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Hello.

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My name is Dan, I’m an animator and this[br]is New Frame Plus.

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I want to focus on another single animation today.

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This one was requested by Atle Hillmann,

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who recommended we have a look[br]at the mining animation in Skyrim.

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So! Let's see it...

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Ok, so let’s walk through what’s happening here...

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If you walk up to an ore vein and press the[br]interact button, the camera will instantly

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switch to a third person angle (or a slightly[br]different third person angle

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if you were in third person already).

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The animation seems to prefer that your character[br]be positioned in a specific spot,

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so your character may also warp to a new position[br]over that camera cut.

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Now, if you approached that ore vein[br]with your weapon still equipped,

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that warp won’t happen until after your character puts the weapon away,

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so you’ll actually see them[br]unequip the weapon in third person

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and THEN see him[br]warp to that new position.

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In either case, your character will go to[br]a neutral idle position.

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Then your pickaxe will spawn in your character’s hand

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and they will begin to play the mining animation.

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This loop will play for 10-15 seconds until[br]the ore vein is depleted,

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and then your character will transition back [br]to their neutral idle position,

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the pickaxe will despawn and the camera[br]will return to where it began,

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either your preferred third person or first person view.

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Now, this animation was requested[br]with the assertion that:

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And... yeah, it’s not great.

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I have some guesses as to why it turned out[br]this way,

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but first let’s just dig into what’s NOT working here...

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To start, the animation on the character - the[br]pickaxe swinging action itself -

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feels kind of mechanical.

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The force of a pickaxe swing[br]should start in the body,

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you should see the power happening[br]in the hips and torso,

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carrying up through the arms and[br]transferring to the axe’s swinging arc.

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But when you look at each of these swings, the torso[br]bend and the axe-swinging motion both start

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and end at almost exactly the same time,

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all the parts of the body just[br]mechanically moving at once

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like an animatronic or something.

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And on top of that, the entire motion[br]just feels weirdly SOFT.

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Like, people hit Whack-a-Mole cabinets [br]with more force than this.

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When the axe connects with the rock, it barely[br]even feels like it’s hitting something.

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This doesn’t really feel like a miner we’re watching...

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it feels like we’re watching a film extra who was told:

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"Ok, act like you’re mining, but please PLEASE[br]don’t actually hit any of the walls.

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this whole place is styrofoam, floor to ceiling.”

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[Director Voice]: "Alright, action!"

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[Director Voice]: "Perfect. Cut!"

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Now, one big caveat worth mentioning is:

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it is possible that this is modelled after some

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actual pickaxe mining technique[br]that I just don’t know about.

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I mean, it doesn’t match any of the pickaxe[br]mining reference I’ve been able to find,

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but I’ll be the first to admit:[br]I am no expert on pickaxe use.

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But even so, even if what we’re seeing here[br]IS an authentic representation of legit ore-mining

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pickaxe technique, if that authentic detail[br]LOOKS and FEELS incorrect

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to your average player,[br]that is still arguably a problem...

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It very much depends on the type of experience[br]your game is going for, of course, but

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if 90% of players are going to look at your animation[br]and mistake that authentic detail for BAD animation...

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it’s at least worth considering what[br]sorts of adjustments you can make so that

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the authentic detail feels[br]more correct to your audience.

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Still, even if the animation on the character[br]had been totally fine,

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we would still have some[br]significant jank to deal with here.

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Because a lot of what makes this mining action[br]in Skyrim feel so rough isn’t even the animation itself,

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but the way that animation has been implemented.

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Everything that happens from the moment[br]you hit the interact button

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to the moment your character starts swinging[br]the pickaxe just feels BAD.

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For one, having your camera suddenly cut to[br]third person like this is really jarring.

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You go from BEING your character to-

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GAH

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...suddenly WATCHING yourself doing something,

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like you were kicked out of your own body[br]and are now a ghost having to

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spend fifteen seconds watching yourself[br]not know how to use a pickaxe.

