[Theory and Practice] SC2 Death Animation

This addresses some basic concepts in making good animations for a game, I'm sure the staffs at Blizzard are well aware of most of it, but some ideas are still useful and are worth putting down on the table. If not for Blizzard I think the community should know these concepts so it can aid Blizzard in creating a good masterpiece.

Again, as the title implies, this thread is serious, so please stay engaged and on topic.

I've just watched the new death animation video.
i think we're not telling them apart because we're not familiar enough yet. Once we play the game for awhile it'll be intuitive. However, there are things I want to see in death animation, and they're very important. It makes me glad that blizzard has improved quite a lot from its initial death animations but there is still much to work on.

An idea I want to get across and hopefully you'll appreciate is that when playing SC, the unit on the screen is more than just some piece of graphic, the message this particular graphic animation conveys, or the graphic ITSELF, is more a Pictograph symbol, like ancient Chinese and Egypt runes, if you prefer, only animated. In short, when viewed in a certain way, the animation IS just a symbol.

It is important to draw distinctions between the graphics from the symbolic message it conveys. Different circumstances of the viewer of a certain graphic makes them see different things:
On one hand, when playing the game leisurely or spectating a game, we can appreciate the amazing details, shapes and forms, and the good animations of a character in starcraft. On the other hand, while playing the game competitively, we'll have to be able to recognize these shapes and forms abstractly, and directly interpret them as MEANINGS and to process the information as quickly as possible.
For instance, for a spectator, she sees the details of a marine walking, firing and blasting, and finally dying. She appreciates the details of the artwork and the fluidness of animation.
For a player, though, he sees the same graphic, but with drastically different interpretations. The same sequence described above is taken purely abstractly as "marine received my command and is walking", "marine is in range, engaging", "marine is terminated".
Arguably, the animation cannot be purely symbolic, otherwise we might just have strange shapes and colors flying around, although quickly accessible for analyzation, it will bring no viewing pleasure. It can also not be purely beautiful, because even for one simple marine, the player has to parse, or understand its many different states, is it moving? firing? or dying? Putting too much detail on the animation physically burdens the parsing process, and it adds up when large armies are maneuvered across the map.

A good RTS game will be able to have BOTH. Original SC is widely played competitively because it is possible to quickly access the symbolic message from graphic quickly so the player can make decision comfortably. It is also pleasing, less on the pretty side but nonetheless very CONVINCING in term of graphic, otherwise it will not be also widely spectated.

Now for something specific, I want to focus on the death animation of Starcraft2, and one of the biggest concerns of the community in terms of graphic. Death animation consists of 2 parts.
Part 1: Dying. The transition between alive and dead
Part 2: Dead. The state of dead
From a spectator point of view, she would desire a longer dying animation because it will bring out the dramatics of the dying process.
From a gamer point of view he would like a very brief, if any, dying animation. This is a well known fact, but I'd like to take a minute and discuss why. Functionally speaking, a dying unit is as good as a dead unit. From a gamer's point of view, a dying zergling has no HP, cannot attack nor see once it reaches the dying animation, so functionally it is already dead. However, because dying is the intermediate between alive and dead, It is hard to distinguish whether it is alive or dead in that stage. One could think of the alive animation as one rune symbol, the dying is another extremely similar rune symbol, and the dead animation is some different rune symbol. For the gamer ideally, he only wants to see the symbol for alive, and the symbol for dead.

Then there will also be 2 kinds of units, the one that leaves behind a corpse, and the one that does not.
The one who leaves a corpse will have a 2 part death animation, one for dying, one for corpse
The one who leaves no corpse will only have the dying animation.
Again, for the spectator, she wants a smooth transition from alive to dying to dead
For the gamer, he want the distinction, but what interest him is NOT the distinction between dying and dead, but rather alive and dying.
Another concern for the gamer is in the dying stage, although it can be different from the alive stage, the dying animation is nontheless an ANIMATION and as it moves on the screen it will becomes a distraction. So this must be solved by either tune down the movement of the dying animation or shorten the duration. (Personally I think shorten the duration is a more dramatic, solid, and easy to implement fix)
Contradicting demands from both side, and I'm sure it will be difficult to balance. However, I think bringing the dying animation closer to the dead animation while leaving the distinction between alive animation and dying animation would be a good compromise.
So in conclusion: Alive -> Distinctly into Dying ->More Smoothly into Dead. While the dying animation should be brief.


