Week 1 - Animation Research for Iron Brawlers

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A Frame-By-Frame Comparison of Jab Attacks in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Week one of our six-month game project has come and gone and we are busy building our prototype for Iron Brawlers. I've never built a fighting game and I've never made animations that meet the precise requirements of a fighting game. So this first week, I spent a lot of my time breaking down other titles in the genre, looking closely at the way the talented animators implement the 12 principles of Animation, and some times, break those rules. 

We're making a platform arena fighter, so it's only natural that we play a lot of Super Smash Bros. (oh no, how will I ever..) and take the time to learn what makes the game feel so damn good to play.

For this blog post, I thought I'd share some of my research into Smash's animations, breaking down an attack frame-by-frame. I'll be using comparisons like these as a reference point while building my own animations for Iron Brawlers. The goal here is to try and answer a question that any game animator must face: how do you clearly convey a character's actions without negatively impacting the player's inputs and the feedback they receive from those inputs?

Mario's Jab (Side B, approx. 27 frames)

In every instalment of Smash, Mario feels so good to play: every input feels crisp and responsive, giving the player a sense of total control over his actions. This is in part due to his animations having such a small wind-up. Most of Mario's anticipation is crammed into the first frame of his attack, the rest is spent getting down to business (i.e. punching Bowser in the gut). 

This goes against most traditional rules of animation which state that time should be given to the wind-up (anticipation) of the action, and the recovery (follow-through) in order for it to read clearly. This is one of the problems that I'll face animating for our fighting game. I need to make our character's animations read clearly, without adding any input delay.

Note: all gifs playing at 0.25x speed.


Wind-Up (anticipation, 1 Frame!!!)

  • Mario’s basic jab has almost no anticipation relying on only 1 frame of wind-up to convey the attack is starting.
  • The wind-up pose pulls his hand back as he steps forward onto his front foot, compressing, and building energy.

Strike (in this example, Mario hit-pauses when connecting with Bowser (6 frames)

  • The mesh of Mario’s hand physically expands to show the force of the attack. It remains scaled until the follow-through phase. (Note: We would love to build this functionality into our rigs, but due to limitations with Unity and scaling joints, might need to do mesh-swaps instead).
  • Mario enters his attack pose in 1 frame, his leading arm outstretched, his head leaning way over his front foot. His left knee is rotated to face the camera, and his right hand is pulled right back behind his head to emphasize the power of the attack.
  • On a connecting hit, Mario’s character model jumps back and forth on the screen, exaggerating the screen shake effect, giving the player immediate feedback that the hit connected.

Follow-Through (20 frames)

  • Mario’s weight settles back between his feet as he prepares to stand up.
  • He shifts his weight to his back foot, his punching hand dropping lower and his back hand rotating in a smooth arc, back to its resting position.
  • His punch hand slowly returns to its resting neutral position.

Link's Basic Jab (Side B, approx. 28 Frames)

Wielding his trusty Master Sword, Link offers a useful contrast to Mario. Link's attacks feel responsive like Mario's, but a lot of work has gone into making his attacks feel weighty. This is achieved by spending more time in the anticipation phase, and a huge focus on strong lines of action with smears emphasising the arc of his sword.



Wind-up (anticipation 4 frames)

  • Link snaps to his wind up pose extending his arm behind his head rapidly in the first 3 frames.
  • Links shield arm rotates facing the shield straight up ready to create a nice arc during the next pose.

Strike (4 frames)

  • Link swings his sword in a huge arc: the particle (maybe mesh-swap?) smear effect exaggerates the arc of the blade.
  • Link’s shield arm swings around behind him as his body pivots. It creates a strong overlapping line of action with the sword arc.

Follow-through (10 frames)

  • Link’s sword arm rotates in place as it follows through the main action and recovers.
  • His shield lowers slowly as his body relaxes from the action.
  • Link shifts his weight into his back foot as his sword arm gently swings back to it's resting position and he returns to idle (10 frames).

This really only scratches the surface of what's going on in a Smash attack sequence, but it should give you a pretty good idea of the kinds of things I'm focusing on as I get ready to create the animations for our game. 

Next week, is week two of the prototype phase (three weeks total). Josh is busy getting hitboxes and hurtboxes working; Christa is deep in UI breakdowns and UX flows; Dante is developing his character concepts further, and I'll be building on the combo system that I've got going with help from Woody (our tutor). That's all for this week, next week I should have an actual prototype level to show-off:)