Michael Evans
Animations Programmer
Age: 27
Born in: Massachusetts
Favourite Manga/Anime: Totoro, Ghost in the Shell, Akira
Music: Techno

Harry: Are the character animations you programmed something new and never seen before?

Michael: We did a really good job. I'm not exactly familiar with how everyone's doing it, but there is some new stuff in there that we did. For example instanteneous response which means characters can do their moves without you waiting long, this is achived through a system called interpolation.

Harry: When looking at Tekken and Oni, is the animation system similar?

Michael: Yeah, we have two parts in the animation: the first is the Tekken type of stuff, the other is this whole system of running, jumping, sliding etc.

Harry: Was it you who did the Motion Blur?

Michael: I did the Motion Blur, yeah.

Harry: Is the Motion Blur something new?

Michael: Oh it's been done before in Virtua Fighter.

Harry: It was mentioned in an earlier interview that the Motion Blur won't always be around. Will it come at specified or random times?

Michael: The Motion Blur was put in to emphasise a very strong or special move.

Harry: So will all characters have Motion Blur?

Michael: I don't know exactly.

Harry: How is gore going to be animated?

Michael: Right now particles come out of characters which look like blood.

Harry: Will characters turn red in body parts they are shot at?

Michael: We have talked about stuff like that. We may do something like a headshot.

Harry: And the bodies of characters you shot/beat up, will they just lie about?

Michael: We've talked about having them fade out from time to time.

Harry: Are there similarities/big differences in animations for all characters?

Michael: Sure, all the characters have different animations, but some of them share some animations. I don't remember exactly, but the Communications Striker may share animations with the Thug. But each character has their own walk, crouch and their own grabs.

Harry: It was mentioned that the characters all have an idle, attacking and walking animation, is this right?

Michael: Each character has several hundred animations, they have several different stands e.g. with their guard up or their pistol out. They also have animations for running, backpedal, sidestep, rolls, crouches, walking, jumping, jumpflips, jumps to each side...

Harry: Will you be able to link moves, like jump, roll and pull out your weapon?

Michael: Right now the system allows that, but the land animations right now put you in two stances; either a run or a "needing to stop" stance.

Harry: Are there different animations for ways you can die?

Michael: Yeah there's this big setup locked into the animation. So when you die, the animation depends on how you're knocked down. You can fall backwards or buckle up and crumble down. Once you're lying on the ground it'll mark you as dead and you'll fade out.

Harry: In a lot of games, when you die, you notice that the enemies still run around and even shoot at you. Will that be avoided in Oni?

Michael: The AI is really fast with responding, and they'll know you're dead, and just walk away and go back to their default position.

Harry: Do you think Konoko has the most animations?

Michael: Yeah she has the most at the moment, not quite sure how it will be in the final game.