Character: The Torment
No fighting game roster is complete without a monster character. The Torment was an awesome addition to the roster birthed from the minds of the Lore Team & our Art Director Jonas Yoon.
I had so much fun bringing this character to life and exploring how to weave elements of real world animals and fantastical creatures together to give him his own method of movement.
You can get a quick glance at him from his character reveal trailer:
As the lead and only animator on this character I was responsible for all of The Torment’s animations so I thought I’d take a moment here and share some of my favorites!
When The Torment landed a command grab we wanted it to be a huge event here is one of his “unevolved“ command grabs where after landing the initial grab the opponent is slashed twice before being “ripped apart“.
Only after The Torment has “evolved“ does landing a command grab allow for a brutal series of slams, exposure to The Torment’s deadly breath weapon and a final slam to top it off.
The quintessential “breath weapon“ The Torment’s energy beam allows for unique grounded combo finishers.
The stage isn’t the only place The Torment can unleash a breath weapon attack, after much iteration we got a version of The Torment’s Ledge Attack to read pretty well.
We got to work the tail in for his Back Throw animation which really helped us round out the aesthetic from a throw perspective.
Nothing says monster quite like a good old fashioned claw slash!
Here you can see a few of Torment’s Aerials being performed and you can see how they seamlessly blend back into his “fall“ animation which effectively serves as the idle or wait animation for platform fighter characters in the air.
[In order it is Neutral Air, Down Air & finally Up Air]
Torment’s Jab Attack series was particularly fun the designers & I wanted to capture something special for his jab that set him apart as particularly monstrous & animalistic. It came down to massive ground slams or more claw slashes and I think we made the right call because having your most basic attack smash the ground producing shockwaves just feels so on brand for a monster!
Crafting movement for The Torment was a challenge I hadn’t animated very many creatures yet so I had to do some studies to get the feel exactly where I wanted it while keeping in mind his running animation wasn’t allowed to imply more speed than we could supply from a balance perspective. Ultimately we made the decision to give him an upright walk that fit with the aesthetic of the game while still giving him a quadrupedal run that leans a bit more into the monstrous side of his mannerisms.
Getting a walk that felt bouncy & stylized to fit with the Rushdown Revolt aesthetic that still gave off “monster“ vibes was a real challenge for me but overall I’d say I’m pretty happy with this one, the “screenshake“ in-game certainly helps sell it!
I stitched the “dash“ animation together (which normally serves as the transition animation from idle->run) with the run cycle here so you can get a feel for what it’s have The Torment go from standing into
As was the running theme I wanted to keep our momentum rolling choosing “monstrous“ methods to perform basic actions so when it came time for The Torment’s standard grab I found a snappy bite was a novel way to go about it!
I figured I would put some of the unused concepts that never made it into the game here for anyone interested:
I never made a version of the grounded tail attack that I felt really hit the visual notes I was looking for but this was as close I got when messing around with the concept!
