Animating the Cat

Katheryne Galema

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I’ve been working on our main character, the cat (who was designed by our fantastic team member Aubrey), for many months of this project. Through modeling, rigging, to finally animating our vigilante kitty, I’ve grown rather attached to our heroic feline.

That hasn’t made the process smooth sailing, however! This is the first quadruped character that I have modeled and rigged, and the lack of experience in that has come to bare its teeth during the process of animation. Unfavorable deformations are something I have been at constant battle with while bringing life to our main character. The problems stem as far back as certain edge loops that needed better placement during the modeling process. It has been a valuable learning process that I’m hoping I’ll be able to apply to quadruped characters I create in the future.

Example of problematic deformation (turning animation)

Rigging issues aside, our kitty still has had relative success with main animations being convincing and endearing. He’s running, jumping, idling, and of course, swiping things off ledges like any proper kitty would. There is thankfully a lot of documentation and infographics online that give helpful advice on posing quadrupeds for animation. While I’m thankful for this documentation, it’s seeing the animations in action during gameplay that I have found to be the most helpful in polishing the cat’s movement. Animations can have an entirely different feel in a game engine compared to a more static environment like Maya.

Cat running reference

The cat’s main animations will be finished by the end of our sprint. I’ll be moving on to finishing up animations for the baker’s son, who’s the first human character that players will interact with in Nekiri’s Tail.