Why is Animating for Games so Damn Hard!?

[@aqualust5016]

I'm not gonna lie I get so much joy out of hearing another 3D artist complain about how difficult learning the pipeline and specific workflows can be. Finally someone is honest about this shit.

[@QueenDoot]

Same, as a self taught animator and modeler for games I feel so validated

[@nelyrions1838]

3D is hard, you get paid crap and generally peoples attitude is that everything is easy cause.. just move the character like this and this and boom, done. 10 min, why am i even paying you for this? it's a hobby.

[@gendalfgray7889]

Especially when 3d modelling software full of annoying non intuitive buttons 😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬

[@LukiGames0]

For people what are trying to import animations from Blender to unreal: -> In export settings change Up axis to Z+ and forward axis to X+ since blender is using different axis for up and forward -> When importing animation set convert scene Unit Blender support is super tricky in Unreal Engine, also highly suggest Cascadeur for animation it is free under 100k$ per year and has 100% UE support and AI support when animating.

[@DaveUnreally]

You actually can animate in unreal, I believe there are two ways, one is the painful animation editor and the other is that you can create control rigs in Unreal to animate! Might be worth looking into. Great work on your channel and videos!

[@Floky]

Yeah I found that out a week after that video 😂 😅

[@Deaker24]

I've ran into all these problems but now I'm pretty used to it now honestly don't give up I've watched alot of videos to fix these issues and understand them.

[@Floky]

I mostly know how to fix all these, the issue is, I noticed that learning and getting good at these things will take a lot of time and for now I want to focus more on the programming part of game dev that takes just as much time... This is why for now I'll be outsourcing that kind of stuff... However I will most def come back to it at some point to refine my knowledge and get good at it! Thank you for your encouraging words 😁😁

[@SpasmAtaK]

4:12 You CAN create whole new animations in Unreal ! You can even rig your model inside Unreal nowadays through Control Rig (although it's a plugin that might be activated by default) edit: silly me just scrolled down the comments a bit too late and noticed that someone already told you ^^

[@Floky]

No worries! These kinds of comments help a lot, I learn a ton of stuff just by reading me comments 😂👍

[@serjaoberranteiro4914]

Dont use sculpt mode for game characters, you are not Blizzard, do it by edit mode, you can add a plane with the character pic/drawing reference behind in 3d space

[@Floky]

Yeah, I'm not touching the sculpt mode anymore

[@flipnormal6687]

Hey gameplay animator here ! Your video was so fun, considering that you're right ! Game animation is very hard ! It's also a blast when you actually master it, but sure, the process may be quiet overwhelming Cheers and keep it up, your stuff is great !

[@serjaoberranteiro4914]

U can model a character, upload it in mixamo, download it back with bones, install blender an addon mixamo control rig, that will automatic create Ik

[@Floky]

Ohhh that's a nice tip!

[@calebhill7717]

This man needs to be much more well known he has such great vids and I truly believe he will be about as popular as Dani or any other coding KZbinr

[@Floky]

Thanks a lot! :D

[@LuciousKage]

7 minutes in and i feel like u got EVERY problem right that i encountered hahahahahaha dying laughing

[@Floky]

Glad you can relate to my pain hahaha

[@syweb2]

7:10 Different programs will either have the Y or Z-axis facing upward, so there's a setting when exporting your model/animations to accommodate for that.

[@nelyrions1838]

Characters and animating them are some of the hardest things you can do in 3D. It's not really a beginners thing. In fact, a lot of the amazing character animations you see in movies and reels are people highly specialized in animating characters with 5-20 years of experience in just doing precisely that... and only that.

[@Floky]

Yeah, I got learn that the hard way 🤣

[@darkzeroprojects4245]

I'm still willing to learn to do It.

[@unrealdevop]

6:15 when you import from Unreal you need to change the Primary and Secondary Bone Axis to X and Y on Import. Same goes for exporting, you have to export it a specific way, too bad Blender doesn't come with these Import/export presets already pre-defined for people.

[@BainesMkII]

For too many years, Blender to Unreal remained a painful, frustrating, and inexplicably broken experience. Whenever Epic tried to improve the import process, they always missed something, while sometimes breaking existing community workaround and creating new odd behaviors. Even the tutorials and guides created by Epic employees would have faulty information, due to the employees not knowing that certain matters remained broken, and sometimes not knowing how the current build even handled the import.

