1
00:00:02,300 --> 00:00:03,020
Hello.

2
00:00:03,020 --> 00:00:06,640
My name is Dan, I’m an animator and this
is New Frame Plus.

3
00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:09,660
I want to focus on another single animation today.

4
00:00:09,660 --> 00:00:12,020
This one was requested by Atle Hillmann,

5
00:00:12,020 --> 00:00:15,640
who recommended we have a look
at the mining animation in Skyrim.

6
00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:17,220
So! Let's see it...

7
00:00:33,600 --> 00:00:36,100
Ok, so let’s walk through what’s happening here...

8
00:00:36,100 --> 00:00:40,420
If you walk up to an ore vein and press the
interact button, the camera will instantly

9
00:00:40,420 --> 00:00:44,120
switch to a third person angle (or a slightly
different third person angle

10
00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:46,280
if you were in third person already).

11
00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:51,280
The animation seems to prefer that your character
be positioned in a specific spot,

12
00:00:51,280 --> 00:00:55,840
so your character may also warp to a new position
over that camera cut.

13
00:00:58,160 --> 00:01:01,440
Now, if you approached that ore vein
with your weapon still equipped,

14
00:01:01,440 --> 00:01:04,880
that warp won’t happen until after your character puts the weapon away,

15
00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:08,180
so you’ll actually see them
unequip the weapon in third person

16
00:01:08,180 --> 00:01:10,640
and THEN see him
warp to that new position.

17
00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:14,240
In either case, your character will go to
a neutral idle position.

18
00:01:14,240 --> 00:01:16,860
Then your pickaxe will spawn in your character’s hand

19
00:01:16,860 --> 00:01:19,580
and they will begin to play the mining animation.

20
00:01:19,580 --> 00:01:25,240
This loop will play for 10-15 seconds until
the ore vein is depleted,

21
00:01:25,241 --> 00:01:28,020
and then your character will transition back 
to their neutral idle position,

22
00:01:28,020 --> 00:01:31,740
the pickaxe will despawn and the camera
will return to where it began,

23
00:01:31,740 --> 00:01:35,220
either your preferred third person or first person view.

24
00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:38,300
Now, this animation was requested
with the assertion that:

25
00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:42,360
And... yeah, it’s not great.

26
00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:45,040
I have some guesses as to why it turned out
this way,

27
00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:48,240
but first let’s just dig into what’s NOT working here...

28
00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:53,240
To start, the animation on the character - the
pickaxe swinging action itself -

29
00:01:53,240 --> 00:01:55,060
feels kind of mechanical.

30
00:01:55,060 --> 00:01:57,980
The force of a pickaxe swing
should start in the body,

31
00:01:57,980 --> 00:02:01,060
you should see the power happening
in the hips and torso,

32
00:02:01,060 --> 00:02:05,360
carrying up through the arms and
transferring to the axe’s swinging arc.

33
00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:11,260
But when you look at each of these swings, the torso
bend and the axe-swinging motion both start

34
00:02:11,269 --> 00:02:14,340
and end at almost exactly the same time,

35
00:02:14,340 --> 00:02:17,500
all the parts of the body just
mechanically moving at once

36
00:02:17,500 --> 00:02:19,540
like an animatronic or something.

37
00:02:19,540 --> 00:02:24,820
And on top of that, the entire motion
just feels weirdly SOFT.

38
00:02:26,220 --> 00:02:29,980
Like, people hit Whack-a-Mole cabinets 
with more force than this.

39
00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:36,500
When the axe connects with the rock, it barely
even feels like it’s hitting something.

40
00:02:36,820 --> 00:02:39,740
This doesn’t really feel like a miner we’re watching...

41
00:02:39,740 --> 00:02:42,740
it feels like we’re watching a film extra who was told:

42
00:02:42,740 --> 00:02:47,320
"Ok, act like you’re mining, but please PLEASE
don’t actually hit any of the walls.

43
00:02:47,320 --> 00:02:49,580
this whole place is styrofoam, floor to ceiling.”

44
00:02:49,580 --> 00:02:51,580
[Director Voice]: "Alright, action!"

