaviour animations, but not many. What I have done in the last couple of projects and in my current project is to have sprites which sit on chairs and benches properly and turn in such a way as to remain seated. It seemed to me to be a much better use of my time and (limited) talents than trying to the sorts of animations the OP suggests.

I have seen games where more animations are done and, sadly, those made by hobbyists tend to look rather clunky. It's not easy to do well, and personally I would rather not have something than to be constantly reminded of the developer's artistic limitations. If the developer does have the skills, and the enormous amount of time required, then it is their choice whether to do it or not. But where does one draw the line? There are so many possible behaviours that a character could do in addition to those mentioned in the opening post. If I were to pick just one, I would go for the animated doors on cupboards and wardrobes. The thought of having to do 4-directional bending down and picking up of even one character is pretty daunting. Unless the leader is locked, the dev would have to do it for every single character who could be the party leader. Just imagine the conditional branches needed in order to do the correct change graphic command!

 

[Elissiaro]

I feel like none of those are all that important.
Though they're nice? If you have an art person doing them after everything essential is done, or if you do them yourself when you need a break from story and eventing, they're pretty neat to have.

 

[fop]

I personally really like character poses! Of course they're nor necessary, but I get much more excited by games that include them. For example, I thought the extra character poses in The Witch's House (such as the mc's hand getting grabbed by the kitchen ghost) made the game feel so much more polished.