[@Floky]

This makes me feel significantly better about myself 😂

[@Dailyfiver]

Making character models is super scary to me because I’ve only ever designed mechanical parts in CAD professionally so I only know geometric shapes well.

[@ayo__ayo]

It was difficult to animate because the way you were animating isn't how 3d animation is done. You have the character rig, but there aren't any controls and parameters that allow you to move certain parts of the body. Don't beat yourself up about it though. Character rigging is a completely different job, and comes before the animation.

[@Floky]

Yeah, lots of things I didn't know 😂

[@ayo__ayo]

@@Floky it's all good man. Keep it up!

[@Sinbad1999]

A Floky Masterpiece

[@Floky]

You haven't even seen the video yet hahahaha

[@TheSilverFoxLP]

I second that. A masterpiece indeed

[@cactus9630]

I third that, very epic.

[@calebhill7717]

I fourth that extremely funny

[@FarQuZeDesigns]

Ah sad, the video ended too soon, i want more!!! im flokydicted :D Awesome video again, bro!

[@Floky]

Thanks man! Hopefully next video in 2 weeks 😁👍

[@bitbenthegamedeveloper90]

Oh man, Floky! I can so relate to these unintuitive workflows with rigging/skinning/animating that's why I usually go for mixamo myself. It is just so convenient and gets the job done most of the time! Cool to see you learned a lot since the last video too :)

[@HarnaiDigital]

This video is funny as Sh!t. Man everything you showed in this video is so relatable from Modeling to Animating to stupid wrong keyframing and that bones glitch. Lol also you just spilled my glass of water out of my mouth at the end. 🤣

[@Floky]

Hahaha ❤️😂

[@erichbauer3991]

Yeah there's so many pitfall especially when going between programs lol + a lot of tutorials are either outdated or just kind of bad. On the more positive side I personally think your character models looked pretty good/usable. As for animating itself just using the base bones is a pain but stuff like rigify makes it more bearable (once you get around it's pitfalls too).

[@Floky]

Yeah, haven't touched animation since hahaha

[@ripetsu1]

I feel you man.. Just started learning gamedev myself. 2 days ago i started learning blender and modelling. Made basic humanoid character and imo it was fine. Actually felt pretty good for me, maybe my art skills helped on that. Yesterday was time to learn rigging, was pretty scared that it was going to be painful, but blenders rigify addon saved my ass on that one thanks lord.. Well i quess i can jump to animating now.. Holy fucking shit i hate it at least for now. Really struggling with it and if i can get anything animated someday, i'm sure there is going to be some pain in the ass trying to import it in to UE5. 😂 Not sure if you know of blenders rigify addon already, but if not i really recomend it. It has inverse kinematics built in also!

[@Floky]

Sounds like progress! Good job!

[@manglikbela]

Just see now just in a few hours you are gonna have 1k subs. And BTW I am late cuz you posted this when I was sleeping XD!

[@TimTanurhan]

🔥Thanks for sharing the journey!

[@Floky]

You bet!

[@Kyjor_]

Excited to be getting into 3d relatively soon myself :,-) Great video! Can't wait to struggle lol

[@Floky]

It's fun as hell but I recommend focusing mostly on either game dev or 3D modeling not try to lean both at the same time (like me)... Also, do small steps at a time or you'll get really annoyed at it hahaha

[@Kyjor_]

@@Floky lol I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks!

[@Eren_Yeager_is_the_GOAT]

2:35 i see so many mistakes in this frame alone

[@Floky]

I can imagine 😂 Sculpting is def not my strong suit 😅

[@IsaacCode95]

hey man i like your videos! i see that you work with UE, thats great! most of the devlogs use unity, i love to ue users. could you point me out to where tf i can learn procedural animation ? haven't found tutorial on this subject at all.