45
00:02:55,920 --> 00:02:57,440
[Director Voice]: "Perfect. Cut!"

46
00:02:57,440 --> 00:02:59,940
Now, one big caveat worth mentioning is:

47
00:02:59,940 --> 00:03:02,600
it is possible that this is modelled after some

48
00:03:02,600 --> 00:03:06,400
actual pickaxe mining technique
that I just don’t know about.

49
00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:10,549
I mean, it doesn’t match any of the pickaxe
mining reference I’ve been able to find,

50
00:03:10,549 --> 00:03:14,960
but I’ll be the first to admit:
I am no expert on pickaxe use.

51
00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:20,780
But even so, even if what we’re seeing here
IS an authentic representation of legit ore-mining

52
00:03:20,780 --> 00:03:25,980
pickaxe technique, if that authentic detail
LOOKS and FEELS incorrect

53
00:03:25,980 --> 00:03:29,940
to your average player,
that is still arguably a problem...

54
00:03:29,940 --> 00:03:34,760
It very much depends on the type of experience
your game is going for, of course, but

55
00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:40,780
if 90% of players are going to look at your animation
and mistake that authentic detail for BAD animation...

56
00:03:40,780 --> 00:03:45,030
it’s at least worth considering what
sorts of adjustments you can make so that

57
00:03:45,030 --> 00:03:48,660
the authentic detail feels
more correct to your audience.

58
00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:52,520
Still, even if the animation on the character
had been totally fine,

59
00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:55,820
we would still have some
significant jank to deal with here.

60
00:03:55,820 --> 00:04:01,360
Because a lot of what makes this mining action
in Skyrim feel so rough isn’t even the animation itself,

61
00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:04,180
but the way that animation has been implemented.

62
00:04:04,180 --> 00:04:07,340
Everything that happens from the moment
you hit the interact button

63
00:04:07,340 --> 00:04:11,500
to the moment your character starts swinging
the pickaxe just feels BAD.

64
00:04:11,500 --> 00:04:16,240
For one, having your camera suddenly cut to
third person like this is really jarring.

65
00:04:16,340 --> 00:04:18,600
You go from BEING your character to-

66
00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:19,260
GAH

67
00:04:19,260 --> 00:04:21,360
...suddenly WATCHING yourself doing something,

68
00:04:21,360 --> 00:04:24,820
like you were kicked out of your own body
and are now a ghost having to

69
00:04:24,820 --> 00:04:28,480
spend fifteen seconds watching yourself
not know how to use a pickaxe.

70
00:04:28,540 --> 00:04:32,380
And maybe the camera cut wouldn’t be SO
bad if it weren’t for the fact that your

71
00:04:32,380 --> 00:04:34,880
CHARACTER changes position over that cut too

72
00:04:34,880 --> 00:04:39,680
(I assume so that they can line up with the
invisible task point in front of that ore).

73
00:04:39,780 --> 00:04:45,300
Having a simultaneous camera cut AND 
positional change just feels really disorienting.

74
00:04:45,300 --> 00:04:49,140
Worse still is your character’s transition
into the mining animation.

75
00:04:49,140 --> 00:04:51,540
Not only do they pop to a new location

76
00:04:51,540 --> 00:04:54,160
(and then spend the next 20 frames unnaturally

77
00:04:54,160 --> 00:04:57,980
sliiiiding forward a little further
to get completely into position),

78
00:04:58,020 --> 00:05:02,900
but they spend 15 of those first 20 frames
frozen like a mannequin.

79
00:05:02,900 --> 00:05:06,240
They’re basically locked in this pose for
a quarter of a second

80
00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:08,540
before they even START to play the animation.

81
00:05:08,540 --> 00:05:13,360
And when they DO start moving, they spend
another 30-40 frames mechanically blending

82
00:05:13,370 --> 00:05:18,139
into this “pickaxe-holding” pose before
they even start lining up their first swing.

