before launching their straightened out body during flight the way they sharply curl inward reversing their line of action - screech to a halt character animation is still bringing a lot to the table so next let's look at abyss shriek which is one of your biggest magic attacks bug Knights movement here is still an important component but only for the first handful of frames they curl up into an anticipation pose looking like they're about to unleash something and then they suddenly turn into this tiny angry little abyss monster with flailing black tendrils which looks very cool but it's honestly kind of hard to notice that detail in the moment on account of the enormous magical explosions shaking the screen it starts with that initial burst of force and then the expanding splash of shrieking of this faces that all feel just slightly out of focus and then it quickly dissolves into a lingering particle cloud just beautiful and character animation again is involved in this it is setting up this move with some anticipation frames but all of the other relevant visual information for gameplay is coming from the radius and duration of that effects explosion but if you would like a more extreme example consider the hit react which happens when you take damage when the player gets hit by an enemy they need to know it this animation is almost entirely a showcase of sound and effects animation the character animation component is just three drawings and effectively one key pose but in the chaos of a boss battle a simple change in pose is not gonna be noticed even a flickering character sprite might get lost in the mix if things are really hectic but a twenty frame hit stop with that enormous flash effect the screen shake and the sound cue good luck not noticing that and when you take a bigger hit that does double damage you almost can't even see bug night through all of the effects flashes happening again I'm not meaning to downplay the importance of bug Knight's character animation the tilt of their mask and the changes in their line of action helped to sell so many of their movements but if you took the effects animation and the sound out of these moves they would not feel powerful heck half of them wouldn't even read look what happens when I take the sound and effect away from just the basic attack it doesn't even look like anything anymore hollow Knight is an exceptionally good showcase for just how much good effects animation can do in the heat of combat you're probably only going to be tracking bug night in your peripheral vision because you've got hazards and enemies to worry about but you still need that visual feedback for your inputs that clarity that knowledge of exactly where your weapon is gonna land of how close that crystal dash is to charging of how bad you just got hit and even though your bug Knight is tiny and ear bug Knight is fast and most of their features are obscured behind masks and cloaks and you're only half paying attention to them anyway because who knows what that boss is about to do you can still pretty easily track everything your bug Knight is doing that right there is some solid effects animation can I just say I love this game there is so much great stuff to talk about like I only recently tried it for first time over on our sister channel play frame and now it's one of my favorite things I'll link to that playthrough down in the description if you're interested but yes big thank you to Frances blue sparks and yokomen for giving me an excuse to study the animation in this game some more
START_INTERACTION_TOKEN I only recently tried it for first time over on our sister channel play frame and now it's one of my favorite things I'll link to that playthrough down in the description if you're interested but yes big thank you to Frances blue sparks and yokomen for giving me an excuse to study the animation in this game some more END_INTERACTION_TOKEN