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And maybe the camera cut wouldn’t be SO[br]bad if it weren’t for the fact that your

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CHARACTER changes position over that cut too

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(I assume so that they can line up with the[br]invisible task point in front of that ore).

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Having a simultaneous camera cut AND [br]positional change just feels really disorienting.

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Worse still is your character’s transition[br]into the mining animation.

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Not only do they pop to a new location

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(and then spend the next 20 frames unnaturally

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sliiiiding forward a little further[br]to get completely into position),

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but they spend 15 of those first 20 frames[br]frozen like a mannequin.

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They’re basically locked in this pose for[br]a quarter of a second

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before they even START to play the animation.

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And when they DO start moving, they spend[br]another 30-40 frames mechanically blending

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into this “pickaxe-holding” pose before[br]they even start lining up their first swing.

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There’s nearly a full second of awkward,[br]robotic transitioning into the mining animation here

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(and even MORE if your character has to[br]finish putting their weapon away first)

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and it is just not doing[br]the presentation of this any favors.

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Even if you don’t actively notice any of[br]these individual problems in the moment,

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they all add up in that first second to make the[br]whole thing subconsciously feel

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really awkward somehow.

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And the end of the mining animation[br]does the same thing:

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The pickaxe despawns right out of your character’s[br]hands before they spend MORE THAN A SECOND

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robotically blending back to that neutral idle pose.

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And THEN [shwoop] they finally put your ghost[br]back in your body.

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Honestly, I’d say the jank in these transitions[br]is an even bigger problem

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than the mining animation itself.

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Overall, it just leaves the Skyrim mining[br]experience feeling extremely unpolished.

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So now that we know exactly WHAT isn’t working,[br]the next question is:

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WHY would it be like this?

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What could have led to it turning out this way?

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Of course, the simplest answer[br](and the one most people probably jump to)

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is that maybe the people involved were[br]just bad at their jobs.

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And that’s always possible!

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But just as often, I see lackluster or janky-looking[br]work coming from incredibly-skilled people who

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ran into some sort of roadblock.

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Maybe a time constraint, a technical constraint[br]or some design limitation.

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Maybe the mining feature was just waaaaay[br]far down the priority list

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on an already over-booked animation schedule.

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Maybe they originally WANTED to make first[br]person versions of ALL of these task animations

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so you wouldn’t have to experience a camera[br]change,

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but then there just wasn’t time[br]in the schedule to make

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TWO versions of every[br]task animation in the game.

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Who knows, maybe at one point mining wasn’t[br]even planned to be a feature.

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But then it got added to the game late in development

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and didn’t get the polish time it needed.

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Or MAYBE (and this one is a reach), but...

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maybe at one point, mining or other task animations

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like cooking or wood chopping weren’t intended[br]to be things the PLAYER could do!

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Maybe they were originally meant to be used[br]exclusively by NPCs out in the game world,

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just to make the place feel more lived in.

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I can almost picture this being true just because[br]of how many of these task animations

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look like they were designed to be[br]unintrusive background noise.

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But then some developer had the idea to let[br]players use that NPC task system

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to make stuff like alchemy and[br]blacksmithing look cooler.

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And yeah, brute forcing the player camera[br]and animation system into an NPC task system

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that was never meant to accommodate this[br]did result in a bunch of weird hitches,

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but everybody agreed that the jank was worth it.

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I could throw darts at this board all day,[br]but you get the idea.

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And I wasn’t there, so I have got no idea what[br]constraints these folks were working under, BUT...

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none of that really changes the fact[br]that this mining animation turned out rough.

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But let’s assume for a moment[br]that it was our job to FIX this.

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How might we go about making[br]this animation look better?

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Well, I would start by polishing up[br]that pickaxe-swinging animation.

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Really get in there, loosen it up and try[br]to make things feel less robotic.

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And put some more power into that swing!

