Day 4: Animating Game - Last

And we now draw into the concluding moves. Again, the camera angle is exactly the same as when we left our 2 aliens in the last scene. This time, Carl is now covering his head with both his arms (The 'Clasp', now ticked off from the gesture checklist), and even starts shaking his head at the severity of his weak position. Kris, on the other hand, is now leaning forward confidently (and claiming a lot of space on the table now, which is also a confident and powerful gesture). The final board layout was found from Checkmate puzzles (Puzzles that require you to checkmate in 1 move). I needed to be quite picky here, as I needed the captured pieces to not contradict the previous scene (i.e. 2 Rooks when he lost one of them), and the checkmate needed to occur from Kris' side of the board (Due to arm-length restrictions). Luckily, I found a good Bishop-Queen Checkmate that can catch the King from the other side of the board.

The key gesture for Kris is to twiddle the captured queen in his hand. This part took a lot of tweaking, and was done in 5-frame steps (To keep everything ordered and uncluttered). Looking at the reference video, the chap held the top-part of the piece (Leaving a short piece above where he gripped) between the thumb and forefinger. Using his other fingers, he pushed the piece in a full half-circle (With the little finger sneaking behind it to push the short-end down), so that he was now holding the piece upside down with his index finger and thumb holding the bottom. Due to the height of the queen, Kris couldn't immediately start the loop again - so what happens next is that he loosens the grip on the thumb and forefinger, causing the piece to slip back down into the original position (Albeit the piece is now upside down). The finger-movement frames were then simply duplicated with the relevant Queen motions added in afterwards - And there we have the all-important 'Twiddling' movement completed.

Placing the piece down, Kris crosses his arm across his side the desk and surveys the board for his move. As he scans, he suddenly spots the winning move, and proceeds to Check-Mate Carl.

To allow the player to see the victory, the camera rotates above the players to give a bird's-eye shot of the winning move. The move is further emphasised with a red line appearing, highlighting the checkmate. For the chess-savvy among us, you will also notice that the check-mate is indeed genuine. From here, Kris sits back smugly and folds his arms.

Shocked at his defeat, Carl looks around in panic, hoping to see a way out. Clearly this is not possible, and he shakes his fist in anger at the loss. However, he quickly composes himself and performs another quick facepalm. He then looks up at the table, as the camera pans back out to its original starting position (Where you can see both players). A dramatic pause then ensures. Then...

BAM! Carl smacks the board (and its pieces) off of the table. For effect, this is an exceptionally quick motion, and the rest of his body remains perfectly still. Kris, on the other hand, retracts away from the incoming pieces, obviously flinching in the face of this unusual move. This section took a lot longer to make, as I had to move each piece manually (yes, I keyframed each and every piece flying off the table). Due to the length of the arms, I couldn't get Carl to hit the board cleanly enough for the Reactor to react properly. I also lacked a floor for the pieces to land on. So though the reactor might have saved time, it would be too unpredictable for my liking... and I needed to board and pieces to fly off in a specific way. So I made a strong coffee and worked my way through it, piece by piece. To be honest, I'm glad I keyframed them manually. At least now the board and pieces flew off perfectly, rather than risking them fly off at an unusual angle or not even move much at all.

The animation finishes with Carl proudly snapping his fingers at Kris, who puts his hands on his hips in a disgruntled manner and shakes his head. I wanted him to just shake his eyes (The body staying still), but couldn't seem to make the movements look like a shake of the head (Most of the time, it just looked like he was waving his eyes about for no reason!) - In the end, I settled upon him shaking his entire body in disapproval, much like Carl at the start of the scene.

So that's the worst of it done. The core animations, movements and camera work are now in place. The next step, though considerably less taxing, is just as important: The expressions and details. All the subtle facial movements, even down the eyes, are what will really add character to this.