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Hey everybody!

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Welcome to New Frame Plus.

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Let’s do another
animation breakdown.

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Today’s subject,
by patron request:

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the inkling transformations from kid
to squid to kid again in Splatoon 2.

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These are some quick little animations, but
very important to the world of Splatoon.

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And they’re actually packed with
entertaining detail, so let’s dive in!

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The inklings of Splatoon are
a strange species of humanoid

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squid things that can
change form at will.

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At any time, if the player
holds down the left Z trigger,

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their inkling will quickly
transform from kid... to squid.

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While in this form,
the inkling can’t use their weapon,

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but they can swim quickly and stealthily
through ink of their own color,

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as well as reload
their ink tank.

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Release that trigger,
and the squid becomes kid once more.

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Now, this “transformation” -

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as is the case with most video
game character transformations -

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is really just a
well-hidden model swap.

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A sneaky little switcheroo hidden
behind some ink splash effects.

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But character animation IS
contributing to that effect,

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so let’s go frame by frame and see if
we can figure out what they’re doing...

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First,
the kid-to-squid transformation.

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It’s kind of hard to tell exactly how
many frames long this animation is

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on account of how smooth that
blend into the idle is at the end,

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but it’s somewhere around 20-24
frames long beginning to end.

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VERY quick.
Less than half a second.

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On the first frame, the kid’s body
starts getting coated in a layer of ink,

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and their weapon
begins shrinking.

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By frame 2,
the weapon has despawned

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and the kid is starting to
drop forward toward the ground.

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By frame 3, they’ve already nearly
face-planted on the ground in front of them.

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They’re tucking their arms and
legs underneath their body.

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Their ink canister has shrunk down and
schlorped right into their torso (gross).

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And by this point, they are entirely
coated in that layer of ink,

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which is going to be very important to
hiding what happens next on frame 4.

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You remember how I said this transformation
involves a sneaky model swap?

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Well, I lied: cause it
actually involves two!

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On this frame, your custom
inkling character model swaps

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for a much simpler generic model

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with a head shape somewhat resembling
the squid you’re about to turn into.

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It’s a transformation mid-point;
neither kid nor squid.

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A squick, if you will.

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But we’re not done yet.

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Over the next 4 frames,

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your squick tucks their arms and
legs completely underneath their body

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and flops down
flat on the ground

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so that their body and their squiddy
little head are all you can see.

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Your humanoid blob has indeed
contorted itself into an almost

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kind of squid-like shape.

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And at frame 9, your kid blob
vanishes in a splash of ink.

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Now, if you’re positioned over
your own ink at this point,

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than your character will effectively just
disappear under the ink’s surface.

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But if you transform
over dry ground, then…

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at frame 10, mostly concealed
by that same ink splash,

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BOOM, your squid
model finally appears.

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And then for the next 10 frames or
so, the ink splash dissipates

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and your squid flops
to rest on the ground,

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seamlessly blending
into its idle animation.

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And I do rather like that flop
of the tentacles as they settle.

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So alright! Now we are squid.

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So let's see what it look like if we release
that trigger and transform back to kid...

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Now this animation is about twice as long
as the first one, closer to 42-ish frames.

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On frame 1, the squid begins to shrink
and tuck in on itself a little bit,

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pulling its tentacles in.

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And then on frame 2, already...
BAM, the squick is back,

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limbs still tucked
underneath the body.

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And this time,
we’re going to get a much better look

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at what this transitional
squick model can do.

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Over the course of the next 23 frames, your
blob of a character is going to stand up,

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and it is wonderfully
gross-looking.

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There is a LOT going on here; let
me see if I can cover all of it.

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Those first few frames of this standing
motion, when you go through them slowly,

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give a better glimpse at how the
limbs were hidden beneath the body.

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And this is some pretty nice concealment
on the animator’s part, here;

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they really had to contort this
character to make that work!

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It turns out that the feet
were hidden up inside the head!

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Which is clever AND gross.

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Now as the squick stands up and
begins straightening their legs,

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notice how the hands
stay where they are,

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tucked into the floor as
the arms streeeeetch out.

