Posted September 08, 2020 by MGD MillsGameDev
This week was devoted to working on the character sprites. The player and all the citizens use the same system for animating and displaying their layered sprites. Two things needed to happen to move forward. First was to redraw the sprites with double the dimensions, which actually means quadruple the sprites (16x16) << (32x32). More than that we double the number of animation frames per cycle. So instead of four frames per cycle, it is now eight. We also added a bunch more hair, clothes, hats and face features for more detail.
Lets do a little bit of math: (2) Gender x (6) skin color x (10) hair styles x (7) hair colors x (10) outfits x (5) hats x (8) facial features =
Fortunately I did not have to draw them all by hand, just use layering to achieve the effect. Here is a side by side look at the Old and New character sprites.
It looks a lot smoother and just a bit more detail but not too much. Covid is such a serious topic I want the game to be a little silly to offset it a bit. Now with all those combinations it is possible to get a dude in a dress, and a lady with a full on beard, but hey - This is America! Some combinations do not look right, some of the women's wear on the men look like the Hulk bursting at the seams.
Due to the time crunch of the Game Jam, the original animation routine was slapped together by hand and did not use the Unity animator component and animation clips. This has been corrected now that we have time to do it right. We are using the Animator component. For those Unity developers out there here is a bit more detail. The character is a game object with several child sprites for each layer (body, clothes, hair, hat, face, mask, etc) Since the animator does not support swapping sprite sheets built in, I had to do a trick. The animator only controls the body sprite, then a late update routine takes the name of that sprite and swaps it out (and all the other child sprites) with the correct sprites during a LateUpdate() routine.
Now that I have the characters using the animator component I can start doing more complex animations and special effects.
Work still continues on updating the artwork. My artist is working on the major buildings now, and the rest of the scenery. My map designer is busy still and will not be able to do much this week. Next week we will redo the HUD and possibly the Stats and Mini Map. We have lots to do. All the stores, all the scenery, the launcher, the sprayer, and some other fun stuff. I can't wait to show you what we got in store!