1 00:00:00,880 --> 00:00:03,340 Hello, and welcome to New Frame Plus, 2 00:00:03,340 --> 00:00:05,560 a series about video game animation. 3 00:00:05,620 --> 00:00:08,360 By overwhelming demand, you folks have voted 4 00:00:08,360 --> 00:00:11,440 for the next Smash Bros character we talk about to be... 5 00:00:11,440 --> 00:00:12,920 Mr Game & Watch. 6 00:00:12,920 --> 00:00:14,080 And I can see why! 7 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:15,100 He’s weird. 8 00:00:15,100 --> 00:00:16,460 Look at him. He's flat. 9 00:00:16,600 --> 00:00:18,580 He’s basically just a silhouette. 10 00:00:18,580 --> 00:00:21,540 His moves all have like three frames of animation... 11 00:00:21,920 --> 00:00:23,140 No one else is like this. 12 00:00:23,140 --> 00:00:27,420 How does this even WORK in a game like Smash, where pretty much every other character is 13 00:00:27,420 --> 00:00:31,840 fully 3D and operating at a silky smooth 60 frames per second? 14 00:00:32,380 --> 00:00:34,320 Let’s get into it, shall we? 15 00:00:38,400 --> 00:00:42,540 Mr Game & Watch isn’t so much a character as an amalgamation. 16 00:00:42,540 --> 00:00:46,340 A stand-in representing a whole series of games from the 80s. 17 00:00:46,340 --> 00:00:49,980 Yes, before there was GameBoy, even before there was NES… 18 00:00:49,980 --> 00:00:51,780 there was Game & Watch. 19 00:00:51,780 --> 00:00:55,820 Game & Watch was this whole line of of handheld games that Nintendo produced 20 00:00:55,820 --> 00:00:58,400 between 1980 and 1991. 21 00:00:58,400 --> 00:01:02,700 Each one of these devices usually contained a single, very simple game 22 00:01:02,700 --> 00:01:04,800 played on a liquid crystal display, 23 00:01:04,800 --> 00:01:08,160 similar to that old CASIO watch you used to wear in middle school 24 00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:09,760 (you... Cool Person). 25 00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:11,660 But here’s the thing about LCDs: 26 00:01:11,660 --> 00:01:14,860 you can’t really move the crystals in those displays around. 27 00:01:15,020 --> 00:01:17,340 They can only be turned ON or OFF. 28 00:01:17,340 --> 00:01:19,760 And that makes it pretty hard to animate… 29 00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:20,900 ...uh, anything. 30 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:25,780 But! Say you were to place those crystals in several different locations on the screen, 31 00:01:25,780 --> 00:01:30,360 and then had them switch ON or OFF in response to the player’s button presses… 32 00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:33,560 if you did that, it would almost SORT OF create the impression 33 00:01:33,560 --> 00:01:36,580 of a character or object moving across the screen! 34 00:01:36,760 --> 00:01:40,820 THIS is the origin for Mr Game & Watch’s weird movement style. 35 00:01:40,820 --> 00:01:44,420 And they way it’s been implemented in Smash is actually pretty clever! 36 00:01:44,600 --> 00:01:47,960 So in animation, we have this thing called “Key Poses” 37 00:01:47,960 --> 00:01:52,540 (also sometimes referred to as “Extremes”, that's the more traditional animation term, 38 00:01:52,540 --> 00:01:54,500 but in many cases they’re kind of interchangeable). 39 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:58,360 Anyway, Key Poses are the critical poses in an animation 40 00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:01,820 which most clearly communicate the “story” of the action. 41 00:02:01,820 --> 00:02:05,600 They’re the extreme points which define the path of motion. 42 00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:08,440 Remember in that previous episode about Link’s attacks 43 00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:12,360 where I highlighted these Windup, Attack and Follow-Through poses? 44 00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:17,380 I would call all of these Key Poses (or Extremes) for Link’s basic attack. 45 00:02:17,380 --> 00:02:22,520 Even without all the frames in between, these frames tell the story of what’s happening. 46 00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:26,260 If you look at old school 8- or 16-bit sprite animation, 47 00:02:26,260 --> 00:02:30,800 those game characters operated almost exclusively through key poses. 48 00:02:31,100 --> 00:02:32,540 From Mario’s jump... 49 00:02:33,040 --> 00:02:34,600 ...to Simon’s whip... 50 00:02:35,220 --> 00:02:36,640 ...to Mega Man’s run, 51 00:02:36,640 --> 00:02:40,980 all of these animations are built using just a handful of key poses, 52 00:02:40,980 --> 00:02:45,160 the fewest poses possible to adequately portray the action. 