Update 12: Anatomy of Animation, Map Efficiency, and More!

Welcome all you wonderful folks to another action-packed episode of Arcadian Atlas! This time around we've got tons of details from all across the game development spectrum. Whether it be animation, portraits, map-tunage, music, or behind-the-scenes on programming - you're in the right place! So dive on in. The waters are warm and cozy!

Anatomy of Animation

Artistically, animation is the most pain-staking process of game development. It's a multilayered art, both literally and figuratively, and we wanted to give you a peak behind that process in more depth as we finalize the animations for our core classes.
Each core class has a list of essential battle animations, arranged in a sheet, that are consistent across classes. What's not consistent across classes? Attacks & Skills.
So when making new animations, we start with real-world examples and build keyframes from them. In the case of the above Apothecary Bottle Throw animation, I used myself as a base and built from it.
New animations typically work in stages: Raw Footage - a video or gif of real-world people performing the action to be animated. Skeleton - the basic shapes of an animation, typically very rough. This is used to ensure the flow of the animation looks correct before detail is added. Naked Base - the naked form all classes can use before hair, clothes, and other details are added. Clothed - usually the final stage where all class-specific content is added to the naked base and added to that core classes' sprite sheet.
So in essence, any new animation we create is actually 3 animations, and from start to finish with the Apothecary Bottle Throw it looks like the example below:
And that's just the specialized animations! We've got a whole slew of basic movements and actions to tackle.

Back to Basics

Ah, the essentials of a fight. We've got our Idling, Walking, Injured, Charging, Jumping, Flying, Landing, Death animations, and the list goes on! And remember, that's for front views, back views, male, and female troops. 48+ unique frames per class, 2 genders, 4 classes - that's 384+ unique frames just for basic animations!
Over the last few months we've been steadily chipping away at them, and we're happy to say we've not only finalized the designs for our male/female Apothecary and male/female Warmancer - but we've even knocked out all of their core animations! Yep, all 384+ of them!
And now we move on to the specialized attacks for each class, one of which Becca's been hard at work on below:

Serving Fierce Face

Let's face it (see what I did there?): little Apothecary and Warmancer sprites are super cute, but sometimes we need to look a person square in the high-detailed eye and give them a good talkin' to.
So Becca and I have been hard at work on portraits to go with our sprites. Because there's nothing sadder than walking into a tavern and the tavern-master won't even look you in the face. That's enough reason to brawl right then and there!

Improvements Abound with Odin

And as pretty as these lil' dudes are walking, slapping, and smashing about - a video game has to be as efficient as possible. Patrick recently upgraded our Unity build with Odin Inspector, a powerful tool that's allowed him to streamline how maps, cutscenes, and menus save data and juggle database information. We've gone from complicated and rather ugly excel files for items to completely in-engine databases with images and separate, easy-to-read and alter fields like this:
But it's not just for databases! Odin has far-reaching implications for space saving, with the potential to reduce both disk and RAM space requirements by upwards of 90%! That's huge for download size and run speed! In fact, we're already applying it to how maps are constructed and saved:
So while we absolutely adore the animations and art side of Arcadian Atlas, this is easily what is making us most happy! Oh, but we forgot that we're even improving how animations are handled in the background ; ). Blend Trees will allow us to better organize all of our isometric animations within Unity so that we can finish hooking it up to our unique characters and classes faster! Possibly 75% faster! NUMBERS! BIG NUMBERS EVERYWHERE!

Tavern Tunes

But wait, there's more! We wanted to serenade you out with the latest tune Moritz is working up for our tavern patrons. Because if there's one thing you want while getting a bit tipsy (or enjoying a nice virgin piña colada perhaps?) it's some jazzy tunes:

Tavern Theme Song

Oh, and why not grab a contract to smash some more things while you're at it?

Speeding Into Summer

That's it for now, but keep your eyes peeled on our twitter page for glimpses of what's coming up in the Arcadian Atlas pipeline as we get closer to beta! Arcadian Atlas Twitter And we'll see all you crazy kids next time with juicy details of skills, fighting' poses, menus, and all the clockwork that makes this beauty tick!

