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Insomniac Games' Gameplay Animator Avery Adams, who previously worked on such projects as God of War: Ragnarök and Marvel's Spider-Man 2, has shared a new entry in his series of short guides on 3D animation in video games called Anim Tips.
In this episode, Avery talks about the importance of "adding English" to your character's weapon to show more of it to the viewer. Typically associated with sports, this idiom means adding some rotation to the ball to get it to hit a trajectory that isn't a straight line. Likewise, in terms of animation theory that would mean rotating your weapon to see more of it, which is especially important for the blades.
As Avery notes, in the first animation in the video he felt like turning the blade totally sideways didn't make sense, but in gameplay, it does help the blade's readability by giving it that bigger shape.
Check out Avery's previous Anim Tips entries we've covered before, including such topics as key poses or using VFX trails:
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