[@Floky]

I haven't found any either 😕

[@Shinzo08]

You are so underrated man

[@Floky]

Thanks! Very nice of you! :D

[@Shinzo08]

@@Floky by the way im also making my first survival game and i already have a damn bug

[@dedonarnewt7]

When learning how to make a game one thing I don't like IS " I DON'T KNOW WHAT I DON'T KNOW" so how am I supposed to look up what I don't know to learn what I don't know. And that is what I feel like this guy is going through. He doesn't know what he doesn't know. And that's why he gets frustrated that is the same reason for me when I am learning. And or when I want to make a game and get stuck on something I don't know. So I got to find it and learn it. And instead of making a game I'm just learning and making test projects. To learn what I don't know.ALL IN ALL (YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW SO HOW DO YOU FIND WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW)

[@Floky]

So, I'll give you a life hack, everyone is using chatgpt to get a full written code, I use chatgpt to ask it those question, when I'm stuck or frustrated I ask it how I'm supposed to do something. Quite Handy Good luck

[@beefanly4315]

I also find that there are subreddits that are willing to answer your questions about any problems that you might encounter.

[@RDD87z]

8:01 HAHAHAHA!

[@Floky]

Yeah I'm proud of that one 😂

[@joseluispcr]

"the problem keep coming" - I belive you now know how is to make a game. It is exactly that: problem solving all the way, all the time, a lot of things go wrong, again, and again and again and again, and a lot more times. Is not jut the animation. The modelign, the code, the game design, the marketing, all the process is problem solving

[@anantgamedev]

Yo great video...can relate to the problem as I myself tried blender few days ago... but the thing is...I Miss *B A L L S*

[@Floky]

Balls will always be a part of my games, no worries

[@serjaoberranteiro4914]

I love blender, it was my first 3d downloaded program

[@BigRubberDucky]

Reach out for help when you run into this stuff. Without sounding like a jerk, a lot of this video feels like you are complaining about bad systems when you really just don't understand it. EDIT: well you seem to address this your self in the end.

[@Floky]

I am very aware that most of the problems I ran into was due to a lack of knowledge of my part, but it's a video to show the road bumbs I run into so that hopefully it makes other people relate to it and shows that they are no alone. You are absolutely not rude at all, I'm always open and happy to receive tips and good criticism. I can't improve if everyone just tells me what I want to hear :D

[@Sigin3D]

I think the main issue was your lack of knowledge and understanding of blender, I’m a self taught 3D animator, all you needed here was constraints for the rig (very easy to set up with multiple tutorials out there) and if you enabled key framing, you wouldn’t lose your keyframes at every turn. Blender can be fiddly to get around, but with a few minor changes, your experience would of be greatly improved. I’ll always recommend people to watch a video on how to do things before trying to do it and make a review. It’s like expecting to drive a car with no lessons just because other people can. I’d suggest trying a do-over with some tutorials along the way. 😊

[@Floky]

You're right

[@awesomegamedev]

You are wrong about modelling characters. I am by no means a professional 3D-modeller, but the way it typically works is: 1) You create a high-res model, without caring about the model complexity 2) Do retopology and compress it into low-poly model 3) Bake lightning/cavities/occlusion/normals from high-poly model to low-poly - you don't do this manually I am slightly disappointed we didn't get to see the animation made during 6:31-6:42 The character at 3:45 looks quite good, but overall, as a programmer, I feel your pain:) Between, are you from Switzerland? I've lived in Zurich for 3 weeks in 2018

[@Floky]

But retopology and lightning baking is exactly what I described in the video no? It's details that are rendered in 2D onto a 3D model, I never said that it had to be done manually, I just said it was a lot to grasp (At least it felt like a lot to me hahaha) I probably should have explained this a bit more to make my point better understood but I try to not make my videos too long so I avoid going into too much detail :P I lived in basel, but moved to Poland now (In 2018 I was in the army at Zurich, so we probably were quite close hahaha)

[@awesomegamedev]

​@@Floky From the video, if I were not familiar with modelling, I would get an impression that you'd have to start by modelling an appropriate low-poly model right away. I'd give you a ping if I visit Poland:) Why did you move there? Cheaper?

[@Floky]

@@awesomegamedev yeah aber rewatching it I get what you were saying... I should be more careful with how I say stuff 😁 I moved to Poland because my gf is here 😁

[@awesomegamedev]

@@Floky "aber" - German detected 😁

[@Floky]

@@awesomegamedev hahaha I have keine Ahnung What you are talking about!

