Robert Tamayo | April 26, 2022

Why is it So Hard to Get the Character to Attack?

I'm having a lot of trouble getting the character to attack. At first, it was impossible to get him to attack when pressing attack, so I added some logs. It turns out there wasn't a problem with the input detection, as the logs were showing that the input was being registered. There was just a problem with getting the "animation montage" to play.

I still haven't figured the problem out yet. I tried a few different things, and they all work to some degree. The main problem is that the attack animation gets stuck on its last frame after the attack is finished. Then the character just walks around and jumps in that frozen pose.

I'll figure it out eventually. On the bright side, though, I did manage to get a good feel for how the attack animation works in the game. After seeing it in action, I made a few adjustments to make the attack feel more powerful and more smooth:

Just like comics, emphasize the follow-through or main "strike position" of the attack. Linger for a few frames to make it seem powerful.
Let the attack happen quickly, and leave the after-attack as the longer portion of the segment. This makes the attack feel more powerful if it was quick, as it feels like it takes the character longer to recover.
If the style is cartoonish, scale the weapon and/or arms of the attacker at the peak of the attack.

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