EP 1. Legs Too Short to Groom

I studied computer science. Somehow, these days, I’m learning character animation.

Why? Because we don’t have an animator on the team!!! (Cue the sobbing.)

What can you do? That’s life on a small team.

You code... plan the game... do some design... handle the marketing...

I also made the animations for the original Ritty model.

It was my first time animating, though, and looking back, there’s quite a bit I wish I’d done better.

So, as we get ready for release, I’m redoing all the animations.

The goal: fix the awkward movements and make Ritty move more like a cat. A very cute cat!

With the old model, Ritty’s legs were so short that some movements just weren’t possible.

Can’t groom. Paws won’t reach...

I’ve never formally studied animation, so my approach was pretty much to

watch cat videos on YouTube on repeat and try to copy what I saw.

(Exaggerated animation? How does one do that, exactly?)

But getting those real-life cat movements to work on a round little Ritty with stubby legs was... a struggle.

After listening to me grumble about all this, A, our developer, decided to redo the character model too.

And so... a longer-legged Ritty was born.

(Before → After)

We can finally do the “roast chicken” pose (?) I’ve been dreaming of...!

There’s still plenty left to do, though.

Making Ritty feel alive isn’t just about natural movement. A variety of animations matters just as much. Our team loves Animal Crossing, so we’ve been taking lots of inspiration from the villagers’ cute, exaggerated reactions.

There’s a lot more work ahead if we want Ritty to show all sorts of expressions and reactions during conversations, and interact with more of the furniture around them. These are still rough first passes, so we’ll keep polishing them and adding more animations!

Is there a particular movement or reaction you’d love to see from Ritty? Let us know!

P.S.

Portola’s Tolan explores the idea of an “embodied AI companion”: an AI companion with a physical presence.

We want Ritty to feel alive too, responding not just through text, but through expressions and body language.

So we’re also researching ways for them to react naturally to what players do, including procedural animation.

More on that in a future post!