[@Modozenmusic]

You have to make a properly rig . The bones itself it's a bad idea to anímate.. theres a mixano plugin who make an ik rig more easy for anímate

[@zu1191]

Your 10 minutes complaining video actually helps! Thanks

[@Floky]

Well, I'm glad my complaining wasn't useless 🤣

[@nikz000]

When you sculpt use the symmetry option at the top right of the viewport, you’ll thank me later 😂😘

[@Floky]

Yeah yeah, but even with that, I suk xD

[@IAhmadGT]

if your videos blow up don't forget me :D

[@LukaIsTheName]

nobody is going to mention "join for daddy"? okay! :DD

[@Floky]

I see nothing wrong with that 🤔

[@mikesunny1291]

dude you know there is a thing called Control Rig in UE?

[@Floky]

Yeah, I couldn't really figure it out back then, now I know about it but I really dislike dealing with animations 😂

[@eazzy000]

I was hoping that the mecs were downloadable coz the look kinda cool

[@pawansharma27]

Great video

[@Floky]

Great comment 😁

[@ApichartNakarungutti]

I think I use Rigify (blender free addons) to help me with animation, to provide bone and ik for the model

[@Floky]

Yeah I used it aswell... It makes things easier but still no easy 😂

[@Fluster]

Damn really nice. Also 2 more subs to 1K :O

[@Floky]

Thanks! And only one left to go :O

[@roberttaylor4696]

Although hilarious and very insightful for those getting into game dev I WOULD like to point out that reinventing the wheel in most cases is costly, painful, and unnecessary. So I’d recommend, as you’ve said in this video, to outsource what you need to and simply do the stuff you love. I look forward to following your journey

[@Floky]

Exactly what I tried to explain in this video! I'm glad my point came across 😁

[@roberttaylor4696]

Also, hit me up when/if you dive deep into materials, landscape specifically, but any material questions I should be able to help with. That’s my thing.

[@Floky]

@@roberttaylor4696 will do, thanks!

[@pblpbl3122]

currently learning blender's animation system and this is so true lmao. I swear half of the features in blender are copied from unity except they completely inverted the expected behaviour cuz thats how unintuitive it feels 😂

[@Floky]

Yeah... This whole experience was borderline traumatizing 😂

[@julyperez8343]

Why is Animating for Games so Damn Hard!?

[@Antires_Studios]

5 days ? ive been working on my main character / npc basic models for 2 months

[@FrozenInIce]

you should've box modelled it would've been easier and would not need cleaning the mesh there are helpful tutoriels on youtube. and you can push your mesh to 50k as well every new game has 50k in character that can be interacted. devil may cry 5 and red dead redemption 2 if you are going with a stylized look you can have every corner be cut and add with shaders.

[@H_Deep]

if you use references you can animate better and fast

[@Bikkufootballtalks]

Maya is love

[@hydrocosmo]

just use box modelling for your characters ffs lol, sounds like it would suit you better than sculpting.

[@Floky]

Yep 🤣

[@goriah9144]

I also struggled with 3d modeling and animation, I was good at making simple shapes, but when I made complex ones, it never worked out, I always was unsatisfied, and deleted the model, I will try again soon.

[@MGrey-qb5xz]

why is it that these engines anyone can use to get triple A level graphics but animations is shittier then ps2 games?

[@NinjaWort3x]

Like the vid! ❤

[@Floky]

[@presto_the_editor]

Floky, I suspect you of being a pro Dev, but pretending for the views. JK😂 you're the best

[@Floky]

I'm really not, but I am serious about it improving :P

[@presto_the_editor]

@@Floky well I hope you do, but please try making mobile games as well

[@Lazy_Banm]

dude this tmer is long

[@Floky]

Agreed... Never again

[@EnchantedSmellyWolf]

All the reason to black screen the scene. Just like GameFreak.

[@isakb7935]

Hi

[@Floky]

Hi! :D

[@the_original_jake]

God, animation sucks, it took me about 2 days to get an idle, walk jump up and jump down, run and ladder climb animation and they suck so much lol, dont blame you for wanting to outsource it lol

[@Floky]

Exactly 😂