Brad kicks off his workshop with an introduction to the idle pose, the most essential element of fighting game character animation, serving as both the character's visual signature and the mechanical foundation for all gameplay actions. By carefully learning how to balance weight distribution, incorporate asymmetry, and understand martial arts fundamentals, animators can create distinctive, personality-driven stances that communicate who the character is before they even throw a punch. Investing time in crafting a strong idle pose pays dividends throughout the entire animation process.

Duration: 21m 37s

Fighting game idle poses should never be treated as simple placeholders or afterthoughts. They serve as identity statements that communicate who the character is and set the foundation for all other animations. By using reference photos, analyzing silhouettes, and making thoughtful micro-adjustments to body mechanics and angles, animators can transform a basic pose into a compelling character statement that engages players and effectively communicates the fighter's personality and combat style.

Duration: 13m 5s

This lesson reveals how effective hit animation relies on understanding and executing a sequence of precisely crafted poses rather than smooth motion alone. The anticipation pose serves as the foundation, while the often-overlooked overshoot pose provides the critical "snap" that our brains interpret as impact. By manipulating spine curves, distributing weight properly, and strategically exaggerating poses at key moments, animators can create punches and hits that feel forceful and satisfying to viewers. The next step involves timing and spacing to smooth the transitions between these extreme poses.

Duration: 31m 5s

This lesson demonstrates that fighting game animation requires both artistic timing and technical structure. By properly spacing keyframes and organizing animations into startup, active, and recovery frames, animators create impactful attacks while providing essential data for game implementation. This frame data system enables clear communication across the development team, ensuring animations function correctly within the game engine while maintaining the desired feel and responsiveness for players.

Duration: 27m 28s

Light attacks in fighting games prioritize player responsiveness while maintaining visual impact through careful timing and spacing choices. The key is balancing speed (quick startup with minimal anticipation) against readability (holding the active hit frame). By understanding how to use fewer frames, animators can achieve quick movements. Holding frames at impact also creates light attacks that feel both instant and satisfying, whether for single hits or rapid button-mashing combos.

Duration: 20m 49s

This lesson demonstrates that the primary difference between attack tiers in fighting games comes down to timing, anticipation, and frame distribution rather than just the visual intensity of the move. By nearly doubling the frame count and implementing longer hold frames with proper ease-out timing, animators can create medium attacks that feel substantially weightier than light attacks while remaining faster than heavy attacks. Brad's detailed polish work on arcs, weight distribution, and subtle movement variations transforms a basic punch into a professional-quality medium attack suitable for fighting game combat systems.

Duration: 28m 5s

This lesson demonstrates that creating convincing heavy attacks in animation is primarily about manipulating time and exaggeration rather than just pose strength. By extending anticipation, holding key frames longer, and creating dramatic body curves with proper weight transfer, animators can create the illusion of tremendous force and power. Brad teaches that slower, more deliberate timing with exaggerated opposing movements makes attacks feel significantly heavier and more impactful.

Duration: 28m 57s

This lesson effectively demonstrates how proper timing, pose construction, and weight distribution create believable heavy attack animations. Brad emphasizes that extended anticipation and hold frames are key to conveying weight and impact, distinguishing heavy attacks from lighter ones. While the animation shown still has rough spots that need polishing, the foundational blocking establishes the essential feeling of a powerful, weighty attack that will be refined in subsequent lessons on timing and spacing.

Duration: 31m 4s

This lesson emphasizes that successful animation polishing relies on understanding and manipulating timing and spacing to create believable weight and momentum. By using simplified tracking methods like spheres to isolate movement components, animators can more effectively evaluate and adjust the weight distribution across different body parts. Brad demonstrates that, while timing may remain consistent across body parts, varying the spacing between keyframes is what truly sells the illusion of different weights and creates compelling, physically convincing heavy attack animations.

Duration: 25m 43s

The main lesson here is that polished animation isn't achieved in one pass from blocking to final. Instead, it requires an iterative refinement phase focused specifically on timing and spacing. By strategically removing frames, offsetting body part movements, and adding subtle details like overshoot, animators can create impactful, weighty actions without losing the heaviness of the movement. Brad's "trimming the fat" approach ultimately produces more dynamic and professional results.

Duration: 29m 11s

This lesson demonstrates that transforming a basic animation into something spectacular requires layering multiple enhancement techniques rather than relying on a single effect. By strategically combining VFX elements, timing manipulation, camera shake, and directional speed lines, animators can create dramatically more engaging and impactful action sequences. Brad teaches how the key is that these tools work synergistically, with each element contributing visual information that guides the viewer's eye and amplifies the perceived force of the action.

Duration: 28m 19s

Brad's summarizes how his workshop provides a comprehensive foundation for creating effective fighting game animations by covering both technical principles and artistic approaches. He emphasizes how becoming a skilled combat animator requires not only mastering animation techniques but also understanding gameplay mechanics and how movement affects player experience. By combining the study of real-world movement with the analysis of successful games and continued experimentation, animators can develop the skills necessary to create compelling, responsive, and impactful fighting game animations.

Duration: 2m 36s