83
00:05:18,140 --> 00:05:23,580
There’s nearly a full second of awkward,
robotic transitioning into the mining animation here

84
00:05:23,580 --> 00:05:27,280
(and even MORE if your character has to
finish putting their weapon away first)

85
00:05:27,280 --> 00:05:30,860
and it is just not doing
the presentation of this any favors.

86
00:05:30,860 --> 00:05:35,220
Even if you don’t actively notice any of
these individual problems in the moment,

87
00:05:35,220 --> 00:05:39,660
they all add up in that first second to make the
whole thing subconsciously feel

88
00:05:39,660 --> 00:05:41,840
really awkward somehow.

89
00:05:41,840 --> 00:05:45,040
And the end of the mining animation
does the same thing:

90
00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:49,780
The pickaxe despawns right out of your character’s
hands before they spend MORE THAN A SECOND

91
00:05:49,780 --> 00:05:53,200
robotically blending back to that neutral idle pose.

92
00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:56,900
And THEN [shwoop] they finally put your ghost
back in your body.

93
00:05:56,940 --> 00:06:00,740
Honestly, I’d say the jank in these transitions
is an even bigger problem

94
00:06:00,740 --> 00:06:02,520
than the mining animation itself.

95
00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:07,560
Overall, it just leaves the Skyrim mining
experience feeling extremely unpolished.

96
00:06:07,560 --> 00:06:11,880
So now that we know exactly WHAT isn’t working,
the next question is:

97
00:06:11,880 --> 00:06:13,720
WHY would it be like this?

98
00:06:13,720 --> 00:06:15,920
What could have led to it turning out this way?

99
00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:19,740
Of course, the simplest answer
(and the one most people probably jump to)

100
00:06:19,740 --> 00:06:23,000
is that maybe the people involved were
just bad at their jobs.

101
00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:24,880
And that’s always possible!

102
00:06:24,880 --> 00:06:31,220
But just as often, I see lackluster or janky-looking
work coming from incredibly-skilled people who

103
00:06:31,229 --> 00:06:33,300
ran into some sort of roadblock.

104
00:06:33,300 --> 00:06:37,900
Maybe a time constraint, a technical constraint
or some design limitation.

105
00:06:38,100 --> 00:06:42,160
Maybe the mining feature was just waaaaay
far down the priority list

106
00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:44,940
on an already over-booked animation schedule.

107
00:06:44,940 --> 00:06:49,680
Maybe they originally WANTED to make first
person versions of ALL of these task animations

108
00:06:49,689 --> 00:06:51,940
so you wouldn’t have to experience a camera
change,

109
00:06:51,940 --> 00:06:54,460
but then there just wasn’t time
in the schedule to make

110
00:06:54,460 --> 00:06:57,300
TWO versions of every
task animation in the game.

111
00:06:57,310 --> 00:07:01,040
Who knows, maybe at one point mining wasn’t
even planned to be a feature.

112
00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:03,480
But then it got added to the game late in development

113
00:07:03,480 --> 00:07:05,600
and didn’t get the polish time it needed.

114
00:07:05,600 --> 00:07:07,880
Or MAYBE (and this one is a reach), but...

115
00:07:07,880 --> 00:07:11,220
maybe at one point, mining or other task animations

116
00:07:11,220 --> 00:07:16,340
like cooking or wood chopping weren’t intended
to be things the PLAYER could do!

117
00:07:16,340 --> 00:07:21,040
Maybe they were originally meant to be used
exclusively by NPCs out in the game world,

118
00:07:21,050 --> 00:07:22,760
just to make the place feel more lived in.

119
00:07:22,760 --> 00:07:26,640
I can almost picture this being true just because
of how many of these task animations

120
00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:29,740
look like they were designed to be
unintrusive background noise.

121
00:07:29,800 --> 00:07:34,680
But then some developer had the idea to let
players use that NPC task system

122
00:07:34,680 --> 00:07:37,500
to make stuff like alchemy and
blacksmithing look cooler.

123
00:07:37,500 --> 00:07:43,060
And yeah, brute forcing the player camera
and animation system into an NPC task system

124
00:07:43,060 --> 00:07:47,080
that was never meant to accommodate this
did result in a bunch of weird hitches,

125
00:07:47,080 --> 00:07:49,920
but everybody agreed that the jank was worth it.

