The Animation of Sonic Games

"Animation IS exaggeration" - I love this quote.

"Give him a break. It's his first day, and he's very small." "He is little, and he is sleepy." brilliant.

Fun fact: The person who did Shadow The Hedgehog cinematics was Jeff Fowler, director of the Sonic live action movies.

1:12:52 Using Sonic Colors' music right before switching to the disaster that was Sonic 4 is definitely one of the best baits I've fallen victim to

"I think I may have bit off too much this time." checks video length Holy christ Dan.

"But give him a break, it's his first day, and he's very small" I love it.

1:42:02 I think sonic prime shows how sonics modern design can actually be animated incredibly well and allow him to convey tons of emotions and expressions. I don't think sonic needs a redesign but I hope the games take some notes from prime on how to animate modern sonic characters well.

1:34:07 The fact the animations of Sonic and Eggman's hands tilting the control stick actually conveys the direction of the beans they control is amazing.

i only realized halfway through that this is as long as a movie

I'm so ready to sit down for New Frame Plus: the Feature Film

1:24:30 Is no one talking about how what he's saying syncs up so well with Sonic's movements? Especially at 1:24:35

I think I've figured out why Unleashed's running looks way better than previous attempts; it's because they finally realised that at the speed Sonic travels, he won't always have a foot on the ground pushing him forwards, he will spend some time floating very briefly as his front foot comes down and makes contact with the ground and each step will launch him forward a few metres as a time, making his strides larger to cover more ground, almost as if he is skating. Previous games pushed him to have more natural short stride which is where the issues with the sketchy vibrational look where they just ramp the normal animation up in speed instead of giving the faster speed it's own animation set. It also helps that they finally realised that at high speed he should act more like a vehicle than a person, and smoothed out running looks more believable at those speeds. It makes a lot of sense from a physics standpoint, Sonic is moving so fast that his feet are purely pushing him forward, not upwards. He's leaning so far forwards that all momentum is forward, and once he gets up to speed he's much more stable and only moves upwards a little bit.

"Sega should really port Sonic Colors to more things" WELL, TAKE A GUESS

“He does a little yawn cause he’s little and he’s sweepy” I think I love Tails now.

As someone who does go to Disney yearly yes the animation in 06 is mascot central.

As a Sonic fan, this was an absolutely fascinating video. Very well articulated, refreshingly neutral, and incredibly informative. I feel like I learned so much about what makes animation work well or poorly. I would love to hear your take on the Sonic Advance trilogy, since the animation there, at least to my eyes, is fantastic.

Mascot syndrome aside, who ever was playing in that Minnie mouse suit was doing an outstanding job comparatively.

I love how much this guy cares for Tails lmao. "Give this kid a break, it's his first day and he's very smol" "Because he's little and he's sweepy" Adorable.

42:52 Likely someone has already commented this information, but i think a BIG reason they used so much mocap for their cutscene animetions is as you said, efficiency and to save development time, as SA2 had a total development team of a staggeringly low just 11 people, and only a year and a half of development time from start to finish, frankly its a marvel they did so much with the little resources they had to do it with

15:38 I like to think that this gesture means “it’s time to go” because if Sonic’s facing right, he points to the time