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Have them raise the axe higher before bringing[br]it down,

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bring that right hand further[br]down the grip as they raise it

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play with the spacing[br]on the axe swing itself

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so you really feel some acceleration as it drops.

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Of course, if we’d rather stay true to the[br]more contained style of swinging that

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Skyrim already has and not replace it with[br]a full blown wood-chopping axe swing,

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I can work with that.

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The character doesn’t have to put their[br]whole body into it,

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but I’ve still gotta see some more OOMPH.

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This character’s trying to[br]break through solid rock here.

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Let’s see that pickaxe bounce off[br]the stone when it hits.

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Maybe sometimes it get wedged into[br]the rock so solidly that the character

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has to stop and pry it loose.

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I mean, if we’re going to make the player[br]sit and watch this happen for 10-15 seconds,

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we might as well throw in some[br]interesting variations to the swing

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rather than having the character do what feels[br]like the exact same swing on loop.

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Or, even better, let’s add a proper first[br]person version of this pickaxe animation!

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Now, I didn’t mention it before, but it[br]turns out you actually CAN

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mine in first person in Skyrim.

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All you have to do is - instead of approaching[br]the ore and pressing the Interact button -

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equip your pickaxe in your hand and attack the ore[br]with it like you would swing a sword.

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I mean, this is definitely not[br]how you properly swing a pickaxe either,

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but it does at least look and feel[br]a lot better as an experience.

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And hey, as long as we’re[br]dreaming up waysto improve things,

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why not make THIS look better!

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What if there was a custom first person pickaxe swing

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instead of just this default[br]one-handed attack animation?

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And we could change it so that all you have[br]to do is Interact with the ore in first person

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and your character automatically equips[br]the pickaxe and starts swinging!

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I mean, why make the player do the busy work[br]of digging into their inventory

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and equipping the pickaxe first?

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Or say we WANT to keep the[br]third person view for mining...

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maybe we want to keep it consistent with the[br]other random tasks you can do in this game.

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Well in that case, we could[br]at the very least try to polish up

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the transition into the mining animation.

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Maybe instead of a jarring camera cut,

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we could have the camera pull back,

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do more of a zoom to that new angle?

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Or we could keep the cut and just trim out[br]that sluggish, second-long robotic start and

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stop animation on either end.

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Maybe when you hit the Interact button, your[br]character could start raising the pickaxe

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in first person, and then we’d cut to them[br]winding up for a swing in third person?

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That way it could at least feel like[br]there’s a single consistent action

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happening on either side of the camera cut.

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There are all kinds of potential ways you[br]could go about

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trying to make this animation look better.

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Of course, all of the ideas I just pitched[br]assume we’re looking at a development environment

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free of technical or scheduling constraints, which…

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...yeah, that rarely happens.

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There are almost certainly a PLETHORA of reasons[br]why these fixes I just rattled off

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wouldn’t have been feasible solutions.

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Maybe tampering with the[br]camera behavior to fix THIS feature

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would break the camera for a dozen other features[br]that rely on the same system.

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Maybe engineering it so that your character[br]can auto-equip a pickaxe

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for easier first-person mining would require [br]a week of coding time

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that the programming team just could not spare.

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Or maybe you just don’t have any room in[br]the schedule for additional animation work.

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So it goes.

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Again: actually doing the work to make this[br]stuff function and look good

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in a real video game is infinitely harder than [br]picking it apart for other people’s amusement

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(which is what I just did)

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So no disrespect whatsoever intended [br]toward the people who

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worked on this mining feature originally.

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They certainly wouldn’t be the first developers[br]to experience the frustration of having a

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feature or animation not turn out[br]exactly how they’d hoped.

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I've been there too. Trust me.

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I do hope this has been[br]at least a little educational, though!

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Thanks again to Atle for the request!

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If you’ve got a particular animation from[br]a game that you’d like me to talk about,

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free to request it in the comments.

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And subscribe if you want to see more game[br]animation videos like this one.

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I’ll see ya next time!