Bringing Playable Characters to Life: Building a Character Guide for Games

A Well Told Philosophy on Character Development for Apple Arcade’s and Night School Studio’s Next Stop Nowhere

Appealing characters are the core of a great story, but how do you create appeal and communicate that to an entire game development team? At my studio, Well Told Entertainment, we have developed a process of developing, defining and communicating exactly who a character is so that they come across clearly to the player. I decided to share our process with you all, incase there are some creatives and developers out there who could use a little guidance on character guides.

WHO AM I?

Hey there! My name is Jennifer Re, and I’m the Animation Director and a Co-Founder of Well Told Entertainment. I’ve always loved animation as it gives an opportunity to introverts (like me) to act and tell stories through characters. It also lets me be an observer of everything around me, making me a forever student of life. If you’ve somehow stumbled upon this blog, then you must be interested in animation too. Today I’m going into what I think is the most important stage of the animation process, developing a guide for a character.

This is me and my bird.

WHY ARE GUIDES IMPORTANT?

There are five main reasons why I make Character Guides:

• It acts as a blueprint for everything that goes into a performance.
• Animation is acting, and planning is like a rehearsal. By rehearsing you are able to get into the role of a character, leading to more thoughtful performance choices.
• It helps make animations across a project consistent. Animators tend to have different acting/animating styles. So by having a solid reference for the team to follow, the animations will feel more cohesive.
• It’s a great way to explore a character and set them up for successful narrative/design alignment. You’ll want to make sure they fit into the rest of the game art style and successfully represent their written personalities.
• If you care about your character, others will too.

WHAT INFLUENCED THIS PROCESS?

• A few years ago I stumbled upon a copy of ‘The Art Of Hercules’ by Stephen Rebello and Jane Healey. As I was flipping through the pages I came upon Sue Nichol’s style guides:

http://www.mothernichols.com/about-sue-nichols/filmography/1990s/ These guides were unbelievably detailed and covered everything from line thickness of drawings to body specific shapes and posing. The amount of research and care for each design choice/character spoke to me, and it was immediately implemented at our studio.

• Next are old 2D character model and expression sheets. These are not only helpful because artists write numerous tips in the margins, but they also act as great references on how to make appealing poses/expressions. Here are some of my favorites from the ‘Iron Giant’ that explore appealing hand posing:

You can find more at: http://ultimateirongiant.com/model/model.php

WHAT TOOLS DO I USE?

• Anything with information — The ultimate way to build an animation character guide is to research, RESEARCH, RESEARCH. Google things, check out the art book section in your library, watch some films with similar themes to the game you are making, etc.
• PureRef — This is a free software that allows you to collect and organize images. It’s like a cork board, but for your computer. You can also make notes, drop links, and easily send files to co-workers to add/edit.

Software: https://www.pureref.com/

WHAT IS THE ACTUAL PROCESS?

The process has evolved a lot over the course of the games we’ve made and varies from character to character, but here is the breakdown of one the first character guides I made. (I’ll start by describing each section’s intention, and follow it with a small sample from the character guide.) This was for our main man BECKETT, from the game, ‘Next Stop Nowhere’:

STEP 1: SYNC WITH COLLABORATORS

1. Talk to the narrative, design and art departments to find out the game’s narrative theme, design limitations and art style. This will ensure that animators are thinking about the character’s personality, how they should move and how the animation style fits into the gameplay:

Narrative Theme: ‘Personal’ and ‘Road Trip’

Platform & Camera View: Mobile w/ Isometric Views

—’Personal’ infers that characters should have a wide set of emotive reacts.

— ‘Road Trip’ infers a wild ride, so golden poses should be lively and dynamic.

—Animations should be kept simple/readable due to the mobile platform and Isometric views.

Key Art Example:

— Fun, bright and graphic style reiterates what the narrative themes are telling us. Simplicity/readability and that it’s going to be a wild ride.

Next Stop Nowhere, Published by NightSchool Studios

2. Next, grab a high level blurb of the character’s description along with three adjectives describing their personality. This will help align the writing with animated performances.

High level blurb from writers: ‘Beckett is a friendly, awkward, curious, tech-savvy teddy bear of a dude whose greatest weakness is a deep, echoing pit of guilt. When the opportunity to finally explore the galaxy (and attempt to escape that guilt) appears? Oh, he’s in.’

Three Adjectives (along with some of my personal notes):

1. Gentle Giant — Large in stature, but friendly and has delicate gestures.

2. Awkward — Reserved postures/posing. A little bit closed off, but in a sheepish way. When he gets really excited about stuff, that’s when his energy leaks out and his body language opens up.

3. Weighted Guilt — Deep sadness looming in the back of his head. Shoulders should be tilted down normally, arms hanging to show the weight he feels.

