Realistic Fighting Style in Video Game Animation

Aiden Pearce embodies a brutal, intelligent fighting style focused on survival and tactical advantage.

### Creating a Realistic and Brutal Fighting Style in Video Games
* 🥋 The development team aimed to establish a "**brutal street fighting style**" that emphasizes **survival and raw, fast, and violent movements** without any showy techniques.
* 💥 Every move in the fighting style is designed to incapacitate opponents, showcasing a "**shock and awe**" approach that prioritizes **effectiveness over flair**.
* 🧠 Aiden Pearce, the game's protagonist, embodies both **intelligence and violence**, employing tactical advantages through **smart maneuvers and stealthy actions**.
* 🔦 His use of tools like a **tactical baton** and **hacking skills** highlights his **strategic approach to combat**, making him a **formidable opponent**.
* 🎭 The casting of Sebastian as the character was crucial, as his **exceptional athleticism** sometimes required adjustments to ensure his movements aligned with **Aiden's capabilities**.
* A unique challenge faced by the team was creating realistic animations for actions like **putting a hand into a pocket**, which involved **simulating cloth movements accurately**.
* 🔗 To achieve this, they designed a **simple rope mechanism** that helps position the character's hands **naturally**, enhancing the **realism of the gameplay experience**.
* 🎮 Overall, the focus was on crafting a **fighting style that feels authentic and grounded**, setting a **new standard in video game animation**.

We were lucky enough to work with, to start off with casting Sebastian below. He's almost too perfect for mocap. You know, he's like super athletic. He can sometimes move better than even can actually move, and we have to sometimes even slow him down a little bit, which is very, very rare in mocap. Usually, the animators have to go in and speed up and augment the animation, but actually, Sebastian is so athletic that he can do actually more than Aiden can really do in the game. It's a pocket was a big thing for us. I've never seen anybody really tried to do this in India in a videogame before because it's very complicated to make a hand go into a pocket in a believable way and have the cloth move with the pocket because we have simulated cloth on the characters. So, we just built the simple rope that you hang around the neck when he walks. It just kind of helps the hands hang in the correct position framing. We tried to create a fighting style that's a lot more realistic than

you normally see. We didn't want to do anything that was sort of fancy or showy. We wanted to create a sort of a brutal street fighting style, all survival fighting. So every move that he makes is about trying to take somebody out. There's no move that's just for show. Everything was just raw and fast and extremely violent, shock and awe style. The fighting from an animation point of view. Aiden Pearce is a character that we try to show. He's both intelligent and extremely violent. So why buy that? You're gonna see that he does things that are very smart that give him a tactical advantage. He uses little things like his tactical baton or just the way he sort of sneaks around and stealths around on hacking. He uses all of these components to sort of as smart as enemies. [Music] That's it for today. For more info, follow us on Twitter at WatchdogsGame or at Facebook.com slash WatchdogsGame. [Music] [Applause] You

Behind the Scenes - Watch Dogs [Making of]

NeoGamer - The Video Game Archive

The Perfect Mocap Actor and Realistic Animation

Sebastian, the mocap actor, is exceptionally athletic, sometimes moving better than the game character Aiden.

The team had to slow him down, which is rare in mocap work.

They focused on creating a believable hand movement into a pocket and used a neck rope to frame the hands, aiming for a more realistic fighting style.

Aiden Pearce's fighting style is raw, fast, and extremely violent, focusing on survival and taking opponents out.

The character is portrayed as both intelligent and violent, using tactical moves and stealth to gain an advantage.

The animation aims for a brutal street fighting style, with every move serving a purpose and no actions for show.