What time is it? Interview time! ⏰
Today’s interview topic is something we’ve received a lot of comments about: the animations in Mandragora!
We sat down with Ádám Hegedűs, our Animation Lead, and chatted with him about some of your most frequently asked questions, as well as animation in general.
Without further ado, let’s get to the interview!
Hi Ádám! Please introduce yourself. What exactly is your role in the Mandragora team?
Greetings! I'm Ádám. I was born in Hungary/Budapest and I still live there. I've been an animator for around a decade now. Around 6 years of those with Primal Game Studio.
I proudly hold the position of Lead Animator at Primal Game Studio. In this role, my responsibilities extend across a spectrum, acting as the linchpin between Technical Artists, Art Directors, and Animators. While it's hard to sum up my role in just a few words, I find great satisfaction in ensuring that our animation team operates seamlessly, ready to tackle any artistic or technical hurdle that comes our way.
There are sometimes misconceptions about what exactly the role of an animator is, and how much it may overlap with - or differ from - the role of VFX and rigging artists. In simple terms, could you help explain the difference for us?
Sure. The easiest way to understand what animation is, and what the role of each profession is, is maybe to imagine a puppet, like a puppet master would use. Once the modeling and painting of the dummy is done, it goes to the rigging team for setup. So the rigging team is the one assembling all the strings, nails, and bolts into the dummy so the puppet master is able to move it - in this case, the animators. :)
Without rigging, the dummies could not stretch, move, or bend at all. They would be just one rigid object. When all the modeling and rigging work is finished on the dummy, that's when the animators start working.
We work on movements of the given character or object, like creating idle and walk animations, or combat-related attack animations. Sometimes it can be as little as a wheel turning left, and in other cases it can be an epic boss fight.
The VFX team comes after that, adding the extra flavor into the mix. By creating realistic fire, or magic effects, or explosions. Without them, any character doing magical attacks would be kinda lackluster. Like shooting with a water gun that is empty.
Back in our last development update, we already briefly touched on the various stages behind making an enemy, from concept art to being in the game, using our Warg as an example; but we didn't go into too many details.
Could you please tell us a little more about when the Animation team has a key part to play when a character is being created? What steps need to happen in order for you and the team to be able to first jump in?
The animation team gets involved in early stages of character creation to make sure the model that we will end up with is rig and animation friendly.
First we take a closer look at the model when it's in an advanced stage to make sure that it actually can do the desired movements that the art directors have envisioned. And that it has enough polygons to be able to stretch, bend, and rotate at the necessary locations.
The second step we take in development is when we work with the rigging team to test the rig while it’s being developed, to help to finalize the rig to build all the desired functions that the animators might need.
Then, if everything went according to plan, the animators can start working on the actual animations for the character or object.
You mentioned the "desired movements that the art directors have envisioned". Is your team still able to provide your own input on the animations? How much back-and-forth collaboration happens when trying to figure out exactly how a character or object will move?
Without doubt our animators have great freedom in the process. Sometimes maybe even too much! :D I strongly believe that during the development, everyone included in the production has ways to add their own touch to each character. Also the Art Directors are very welcoming of new ideas and feedback when it comes to that. We are trying to make the game as good as possible as a team, and if anyone brings up a valid point there is no reason not to listen to it.
There are many examples where we rather get a mood/feel for describing an enemy. For example: it should feel heavy, strong, and kind of soulless. Like a killing machine. While we get the list of abilities that the character can perform, we will try to add to the movement the mentioned characteristics. And that's how we ended up making the Vampire Thrall the big moving knight armor that slays players left and right.
Of course there are some examples when the art direction has a very specific idea for an enemy, but more often than not it's just a few abilities that they would like to see as envisioned. However, we work with the art directors very closely to make sure that the animations we created match the overall style, quality, and vision of Mandragora.
Have there ever been any animation glitches that ended up being cool or funny enough to keep in the game?
Well the animators while working on a character are spending enormous amounts of time testing/playing with each version of animation in the engine. Any early signs of malfunction are fixed in the process. So it is very rare that an animation bug/glitch makes it into the game. So the answer is No, at least not that I know of.
However, there is a phenomenon that we call “The Molding”. But we could easily call it “X-Files”, too. What happens is: when we have finished a character, it has gone through all the feedback loops and passed QA tests etc. Then after a while, when nobody is working on it anymore, we tend to notice slight changes in the character's AI, or that the animations start to break. Like it starts walking backward while going forward, or shrinking or growing in certain animations.
For example, we had a phenomenon when out of nowhere, the hero’s elbow grew up to like 2 meters after every attack. Or when a 2 meter tall enemy starts to walk towards the player and its legs suddenly shrink to 2 centimeters tall, and the enemy just floats in the air on those tiny legs. :) These are the kinds of glitches we fight from time to time, but we try to make sure they are not making it into the final game.
Okay, that sounds pretty spooky! But I guess it all comes with the challenges of animation.
Speaking of which, what would you say you find more challenging: animating humans/humanoids or animating non-humanoid beasts?
For me personally humanoids are the least challenging compared to other types. On the other hand, quadrupeds are my archnemesis. To be fair after 10 years in the industry I still struggle to create animations that I consider to be really good, no matter if its humanoid or something else! :D But it's like that for all the better artists out there who I know. I think we never see our work as finished, we just stop working on it after the time runs out.
As for difficulty, I think it really differs for each animator. I think it comes to what they like to animate more. They probably end up spending more time animating those kinds of characters, and therefore ending up being better in that field.
Are there any games in particular that have inspired your animations? Or do you prefer to find inspiration in other places?
There are a few games that I think did a very outstanding job animation wise, and the quality of them could be an inspiration for all game animators. :) I do check them from time to time to see how they managed certain parts of animation, or get inspiration for something cool.
As for player animations, I think ‘For Honor’ is one of the best I've seen. Even if it's mocap-based, which I personally don’t like to animate that much, I think what they achieved is really something special. Another one is ‘Elden Ring’. I think the boss animations are crazy good, especially the final boss. And let’s not forget ‘Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice’… they did insane boss and player animations too, hats off to them as well.
However I really hope that with Mandragora we will be able to set the bar high for animations in the side scroller genre. We really work hard and countless hours on each character to get the job done.
Well, our community has already very kindly called our animations "buttery smooth", so signs are good that Mandragora will get that reputation! (Fingers crossed!)
One last question: Do you have any advice for aspiring animators?
Well I think I'm the living example that anyone can do it. I learned animation mostly from online tutorials, and forums that I found on YouTube and online. That was enough for me to land my first job as a trainee.
It's true that it took me almost 4 years on my own. You could speed up the process by signing up for an animation school, but it is not necessary at all. If someone has the resources for a decent animation school, that's probably the easiest way. I personally was not in a position back then to enroll in any online schools, so I had to work with what I found.
Nowadays there is ten times as much material available out there on animations - for free. So anyone can decide to go for it. And probably land their first job a lot sooner than I did!
For those who can't afford online schools, my best advice is to grind everyday till you make it. And for them I also plan to post some animation tutorials on my YouTube channel sometime next year, as my way of giving back to the community and to help absolute beginners find their way through the noise. Be sure to join the Mandragora Discord as it’ll be shared over there. Hopefully it won't bore people to death!
???? We hope you enjoyed this latest interview!
If you have any requests for future interview topics, please let us know here in the comments or over on our Discord! We really love hearing from you and want to keep our topics as interesting as possible.
And of course, as always, thank you so much for supporting us and our game. We really appreciate it!
Until next time! ????
