How The Fluid And Powerful Animations Of Skullgirls Were Achieved

The official Game Developers Conference (GDC) YouTube channel has uploaded a video of Lab Zero Games animator Mariel Cartwright talking about her work on 2D fighting game Skullgirls.

While the video being made public is new, the talk itself is taken from GDC 2014’s Animation Bootcamp sessions. In it, Cartwright discuss how to “get the clearest, most fluid animation in a 2D game and make it work with responsive gameplay.”

She goes over the importance of strong key frames, anticipation and timing, and how to get these principles across effectively with only six frames to deliver a punch, as was the case for Cartwright in Skullgirls.