3. Grab as many kinds of character concepts as you can from the art team along with pose and expression sheets for reference. This will serve as a foundation for animation testing.

STEP 2: START SMALL ON YOUR SEARCH

The start of the research phase can feel overwhelming, so I like to start small. Start by building notes solely based on the info you got from Step 1. If your character is stylized in some way, this is the time to start finding reference to show how you’ll utilize those unique qualities in your animation.

Example 1: Beckett has angular, broad shoulders. We knew we could use his shoulders to show strong and clear emotes from far away. They’d also act as a great line of action.

Examples of Ralph from ‘Wreck-It-Ralph’ and Pacha from ‘The Emperor’s New Groove’, show how emotive the shoulders can be. In the second image for instance, the tilt down and forward rounding of Ralph’s head and shoulders clearly reads how dejected he feels. It’s almost as if he’s burying his head down and hiding like a turtle retreating into its shell.

Some sketches I did with an early design of Beckett, to show the importance of shoulder shape in portraying feeling.

Example 2: Beckett also has big hands. We wanted to make sure we kept the ‘gentle giant’ characteristic in mind, so we had to find some reference on hand posing that lend itself to more gentle mannerisms. Here’s some great reference we found on our search:

First image from Ben Balistreri’s work on ‘The Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon’ and second is a Homer Simpson hand model sheet. The hands in these sheets were big, but managed to show clear and delicate posing.

STEP 3: BRANCH OUT

Look for similar characters in film/tv or even within your own life, and search for fun quirks/timing in performances. This is how I categorize this section:

1. Live Action Reference:

The best way to study animation is to reference life. Finding live action characters who fit the personality or body type will help with timing of movements and posing. Find stills along with gifs.

One reference I chose was John Candy’s character from ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’.

Context: (who is the character) An eternally optimistic, outgoing, overly talkative, and clumsy shower curtain salesman. Really just wants friendship and looking for a home. Has a heartbreaking past. (Sounds a lot like our Beckett)

What to Look at: (why this character) Candy has a really appealing contrast of movements. When he is feeling awkward or unsure of himself, he has very reserved poses, and more micro movements. When he is feeling excited, his movements are more animated and lively as if they’ve been building up waiting to burst open.

On the left, I gathered some more reserved poses. On the right, showed more of his excitement bleeding out.

I loved the slow, really drawn out movements when he was scared or stressed. Beckett was about to embark on an intergalactic road trip of which he had no prior experience, so I knew there’d be a lot of fun moments like this.

Whenever this character got excited, the movements had a slight build and then a quick, staccato-like breaking point. I wanted that snappiness to come out whenever Beckett showed that joy. Like he was too insecure to really show his true self until he fully trusted his new travel companion.

2. Animated Character Reference:

When in doubt, check in with the greats. Use old model sheets to see what makes their poses appealing. Grab stills from films/tv and draw over with notes to point out to the animators what to pull from each reference that aligns with your characters.

One reference I chose was Ralph from ‘Wreck-It Ralph’:

Context: Ralph’s job is to play a bad guy, but that’s only in the game. He feels isolated because people think he doesn’t fit in, but he just wants to be accepted.

What to Look At: Good shoulder line and amazing hand poses for someone with big hands. The use of shoulder rotation in Ralph helps push feelings of innocence, sincerity, or lack of energy. Reference him for posing reference, not so much timing.

Here are some stills I gathered from the film along with some concepts done by Jin Kim. Images from Walt Disney Studios.

STEP 4: ANIMATION TESTING

Once you have a good handle on your character, animate some tests to see what works and what doesn’t stylistically. Drop them in game to see if they feel and look good. Here are some early Beckett tests:

Beckett’s early fearful walk.

Beckett’s early sad walk.

Also test technical parts of rigs that might differ from ordinary controls. We had to make face cards for Beckett instead of building eyes into the geo (mostly for optimization purposes). Here’s a test we did to see if the shapes were readable and appealing:

Facial Expressions with different shapes.

CONCLUSION

Overall, there are a lot of ways to go about planning, and this is just one format. Be a dry sponge and soak up as much info as you can. After researching, you’ll know the best ways to categorize your reference and make the research work for you and your team. Even if you think there’s no time to actually develop the character, MAKE TIME. It makes animating a lot easier and you’ll save a lot more time that way. It’s the best way to flex animation creativity within the constraints given from other departments. And lastly, it will give you the chance to get to know your character. You want to invest a great deal in your character so you know how to get players to invest in them.

If you feel like you need help developing characters and other story-related aspects of your game, our studio Well Told can be a great resource to bring your characters, environments and storytelling to life.

Thanks so much for reading, and happy developing!

❤ Jen Re