53 00:02:45,160 --> 00:02:50,280 If you look at Mr. Game & Watch in Smash, you’ll see that he also operates on Key Poses... 54 00:02:50,580 --> 00:02:51,800 ...kind of. 55 00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:57,220 All his moves and attacks are, of course, derived from his whole library of handheld games, 56 00:02:57,220 --> 00:03:00,100 but when you look at the character movement in those old games, 57 00:03:00,100 --> 00:03:02,640 because of that old display technology, 58 00:03:02,640 --> 00:03:05,280 there’s something... disjointed about it. 59 00:03:05,280 --> 00:03:10,640 There are so few poses available and the characters cover so much distance at a time... 60 00:03:10,640 --> 00:03:15,360 there's very little connective tissue between each new pose and position on screen, 61 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:19,600 so those characters tend to feel a little erratic in their movement as a result, 62 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:23,120 and none of their actions feel like they have any force behind them. 63 00:03:23,260 --> 00:03:26,140 This presents an interesting problem for Smash: 64 00:03:26,140 --> 00:03:31,500 how do you replicate that weird, choppy, slightly-disorienting quality of movement? 65 00:03:35,020 --> 00:03:40,580 The first thing the animators have done here is use as few frames of animation as possible. 66 00:03:40,580 --> 00:03:46,600 Mr. Game & Watch’s attacks are all constructed using maybe three poses, sometimes just two! 67 00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:52,580 All his moves are built on key poses, just like those 8- and 16-bit characters I described before, 68 00:03:52,580 --> 00:03:56,760 but it doesn’t feel like there are quite ENOUGH key poses in there to completely 69 00:03:56,760 --> 00:03:59,620 sell the physicality of the actions he’s performing. 70 00:03:59,620 --> 00:04:04,120 Old Game & Watch titles just could not take advantage of most of the animation principles 71 00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:06,500 that we'd use to convey force or impact, 72 00:04:06,500 --> 00:04:10,120 and Smash’s animators have actually preserved some of that effect 73 00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:12,980 in not only the posing of Mr. Game & Watch’s moves, 74 00:04:12,980 --> 00:04:16,440 but also the very even, flat timing of them! 75 00:04:16,740 --> 00:04:19,460 You won’t see him actually SWING a chair. 76 00:04:19,460 --> 00:04:21,260 He just holds the chair this way... 77 00:04:21,260 --> 00:04:22,900 ...and then he holds it THAT way. 78 00:04:22,900 --> 00:04:26,100 And, for Mr. Game & Watch, that constitutes an attack. 79 00:04:26,140 --> 00:04:31,919 This is a character that REALLY relies on Smash’s dust clouds and hit pauses and 80 00:04:31,920 --> 00:04:35,280 effects explosions to get any sense of impact to his moves. 81 00:04:35,280 --> 00:04:38,760 For any other character, that would be an animation problem. 82 00:04:38,760 --> 00:04:42,040 But for Mr. Game & Watch, it is exactly that problem 83 00:04:42,040 --> 00:04:45,540 that makes his moveset feel faithful to the source material. 84 00:04:45,940 --> 00:04:50,639 But one of my favorite things about Mr. Game & Watch’s animation - and it’s the thing that I think 85 00:04:50,639 --> 00:04:55,050 really makes this whole animation aesthetic work - is the way the animators have managed to 86 00:04:55,050 --> 00:04:59,540 recreate the erratic, disorienting quality of his movement. 87 00:04:59,540 --> 00:05:01,700 You can REALLY see this in his run. 88 00:05:01,700 --> 00:05:05,039 Just for comparison, let’s look at Mega Man’s old run again... 89 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:09,920 It’s built from just three poses, but you can see how each one of those Key Poses 90 00:05:09,920 --> 00:05:11,720 leads from one to the next. 91 00:05:11,720 --> 00:05:13,940 Step-and-step-and-step-and-step... 92 00:05:13,940 --> 00:05:16,320 You can see him putting one foot in front of the other, 93 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:20,080 you can see the nice up-and-down bob on his body with each stride... 94 00:05:20,140 --> 00:05:23,860 Just three poses, but still enough to clearly communicate a run. 95 00:05:23,860 --> 00:05:26,900 But with Mr. Game & Watch, and I LOVE this, 96 00:05:26,900 --> 00:05:30,920 these poses barely communicate the action of running AT ALL. 97 00:05:30,920 --> 00:05:34,300 NONE of these poses connect to each other in a logical way. 98 00:05:34,300 --> 00:05:37,860 It’s like they took a bunch of individual run cycle poses, 99 00:05:37,860 --> 00:05:41,200 and then they completely randomized what order they play in 100 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:45,460 so you’re left with an erratic jumble of poses that make no sense together. 