These are the the attack animations for the characters. I am not happy about how the mage and the archer came out, expecially the mage. I will let them be for the time being, eventually I will fix them.
I was asked by @ilsagace about how to accurately place pixel textures
The TLDR: I use a combination of snapping techniques to have UVs align precisely to a model’s “texture“ resolution.
The full explanation:
Using Pixel Art and Low Poly is actually a useful combination as the pixels create a natural stepping point on a texture. Since all pixels are square and all UV points exist on a specific binary 0-1 value (ie, 0,1) You can use this to your advantage to make razor sharp UV Cuts by aligning UVs to the pixel edge. When using Pixel Snap In Maya it automatically places the UV to align with the nearest pixel edge. It also helps in cases where the texture is small to “unfilter“ the image as well as Maya automatically filters for you and makes a blurry mess sometimes.
In the case of Halcyon Plume, Most of our textures range at a 256 x 256 pixel texture map Which means that there are 256 vertical and 256 horizontal snapping points across the UV as a grid. The lower the resolution (ie 128x128) the fewer steps that the UV’s can snap to. This works well for this resolution but not as much for higher res graphics like a 1k (1024x1024) map because there is a lot more to snap to. However if individual UV elements are close enough together this can be helpful in that situation too..
Below is an example of How I align UV’s most of the time for the game. The highlighted area are the sleeves on the polecat. Overall the sleeve is a cylindrical shape, so by flattening the texture and aligning the sleeve edges (the two cuff ends) it will make the flat texture follow the rounded object without having a jagged mess. I often use this technique if I need a complex curve and it would take up too much resolution on the texture map. Just one line and let the geometry take care of the rest.
Closing Remarks:
It should be noted that there are other useful ways of utilizing UV maps like how Guility Gear Xrd used their UV’s to cleverly shear off lines making to make a more illustrative character. The method was simply to increase or decrease the interpolation between the UV edge to change the width of the “Line“. They used a method of almost stop motion like key frame animation in their game to make it possible, quite an was an ingenious solution. You can check it out here: GDC Xrd Art Style
For anyone out there feel free to ask me questions or you can join in on our Discord Server to talk to me and the Halcyon Plume team: https://discord.gg/VTbjEr7
