How Do Inkling Transformations Work?

Hey everybody!

Welcome to New Frame Plus.

Let’s do another
animation breakdown.

Today’s subject,
by patron request:

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

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

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

The inklings of Splatoon are
a strange species of humanoid

squid things that can
change form at will.

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

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

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

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

as well as reload
their ink tank.

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

Now, this “transformation” -

as is the case with most video
game character transformations -

is really just a
well-hidden model swap.

A sneaky little switcheroo hidden
behind some ink splash effects.

But character animation IS
contributing to that effect,

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

First,
the kid-to-squid transformation.

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

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

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

VERY quick.
Less than half a second.

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

and their weapon
begins shrinking.

By frame 2,
the weapon has despawned

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, I lied: cause it
actually involves two!

On this frame, your custom
inkling character model swaps

for a much simpler generic model

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

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

A squick, if you will.

But we’re not done yet.

Over the next 4 frames,

your squick tucks their arms and
legs completely underneath their body

and flops down
flat on the ground

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

Your humanoid blob has indeed
contorted itself into an almost

kind of squid-like shape.

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

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

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

But if you transform
over dry ground, then…

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

BOOM, your squid
model finally appears.

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

and your squid flops
to rest on the ground,

seamlessly blending
into its idle animation.

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

So alright! Now we are squid.

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

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

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

pulling its tentacles in.

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

limbs still tucked
underneath the body.

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

at what this transitional
squick model can do.

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

and it is wonderfully
gross-looking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which is clever AND gross.

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

notice how the hands
stay where they are,

tucked into the floor as
the arms streeeeetch out.

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

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

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

push itself upright,

but the arms straighten
out a little bit too early

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

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

And that stretching makes me
think that the real intent here

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

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

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

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

effectively read
as stretchy goo.

They feel pretty solid
and plastic here, right?

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

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

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

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

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

Speaking of seeing, though,

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

Just look at that squid face!

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

and morphing control the animators
have on this squick model.

We can see its head shrinking
down to inkling size.

Its arms are shrinking as well.

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

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

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

(although still covered in ink).

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

and that ink coating
starts to clear,

but my favorite detail is how

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

increasing their
size for a few frames

before shrinking them back
down to their default size.

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

Even while in humanoid kid form,

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

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

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

And they even have their
own unique squick model too!

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

to making this illusion work.

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

and make this transformation
feel seamless.

Really, if they wanted,

they probably could have had this
transformation just be instantaneous.

Just an instant model swap
behind a splash of ink.

Poof! Done.

Plenty of games do just do that.

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

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

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

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

And these animations
are versatile.

You can initiate these
transformations at ANY time!

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

You can transform
in mid air too!

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

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

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

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

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

and - as the player
controlling this character -

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

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

is absolutely worthwhile.

It usually is.

I think these
animations are great.

They happen quickly,
they look cool and gross

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

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

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

This was fun!

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

then consider supporting the
show like all of these folks.

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

[music]