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Forgive me just a brief moment
of SUPER nitpicky-ness,

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but I can’t 100% decide on
the intended reason for this.

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One possibility could be that the squick
is meant to be using its arms to help

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push itself upright,

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but the arms straighten
out a little bit too early

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to effectively look like they’re
pushing against the ground;

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it really feels more to me
like they’re BEING stretched.

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And that stretching makes me
think that the real intent here

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was to make these tentacle-arm
limb things feel like a goopy,

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shapeless ink mess under the body
as it rises up from the floor,

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which is definitely the feeling that all of
these wonderfully drippy splash FX are selling.

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But then, I feel like the arms
feel just slightly too rigid to

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effectively read
as stretchy goo.

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They feel pretty solid
and plastic here, right?

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Of course, I imagine that this character
rig is fairly lightweight and simple;

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the animator probably didn’t have
the robust arm-shaping controls

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that you would need to make these
arms feel all soft and gooey in stuff.

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And, to be even more fair, this detail
comes and goes in the blink of an eye,

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so it’s really meant to
be FELT more than SEEN.

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Speaking of seeing, though,

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this time we get a much better
look at the squick’s weird head!

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Just look at that squid face!

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The second half of this “standing upright”
motion really shows some of the scaling

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and morphing control the animators
have on this squick model.

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We can see its head shrinking
down to inkling size.

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Its arms are shrinking as well.

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And that really does helps to
make this inkling feel squishy.

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And then, right about at frame 30, with
another big ink splash to hide the seams,

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the last model swap finally happens
and our custom-made kid form is back

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(although still covered in ink).

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Over the next 12 frames, the kid
settles back into their idle animation

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and that ink coating
starts to clear,

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but my favorite detail is how

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there’s this very slight scaling
effect on their entire body,

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increasing their
size for a few frames

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before shrinking them back
down to their default size.

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It’s very very subtle, but AGAIN,
it keeps them feeling squishy.

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Even while in humanoid kid form,

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these inklings still retain some of that
malleable, squiddy bounce. I love it.

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Oh! And if you’re curious about what this
animation looks like for Octolings…

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...it’s the same! Same animation, just
applied to octoling kid and squid models.

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And they even have their
own unique squick model too!

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Now, there is no overstating how
important the ink splash FX are

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to making this illusion work.

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Those splashes are obscuring everything
they need to to hide the model swaps

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and make this transformation
feel seamless.

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Really, if they wanted,

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they probably could have had this
transformation just be instantaneous.

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Just an instant model swap
behind a splash of ink.

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Poof! Done.

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Plenty of games do just do that.

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But, if they did, it wouldn’t FEEL like
a transformation the way this does.

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All of this animation might still happen
faster than you can really see in the moment,

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but having just those few frames of
the inkling contorting into a new shape

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really helps to sell the FEEL of
this weird creature shape shifting.

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And these animations
are versatile.

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You can initiate these
transformations at ANY time!

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The blending out of and then into the run
animation is pretty fast, but it's clean.

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You can transform
in mid air too!

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Heck, the transformation's
fast enough that you can jump,

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start the transformation and then
reverse it, all before hitting the ground.

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And yes, the transformation does
looks a bit more awkward in mid air

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especially if you’re rapid
swapping between forms like a goof,

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but it all still happens too
fast to look noticeably bad,

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and - as the player
controlling this character -

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having the ability to swap forms in an
instant at ALL TIMES feels really great.

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I say that trading a little bit of animation
polish for that responsive control

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is absolutely worthwhile.

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It usually is.

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I think these
animations are great.

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They happen quickly,
they look cool and gross

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and they help to contribute to
this bizarre world’s fiction

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without ever getting in the way.
Solid animation work all around.

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A big thank you to both Unpronounceable
and dxman for suggesting this topic!

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This was fun!

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If you would like to suggest
a topic for some future video,

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then consider supporting the
show like all of these folks.

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Thanks for watching,
I’ll see you next time!

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[music]