126
00:07:49,920 --> 00:07:53,000
I could throw darts at this board all day,
but you get the idea.

127
00:07:53,080 --> 00:07:58,240
And I wasn’t there, so I have got no idea what
constraints these folks were working under, BUT...

128
00:07:58,240 --> 00:08:03,120
none of that really changes the fact
that this mining animation turned out rough.

129
00:08:03,940 --> 00:08:07,660
But let’s assume for a moment
that it was our job to FIX this.

130
00:08:07,660 --> 00:08:10,460
How might we go about making
this animation look better?

131
00:08:10,460 --> 00:08:14,040
Well, I would start by polishing up
that pickaxe-swinging animation.

132
00:08:14,040 --> 00:08:18,300
Really get in there, loosen it up and try
to make things feel less robotic.

133
00:08:18,300 --> 00:08:20,420
And put some more power into that swing!

134
00:08:20,420 --> 00:08:23,280
Have them raise the axe higher before bringing
it down,

135
00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:26,380
bring that right hand further
down the grip as they raise it

136
00:08:26,380 --> 00:08:29,020
play with the spacing
on the axe swing itself

137
00:08:29,020 --> 00:08:31,580
so you really feel some acceleration as it drops.

138
00:08:31,580 --> 00:08:35,560
Of course, if we’d rather stay true to the
more contained style of swinging that

139
00:08:35,560 --> 00:08:40,000
Skyrim already has and not replace it with
a full blown wood-chopping axe swing,

140
00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:41,140
I can work with that.

141
00:08:41,140 --> 00:08:43,680
The character doesn’t have to put their
whole body into it,

142
00:08:43,680 --> 00:08:46,060
but I’ve still gotta see some more OOMPH.

143
00:08:46,060 --> 00:08:48,880
This character’s trying to
break through solid rock here.

144
00:08:48,880 --> 00:08:51,860
Let’s see that pickaxe bounce off
the stone when it hits.

145
00:08:51,860 --> 00:08:55,640
Maybe sometimes it get wedged into
the rock so solidly that the character

146
00:08:55,640 --> 00:08:57,660
has to stop and pry it loose.

147
00:08:57,660 --> 00:09:02,380
I mean, if we’re going to make the player
sit and watch this happen for 10-15 seconds,

148
00:09:02,380 --> 00:09:05,540
we might as well throw in some
interesting variations to the swing

149
00:09:05,540 --> 00:09:10,140
rather than having the character do what feels
like the exact same swing on loop.

150
00:09:10,140 --> 00:09:15,120
Or, even better, let’s add a proper first
person version of this pickaxe animation!

151
00:09:15,120 --> 00:09:18,560
Now, I didn’t mention it before, but it
turns out you actually CAN

152
00:09:18,560 --> 00:09:20,640
mine in first person in Skyrim.

153
00:09:20,640 --> 00:09:24,800
All you have to do is - instead of approaching
the ore and pressing the Interact button -

154
00:09:24,800 --> 00:09:29,440
equip your pickaxe in your hand and attack the ore
with it like you would swing a sword.

155
00:09:29,440 --> 00:09:33,320
I mean, this is definitely not
how you properly swing a pickaxe either,

156
00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:37,060
but it does at least look and feel
a lot better as an experience.

157
00:09:37,060 --> 00:09:39,780
And hey, as long as we’re
dreaming up waysto improve things,

158
00:09:39,780 --> 00:09:41,440
why not make THIS look better!

159
00:09:41,440 --> 00:09:44,180
What if there was a custom first person pickaxe swing

160
00:09:44,180 --> 00:09:47,440
instead of just this default
one-handed attack animation?

161
00:09:47,440 --> 00:09:51,720
And we could change it so that all you have
to do is Interact with the ore in first person

162
00:09:51,720 --> 00:09:55,460
and your character automatically equips
the pickaxe and starts swinging!