[ 2018-05-25 23:21:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Arcadian Atlas is a 2D isometric tactical role playing game about the choices people make in pursuit of the things they love, and the havoc it wreaks on a kingdom.



Watch your footing and mind the strategic vantage points as you traverse the richly detailed pixel art world of Arcadia -- A single misstep on the battlefield could cost you a friend’s life. Let the moody jazz soundtrack carry you through a thought provoking & ruthless story of love, deceit, murder, companionship and war. Meant to be a fresh take on the classic strategy RPG style, Arcadian Atlas was designed from the ground up to incorporate more challenging battle strategies, new & balanced job classes, and more cutthroat plot twists that'll leave these complex characters' lives hanging in the balance.

Featuring dynamic job classes, a rich character driven narrative, strategic grid-based battles and a jazz infused soundtrack, Arcadian Atlas is a lushly handcrafted 2D isometric tactical RPG that takes the rich history of the genre and makes it fresh.

Gameplay

The core philosophy behind Arcadian Atlas is simple: Challenging strategic battles with unique classes that make every fight a different experience. That means terrain that affects your movement, cover that can hinder the best laid plans, and skills that are never wasted.



Investment matters, and in a tactical RPG your biggest investment is your character class. So we want them to be purposeful, which is why classes in Arcadian Atlas have several core builds that your characters develop over the course of the game. That means no class hopping, but instead class evolution.



Customize your character at the start with their preferred class build, and when the time comes you can specialize that build through branching evolved classes with entire skill trees all their own.



Ranger - the master of area control, a Ranger’s projectile attacks and crowd control skills revolve around traversal and using terrain to their advantage.

Apothecary - a chemist of extraordinary skill, the Apothecary’s potent brews and experimental arts can heal or wreck devastating damage on the battlefield.



Rogue - sneaky, sneaky; stabby, stabby. The Rogue isn’t interested in manners - why bother when slashing an achilles heel or a surprise attack does the job faster?

Warmancer - adept at brute force and powerful magics, the warmancer specializes in harnessing latent energies for devastating area of affect spells.


And that's just the beginning! Outside those and other core classes, we also have two Advanced Classes for each Base class! At a certain job level, you'll open up two advanced classes to choose from that further specialize your troops!





Start by molding each of your characters with your preferred stats to make that rogue a tiny bit stronger so backstab damage finishes foes off in one swoop, or quicker to get in and out of a conflict in a pinch.



And skills, our favorite part of any tactical RPG. Nothing wasted, everything with a purpose: that's our skill philosophy, so our skill system consists of branching specializations for each class.



Start out with your choice of weapon mastery skills which dictate how you want that class to play. Want your Ranger to master the wider range and faster movement skills of a bow, or the sheer power and crippling attacks from a crossbow? Choose based on your style and watch as new branches open with more powerful and unique abilities to compliment that style.




Arcadia is a sprawling continent divided by immense mountains, with landscapes as varied as the inhabitants. We’re looking forward to bringing those ecosystems into the battle system by creating a breathtaking pixel world that is as treacherous as it is gorgeous.



Thick snowfall, dense forests, rushing rivers, tiered cities - every map affects the way you approach a fight and alters your strategy. Make use of trees to protect yourself from that line of rangers ahead, or place your apothecary opposite an enemy knight with rushing rapids between them while you wear away his armor with acid bottles.

Who Is Twin Otter Studios?

Established in 2015, Twin Otter Studios is an independent game studio helmed by Becca and Taylor Bair, a brother and sister duo based in Texas. We grew up entrenched in the golden age of SNES and Playstation masterpieces, eventually carving our own game development path by crafting the 15+ hour RPG title Genesis.

Arcadian Atlas is a passion project birthed from a love of pixel masterpieces in the 90’s and a longing to make a fresh tactical RPG with roots firmly planted in the genre’s classics. Our team’s experience spans games like Vidar, Fort Meow, Lugdunon, Dreamblazers, Solar Crusaders, and Genesis, with over 18 years in the industry, so we know how to manage talent, finances, and time to create wonderful game experiences.