Sunlight

When creating a new game character it's crucial to get a feel for his in-game poses and movement as quickly as possible. During the visual design of a character you shouldn't just wonder how he looks, but also how he moves. If a character looks cool while standing still but bad while in motion, you have a problem. Not only is this a key part of a character's personality and look, it also helps discover problems early on. Maybe that big weapon is obstructing the dynamic actions your hero needs to do? This is why our artists first draw key animation poses and throw those into the game as quickly as possible. During early development of a new character for Awesomenauts we playtest with just those key poses, without any animation. Less than 10 frames represent the entire movement set of the character. One frame for a jump, one for a fall, a couple for a walk, one for each attack, for sliding to a halt and for idling, and that's roughly it. It's surprising how smooth an...

Solving complex coding problems is hard. What to do when the solution isn't immediately clear? Sometimes you might just get stuck on something, or you might have a solution but are wondering whether there is a better structure or algorithm. No matter how good you are as a programmer, there are always things that are just too complex to easily figure out. How to handle those? The simplistic answer is that you should simply get smarter and more experienced. This is also a lazy answer, as it means you can just keep doing what you do and hope you get better over time. What you can do right now is work on your mental toolbox , your own personal set of approaches and techniques to help your mind tackle topics that are too complex to otherwise solve. By "mental toolbox" I basically just mean a bunch of tricks to help you think. Such tricks are very personal: what works for one person might not work for someone else. The important thing is to try different approaches and find out...