4 things original SC exemplifies that made the symbolic message for death easy to parse (addressing both units that leaves corpses and no corpses):

1. Color Contrast: Marine turns massively red, hydras turns red, protoss turns blue, ect
Example:
Zealot death animation turns white/blue, a big contrast to its gold based armour
Dragoon leaves distinct blue soups, again, a big contrast.

2. Shape change: Height change is huge, in SC dead ground unit, if it leaves a corpse, becomes "flat" right away, so it's crisp. Turning dead units FLATTER right away is a fantastic visual que
For instance,
dead marine = splatter of blood on ground w/ a helmet
Dead medic = 4 pieces of separate white armory
Dead zergling = pile of blood
Dead Zerg building = A gaping hole on the ground, easily recognized

3. Contained: One unit's death should minimally obscure the vision of the players. If the unit has a hitbox of a certain size, the death animation and corpse should NOT be bigger than that.
In SC, death animation sprite size is never bigger than it's original unit size.

4. Terseness: Get the job done quick, don't linger forever to die, it makes the parsing process longer than necessary.
All SC death animations takes less than a second to complete, some of the SC2 death animation takes big longer


How did SC do a good job?
Although I agree that the design team made efforts, I'd have to say the nature of SC's graphic helped.
SC is made with sprites, and as a result:
1) Sprites are almost frame by frame, and in SC they don't have the capacity to put too many frames, this results in terseness.
2) Sprites is difficult to over lay on top of each other, this makes it natural to fit the sprite for death roughly the same size as its original living unit, this creates containment.
3) In SC, if a zergling is facing east, facing west, or south and it dies, it's all the SAME death sprite. Therefore it cannot be a zergling slowly crumbling to the ground. Since it's all the same sprite regardless of direction, it HAS TO BE just a pile of blood, indiscriminately addressing all directions. this creates color and shape distinction.
Overall, all units in SC have died CONVINCINGLY, it might have been overkill, might have been over the top, but when it dies, you know right away that it dies.

What caution should SC2 take?
With its much advanced graphic engine, SC2 developers can really get into the beautiful side of death animation, and I must say some of the death animations are stunning. However, they also makes the parsing of the "I'm Dead" message much slower, which burdens the gamer as he tries to make quick decisions from these messaged. For instance, the flaming death animation, although convincing and distinct, is bright, which is okay, but it takes too long and becomes distracting. It also creates the problem "can my units walk through the dying unit now? or I'll have to wait?" Such question's answer is not immediate from the prolonged death animations.
What I would like to see would be more or less homogeneous death animation for units in all positions, i.e. an ultralisk dying while facing east should be majority similar looking to an ultralisk dying while facing west. This implies shorter dying animation, and a sooner reveal of the "dead" graphic. Because as a gamer, I do not wish to understand "I'm dying", but only want to understand if something is alive or dead.

In Conclusion:
I think Blizzard has taken great steps to keep the death animation crisp and convincing, but much work can still be put to it if SC2 wishes to become a true spectator sport and live up to its name. The Death Animations are already superior to the ones shown awhile ago, but the major problem I see now is the long "dying" animation, and containment, contrast in the "dead" animation.

Please drop a comment, anything pertains to the topic, even a simple "I agree with part x" or "I can see part y abit differently" will be very helpful. So don't be shy on the posting in this thread.

Extra:
-Kudos to blizzard in removing the zergling's wings! It's the MOVEMENT of the zergling that makes the zergling zerg like, and not some fancy extra "features". I really liked the new staccato leaps, and when they move in group it feels very zerg like.
-I highly suggest the video:

This shows some of the concerns while creating a certain animation, VeRy good video, watch it and you'll gain so much sense.