User blog:ComradeJ/A quick look: The life of a weapon animator

Hi everyone! I've finally created my first blog post here in Combat Arms wiki out of all the years I've been here.

As you might find in some articles, I posted some weapon animations to show how the weapons are like in-game. Along with myself, the other main contributors who also help me make weapon animations are TopsyKretts3 and Blue August. One of the oldest contributors who used to add animations here during the beginning stages and development of the wiki was Farvei. I got to hand it down to him. He made me marvel with his weapon animations when I first discovered this wiki. He inspired me that I thought to myself, that one day, I promise myself that I will learn how to produce these kinds of animations. Today, I finally got the skill and I'm ready to make those animations!

To me, making weapon animations is fun, while at times, I find some weapons in-game a bit daunting to make. Meawhile, some weapons have sick animations and others have the standard or repetitive animations.

One of the reasons why I have a hard time making weapon animations is because due to the way Nexon makes the weapon appear in the screen. Some weapons are easy to make while others are harder. Some weapons have big sway (moving up and down or moving left and right with a scope). To add injury to insult, many weapons (like Skorpion, MP7, M2 Browning) have a huge recoil. Due to these situations, I have to repeat in-game actions again when I'm recording. Having weapon continuity when I'm making animations makes it look real! You don't want an animation that has obvious "loop repeat".

A good animation is when you can't tell where the beginning of the animation is when it started! Unfortunately, with the weapon with a massive recoil, like the M134 Minigun, I can't make the animation continuous, because the file size is too enormous. You don't want the animations in your computer to load up slow, right? Therefore, the highest size I'll ever upload for my animation would be ideally around 3 MB, but only for emergencies. Don't sweat though, because majority of my animations are around 1 MB, so I can save you time from waiting for the animations to load. Plus, it preventing your computer from crashing. =)

What really gets on my nerves is player interaction in-game. Okay, you started recording and someone all of the sudden appeared in front of you! -.-" Think of this as the worst stage of producing the animations.


 *  *looks for a clean cool environment that matches the weapon* 


 * Ah, here's a good place!


 *  *starts recording* 


 *  * someone appears* 


 * Move!


 * Alright, you moved. Time to start recording again.


 * Wow. Get out of my screen.


 * K. Don't come back.


 * OMFG, why did you come back!


 * * gets killed from somewhere* 


 * Okay, let's try again. -________________-


 *  *comes to the same spot, waiting for old weapon to disappear* 


 *  *weapon disappears* 


 * Alright, let's record again.


 *  *records* 


 *  * someone appears again* 


 * WOW. Can you stop looking and shooting at me? -.-


 * Dude, move.


 * Really? This guy is acting like an idiot. Can you stop poking me with your melee weapon?


 *  *finds another spot* 


 * Alright, here's a good place.


 *  *finishes halfway through the recording* 


 *  * all of the sudden, bullets appeared on the wall* 


 * Let's try again. -__________________________________-


 *  *gets killed* 


 *  * sighs* 


 *  * run to the same place and try again* 


 *  * one animation left before leaving* 


 *  * does sprint animation* 


 *  * all of the sudden, explosion shakes my screen* 


 * Really?


 *  *runs back to old spot, recording again* 


 *  * more explosions* 


 *  * waits until explosion is over* 


 *  * recording again* 


 *  * some female pops in front of me with a UMP, bunny-hopping* 


 *  * gets me killed* 



Typically, I face this situation majority of the time. You may be wondering why I'm not recording in separate files. Well, for one, I have to spend more time looking for the recording that I want. If I left all my recordings all in one place, it's easier to look for, plus, I don't need to waste time and shuffle through gazillion files, opening and closing files. BUT, at the same time, if I left my recorder on, I waste more memory, and lowering the lifespan of my SSD (solid state drive) by a slight margin (if I had an HDD, hard disk drive, that would be much more painful).

Occasionally from time to time there is someone in-game that is willing to make a separate room for me to record the weapon animations. This helps my life tremendously. In my next blog, I will credit everyone that helped me with the production.

Well, over with the rant!

The best part, uploading the animations. Finally! At this point, you would be all happy that it's done, over with, and publishing your finished product. The best feeling of your life.

Overall, I hope you have an insight of a weapon animator's life! Enjoy my weapon animations out there scattered all around the wiki! If you have any questions or concerns, post below. Don't like a certain animation I made? One of my animations looks bad? Let me know! Want to thank me? Requests? Express it or write on my message wall!

Yours,

ComradeJ, Queen of Explosives.