The (unfinished) animation of Project L - teaser trailer breakdown

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"and im gonna nerd about 2d effects that are animated on one's and two's" has to be the best description that anyone can give T B Skyen...

Hitstop in Fighting games is more than just an animation technic. It's a mechanic that enables a lot of complexity in the game itself. It makes canceling moves into eachother easier, and enables hitstop option selects. Which is a technic that allows a single option an attacker can make to beat many options a defender can make that alter the condition of the game and give the attacker different outcomes for the same input. Like safe jumps in most games, where if a defender uses an invincible move on wakeup, it makes an attackers move whiff which allows the attacker to return to an actionable state much quicker and block the defenders invincible move. And in Guilty Gear Strive, it enables Counterhit option selects that give you different moves depending on whether you counter hit an opponent or just hit them regularly, because counterhitting someone gives you much more Hitstop.

Always wanted you to do animation breakdown of fighting games like Skullgirls and Guilty Gear (I find the animation process of those two in particular to be so fascinating). I understand, however, you can't really do that since those may not get you a lot of views, but with Project L hopefully coming soon I may still get my wish!

33:10 "Like, maybe the Summoners are back" 34:50 "Zilean broke time, and now all the fighters are like, fighting, to repair the timestream" If they do either as a non-canon plotline, they should honestly title Project L to Clash of Fates, as a throwback.

I know you called it out as a bit of a downside, but I personally ADORE how they've handled the screen shake on Darius' attacks. While I can totally see how it could be overbearing, to me it really helps sell each of his hits being titanic. Every time he smacks somebody it feels like a truck.

12:08 Haven't seen the entirety of the video yet so I'm not sure if Skyen mentions it again but those ropes are probably there to prevent her pants from being wet. I live near a beach so that may be the purpose. What I understand is that Illaoi folded up her pants and tied it with a rope

Just a head up about hitboxes vs hurtboxes within the context of fighting games. A hitbox is the "attack" portion of a model when making some sort of attack, whereas the hurtbox is the "vulnerable" portion of a model at any given time. If one players hitbox collides with another characters hurtbox then the second character gets hit. Any given move on a character has its own unique hitboxes and hurtboxes which can vary wildly and help inform both that moves strengths as well as weaknesses.

as a fan of fighting games and animation in general, I will comment on some things you said: 17:14 , you said the characters will have their model darkened by reaction of the shade, but in fighting games, it is common that 3D model has its own light source so the characters is perfectly lit and distinguishable by the players. I know it gives the feeling that the playable characters don't exist in harmony with the stages, but for the sake of readability, it has to be this way Otherwise, great video, I've waited for your input on Project L 623P is the move I want to use more!

I'm actually really glad they based Jinx's upper garment on the one in Arcane - i feel like the original getup was the kind of "sexy" that felt more awkward and unnecessary than anything else. You know, the "hot babe money money sex sex belt o' bullets guns guns power click here to meet cute psycho girls in your area and enlarge your penis" kind.

On the topic off Jinxes bra, I do personally prefer the arcane design for it more as it feels more practical (even though Jinx as a character is everything other than practical) and I dont really think the "sexualization" for a lack of a better word of the OG doesnt really add anything.

i would actually love to see skyen react to other fighting game rosters and moves. since fighting games are literally all about the characters, he would have a lot to talk about.

kind of late to the party on this one but another likely reason that Ekko's pants got redesigned is for visual clarity. Super important in fighting games to be able to identify what moves the other player is doing quickly and accurately (some stages get banned from competitive play because of things like grass or water that obscure characters' feet), and giving so much more definition to his legs allows for much more distinct animations.

Hi Skyen! You're probably not gonna see this, but I'm a current art student in college and I gotta say, I've learned a lot more about art and art terminology from your breakdown videos than I have from some of my professors. Thank you for all the work you do!

On Darius's character change. The primary thing driving the feeling that Darius has changed is his haircut, and there is a pretty obvious reason they would change his hair. Darius's silhouette in Project L is meant to highlight the shoulders and his axe, his head is meant to be smaller so that he looks bulkier and stronger and his previous hairstyle is too big to accomplish that effect. As a result darius is getting a slicked back hair style to reduce the emphasis on his head. Outside of his hair he looks very very similar.

I'm really glad you're examining the depth the character animations has and how it speaks to their character. As a very longtime Darius stan, I'm very grateful to hear your insight on his animations here.

A member of the Arcane team (Amanda) mentioned Ekko is supposed to be around 19-20 in the show, so they might have chosen to age him up in project L for that reason.

so a fun thing on darius for me is that his leaning back-and-pivoting/shifting his weight style of attacking also serves a potential mechanical purpose: it lets them protray his attacks as meaty and threatening without him physically taking over the entire screen, since big as he is and long as the axe is (especially with him using the pommel ring at the very end of the handle) if he were to fully lean into the attacks he'd cover the entire screen with hitboxes at full extension, which could become more than a little obnoxious in the actual game part of project L

wouldnt mind a video about what top picks for characters you would want to see in the game

I'd be fascinated to see how Samira would animate in this sort of style. She's my pie-in-the-sky hope for this game.