163
00:09:55,460 --> 00:09:58,980
I mean, why make the player do the busy work
of digging into their inventory

164
00:09:58,980 --> 00:10:00,860
and equipping the pickaxe first?

165
00:10:00,860 --> 00:10:04,160
Or say we WANT to keep the
third person view for mining...

166
00:10:04,160 --> 00:10:08,620
maybe we want to keep it consistent with the
other random tasks you can do in this game.

167
00:10:08,620 --> 00:10:12,160
Well in that case, we could
at the very least try to polish up

168
00:10:12,160 --> 00:10:14,420
the transition into the mining animation.

169
00:10:14,420 --> 00:10:16,820
Maybe instead of a jarring camera cut,

170
00:10:16,820 --> 00:10:18,920
we could have the camera pull back,

171
00:10:18,920 --> 00:10:21,400
do more of a zoom to that new angle?

172
00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:26,880
Or we could keep the cut and just trim out
that sluggish, second-long robotic start and

173
00:10:26,880 --> 00:10:28,780
stop animation on either end.

174
00:10:28,780 --> 00:10:32,920
Maybe when you hit the Interact button, your
character could start raising the pickaxe

175
00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:37,460
in first person, and then we’d cut to them
winding up for a swing in third person?

176
00:10:37,460 --> 00:10:41,080
That way it could at least feel like
there’s a single consistent action

177
00:10:41,080 --> 00:10:43,400
happening on either side of the camera cut.

178
00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:46,200
There are all kinds of potential ways you
could go about

179
00:10:46,200 --> 00:10:48,060
trying to make this animation look better.

180
00:10:48,060 --> 00:10:52,880
Of course, all of the ideas I just pitched
assume we’re looking at a development environment

181
00:10:52,880 --> 00:10:56,380
free of technical or scheduling constraints, which…

182
00:10:56,380 --> 00:10:58,320
...yeah, that rarely happens.

183
00:10:58,320 --> 00:11:03,060
There are almost certainly a PLETHORA of reasons
why these fixes I just rattled off

184
00:11:03,060 --> 00:11:04,980
wouldn’t have been feasible solutions.

185
00:11:04,980 --> 00:11:08,380
Maybe tampering with the
camera behavior to fix THIS feature

186
00:11:08,380 --> 00:11:12,180
would break the camera for a dozen other features
that rely on the same system.

187
00:11:12,180 --> 00:11:15,620
Maybe engineering it so that your character
can auto-equip a pickaxe

188
00:11:15,620 --> 00:11:18,900
for easier first-person mining would require 
a week of coding time

189
00:11:18,900 --> 00:11:21,260
that the programming team just could not spare.

190
00:11:21,260 --> 00:11:25,900
Or maybe you just don’t have any room in
the schedule for additional animation work.

191
00:11:25,900 --> 00:11:27,260
So it goes.

192
00:11:27,260 --> 00:11:31,560
Again: actually doing the work to make this
stuff function and look good

193
00:11:31,560 --> 00:11:36,260
in a real video game is infinitely harder than 
picking it apart for other people’s amusement

194
00:11:36,260 --> 00:11:37,280
(which is what I just did)

195
00:11:37,280 --> 00:11:40,380
So no disrespect whatsoever intended 
toward the people who

196
00:11:40,380 --> 00:11:42,180
worked on this mining feature originally.

197
00:11:42,180 --> 00:11:46,200
They certainly wouldn’t be the first developers
to experience the frustration of having a

198
00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:49,640
feature or animation not turn out
exactly how they’d hoped.

199
00:11:49,640 --> 00:11:51,480
I've been there too. Trust me.

200
00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:54,180
I do hope this has been
at least a little educational, though!

201
00:11:54,180 --> 00:11:56,020
Thanks again to Atle for the request!

202
00:11:56,020 --> 00:11:59,840
If you’ve got a particular animation from
a game that you’d like me to talk about,

203
00:11:59,840 --> 00:12:01,700
free to request it in the comments.

204
00:12:01,700 --> 00:12:05,160
And subscribe if you want to see more game
animation videos like this one.

205
00:12:05,340 --> 00:12:06,280
I’ll see ya next time!