Split Spirit Character and VFX Animations

In Split Spirit, you play as a wisp of light which can possess wildlife to make its way back to the heavens. They primary animals you possess in game are a herd of deer

The deer, animated entirely in Spine, was animated to be as realistic in its motion as possible

Next off is its run, which was animated to be as majestic as I could pull off at the time.

This is an unused animation in the final game, of the deer slowly and deliberately pushing something with its horns. It was initially planned to be used for a rock pushing mechanic that ended up getting scrapped down the line

The push animation would have spun off of a charging animation, which was a variant on the run animation. This also ended up going unused.

Next is its jump, which was once again animated with a sense of natural grace befitting of a wild deer

When the ball of light possesses a deer, it does a quick jolt of surprise before you can start controlling them...

...and when you decide to shoot off of the deer to find another target, the deer shakes itself off as if it was covered in water. It was an interesting challenge figuring out how to convey the idea of the fur shaking with the origami styled visuals.

If you happen to fall off a cliff as the deer, you respawn walking out of the brush as if nothing happened.

Finally for the Deer is its get up animation as it is woken up from its slumber. Finding reference for this motion and condensing all of the limbs down in a way that didn't feel off was a massive challenge for this animation in particular

Next we have the wisp of light itself. The wisp was animated to feel wild and alive, utilizing jagged shapes to convey the sense of a mystical flame that is billowing with energy

Whenever you aim to hit another target, additional wisps show up to guide your aim...

...followed by a burst of flame as you are sent off!

As for other visual effects, I created a series of dust and splash effects for whenever you walk around the world, maintaining the game's origami styled aesthetic with clear angular shapes

Along side walking vfx, I also created jump and landing vfx. I made dust...

...and water splash variants for both jumping and landing.

I also created a waterfall visual effect to go in the background of some scenes. If I remember correctly, this was the last visual effect I created for the game!

The final animation I wanted to show for Split Spirit was the wind particles we had created for the game's wind tunnel mechanic, using wind to send the wisp of light over great distances. I had created 4 different variants of these wind particles...

...which when put all together creates quite a chaotic flurry of wind strokes, wouldn't you say?