101 00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:47,620 That is really clever! 102 00:05:47,620 --> 00:05:51,380 It’s not exactly how characters moved in the old Game & Watch days, 103 00:05:51,380 --> 00:05:54,960 but it does sell the FEELING of how they moved in those games. 104 00:05:54,960 --> 00:05:59,180 This brings us to the next question: how has Mr. Game & Watch’s animation 105 00:05:59,180 --> 00:06:01,100 been adapted to work in Smash? 106 00:06:01,100 --> 00:06:05,740 Well, there is one VERY BIG change, and you’ve probably already picked up on it. 107 00:06:05,740 --> 00:06:08,820 In those old Game & Watch titles, like I mentioned before, 108 00:06:08,820 --> 00:06:12,040 the crystals in those old LCD displays couldn't move. 109 00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:15,020 So the characters couldn’t really “move” either. 110 00:06:15,020 --> 00:06:19,260 They could only disappear and reappear in a new position simultaneously. 111 00:06:19,260 --> 00:06:23,040 But that is not how Mr. Game & Watch moves in Smash. At all. 112 00:06:23,040 --> 00:06:27,400 Sure, there might be a nice, stuttery pop to the way he switches between poses, 113 00:06:27,400 --> 00:06:29,480 but his movement around the battlefield? 114 00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:33,139 The tracking of his POSITION... is silky smooth. 115 00:06:33,140 --> 00:06:38,500 See, limiting the visual information that Mr. Game & Watch’s posing conveys is one thing, 116 00:06:38,500 --> 00:06:39,940 you can get away with that. 117 00:06:39,940 --> 00:06:42,780 But his position on screen at any given moment? 118 00:06:42,780 --> 00:06:43,740 No no. 119 00:06:43,740 --> 00:06:47,100 Positional data is CRUCIAL to Smash Bros gameplay. 120 00:06:47,100 --> 00:06:52,040 If Mr. Game & Watch popped around the screen in Smash the same way he did in his handheld games, 121 00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:55,200 effectively teleporting around the stage nonstop, 122 00:06:55,200 --> 00:06:57,360 he would be a nightmare to fight. 123 00:06:57,380 --> 00:06:59,260 And to CONTROL, for that matter. 124 00:06:59,260 --> 00:07:02,520 So, even though it defies the character’s source material, 125 00:07:02,520 --> 00:07:05,940 for the sake of gameplay, Smash’s animators made the concession 126 00:07:05,940 --> 00:07:11,400 of having Mr. Game & Watch’s position on screen update at a smooth 60 frames per second, 127 00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:14,220 just like any other character on the roster. 128 00:07:14,220 --> 00:07:16,460 And thank goodness for that. 129 00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:20,760 This gets back to that same thing I was saying in the Mario episode: 130 00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:24,740 animating a Smash character is all about finding the balance between 131 00:07:24,740 --> 00:07:30,580 representing that character’s origins AND making them functionally work as a Smash fighter. 132 00:07:30,580 --> 00:07:35,260 At the end of the day, that’s the big animation challenge for ALL of these characters. 133 00:07:35,260 --> 00:07:37,860 And that had to be HARD with this guy, right? 134 00:07:37,860 --> 00:07:43,400 Like, so much of what makes those old games distinct is their extremely limited animation. 135 00:07:43,400 --> 00:07:49,380 You really CAN’T have Mr. Game & Watch move around like any other character and still FEEL like himself. 136 00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:52,680 And I love that they found an elegant solution to that: 137 00:07:52,680 --> 00:07:56,340 preserving the stiff, stuttery posing style of the source material, 138 00:07:56,340 --> 00:08:01,120 while also being willing to make big concessions for sake of visual clarity. 139 00:08:01,200 --> 00:08:05,980 His movement is still erratic and weird and it FEELS like it shouldn’t work, 140 00:08:05,980 --> 00:08:11,580 but it totally does, because all the visual information you really NEED is in there. 141 00:08:11,580 --> 00:08:12,920 Cool as heck, right? 142 00:08:13,080 --> 00:08:14,680 Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this! 143 00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:18,460 And let me know down in the comments if there are other characters you’d like me to dig into. 144 00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:20,540 If you want to hear more about Smash animation, 145 00:08:20,540 --> 00:08:23,200 here’s a playlist of all the characters I’ve covered so far. 146 00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:26,060 Have a good one, and I’ll see you next time!