Live Forum Q&A - Animation!

[JonnyB]

What has been the most difficult animation to create thus far in the game? [squeeeeee]

I know my buddy Oscar answered this already but I thought I'd take a bash as well.
When I first saw King Coaster I said to the rest of the animation team "I'm going to animate him falling on his face" and that's exactly what I did. The animation went out on our facebook page a while back and it both very challenging and incredibly fun to animate. The challenge came from figuring out how someone in a big round suit would get back up without the use of his hands. To do this I filmed some footage of myself trying to get up from a bean bag without using my hands, this is both exhausting and unflattering to do.

Here's a little peak at what I went through:

 

[monkee]

Are there any ideas to implement staff at the entrance of parks in ticket booths instead of guest just simply waltzing in like RCT3 and the current alpha?

 

[BernyMoon]

Will we get a fat old fairy as the mascot of the fairytale theme?

 

[monkee]

Ha ha ha! [up][up]

 

[ODPaterson]

Will we see guests using phones/ cameras?

We have seen them use them in rendered videos and I really think it would add an amazing level of realism to see guests check there phones, take selfies and photos etc.

Hey there,

Phones and cameras are something we're really keen to have guests using in the game, after all phones are something you see everywhere these days!

 

[Aaronroberts12567]

The Kraken because I fear and hate all aquatic animals.

(I don't).

D: I have a fear of fish and other aquatic animals (due to a dream I had when I was younger)

@ODPaterson thank you for answering my question!
I do have another question, have you guys thought about animations for guest arguments? say for example someone tries to jump the Queue line, and they get into an argument with other guests, and you have to rush a security guard over there to deal with it
Thanks for answering my question earlier

 

[GazNorris]

Cool gif. You guys really do put your heart, body and soul into this ��

 

[Tricky1]

It's probably been asked before but I don't know if it's answered. Will we be able to customize the height of tower rides? And will boomerang coasters be possible?

 

[stuk71]

I know my buddy Oscar answered this already but I thought I'd take a bash as well.
When I first saw King Coaster I said to the rest of the animation team "I'm going to animate him falling on his face" and that's exactly what I did. The animation went out on our facebook page a while back and it both very challenging and incredibly fun to animate. The challenge came from figuring out how someone in a big round suit would get back up without the use of his hands. To do this I filmed some footage of myself trying to get up from a bean bag without using my hands, this is both exhausting and unflattering to do.

Here's a little peak at what I went through:

View attachment 272

Ha! that's hilarious

 

[Schabrackenaal]

I know my buddy Oscar answered this already but I thought I'd take a bash as well.
When I first saw King Coaster I said to the rest of the animation team "I'm going to animate him falling on his face" and that's exactly what I did. The animation went out on our facebook page a while back and it both very challenging and incredibly fun to animate. The challenge came from figuring out how someone in a big round suit would get back up without the use of his hands. To do this I filmed some footage of myself trying to get up from a bean bag without using my hands, this is both exhausting and unflattering to do.

Here's a little peak at what I went through:

View attachment 272

Hmm, does that mean that somebody in the park could be as bad as kicking the mascots to the floor in the game? Would be funny to see a little kid getting afraid of the big King Coaster and the granny kicking the King ;-)

 

[T0read]

will you consider having someone checking the guests seat belts on the rides?

 

[Nodgers]

1. On average how many different software programs do you use to create your animations
2. Which animation has taken the least amount of time to produce and the most amount of time to produce currently
3. What are your favourite rides or attractions you have been on.

1. We author all of our character animations in Autodesk Maya 2016, using bespoke rigs. I write a lot of tools for Maya and I use Visual Studio + Python Tools to write and debug them. Our internal engine (Cobra) has some awesome tools like Motion Graph that allow the animator to control what animations play when and how they transition from one to another, which gives us a lot of creative control without bugging the animators. We also play a lot of Civ 5 (AT LUNCHTIME, BOSS).

2. I think the ride gate animations took about 10 minutes, the longest one is definitely the Frontier Ident which the magnificent and bearded Principal Animator Felix did over about 2 weeks.

3. Nemesis is still my favorite coaster, it's not the biggest coaster but the design is spot on and it's beautifully balanced. I really enjoyed The Behemoth in Canada as well because it was just so huge and I'd never been on anything like it before. I hate the Teacup rides with a passion and would nuke them all from orbit if I had the chance.

 

[DisneylandFreak]

1.Will there be the ability to make custom scenery or custom coasters,flat rides?
2.Is there any way that you could remove the yelow cash desk thing,because it's annoying to have that at the beginning of every queue!!!
#this is nintendogames forum account[big grin]

 

[Askawara]

re hello guys!

it will be possible to modify the support coaster?

because I am a BIG FAN of custom support !!!

exemple to my NL2 video [tongue]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jban5GnjWoQ

 

[Owen Mc Carthy]

Hi there and thank you very much indeed for all your effort and great work!

My questions ;-) :

1. How difficult is it to animate and program the people in the park to move from A to B when there would be plazas? I guess that normally people follow the paths but whow difficult is it to programm them to find their way on a big plaza?

Hi Klötenkieker and thanks for your question.
Plazas present an interesting problem for our flow simulation. Getting from A to B on a plaza is the same as going from A to B anywhere else on the path and that is already possible now and you can already make small plazas with a little trickery.
The technical challenge in a sandbox game like Planet Coaster is memory usage and how long the computation will take. The amount of computation of the flow fields grows with the surface area of the paths that the wave needs to propagate through. With a plaza we are dealing with very large surface areas (easily more than all the rest of all the path in your park put together).


We are as passionate about large plazas as our community and would love to see them into the game.
However it is something that we are still investigating and we can't promise anything right now.

 

[Nodgers]

My question:
Did someone from your art team had lessons in the famous classroom "A113"? (This is the classroom, where many pixar and disney animators got their talent.)

Awww unfortunately not! I studied animation at Newport University in Wales (many moons ago), Jonny studied at Leeds (and then took iAnimate) and Oscar animated at the Cambridge School of Art (he's that posh).

We never stop studying though, we're forever watching animated films, playing games, dissecting them and absorbing the knowledge back into the Frontier Animation Hive Mind.

 

[Nodgers]

Hi Klötenkieker and thanks for your question.
Plazas present an interesting problem for our flow simulation. Getting from A to B on a plaza is the same as going from A to B anywhere else on the path and that is already possible now and you can already make small plazas with a little trickery.
The technical challenge in a sandbox game like Planet Coaster is memory usage and how long the computation will take. The amount of computation of the flow fields grows with the surface area of the paths that the wave needs to propagate through. With a plaza we are dealing with very large surface areas (easily more than all the rest of all the path in your park put together).


We are as passionate about large plazas as our community and would love to see them into the game.
However it is something that we are still investigating and we can't promise anything right now.

Cheers for that Owen, you are cool.

 

[Kombiice]

Will staff go around and check if safety bars are closed and then press a button at the end of the station to proof it?

 

[Skudda]

I no this not an Animatiob question as such, But is there going to be a way to load another park from the options Menu??

 

[JonnyB]

Will there be LGBT couples in the game? I would love that!

Hey, good question.

We want Planet Coaster to represent as many people as possible with what's technically possible, we do have same sex couples in the game already and you'll see them holding hands and walking around your park in the upcoming alpha. For a sneak peak take a look back at our meet the security guard video we released, if you have a keen eye you'll spot a male couple walk by holding hands at one point.