Independent Animations

A useful reason to separate body parts is that it allows us to animate them independently.

In the old game, the colonist was composed of 2 sprites: head and body. This made it very time consuming to add new animations, because a unique sprite had to be drawn for every possible animation combination.

For example, if we wanted a colonist to stand and carry a crate we had to draw a separate sprite with straight legs and arms out. If we wanted that colonist to walk and carry we would have to draw another new sprite. This time, with the legs bent and the arms out.

In both cases, the arms were held out, but an entirely new sprite had to be hand drawn.

With the new system, we only have to draw one set of sprites for carrying and we can apply them to any valid combination (sitting, sleeping, walking, standing, kneeling). This saves a lot of time and makes it much easier to create more body types (like a robot or obese colonist).

Here’s an example gif. The arms are carrying. The legs are walking. The head is blinking and the eyes are opening/closing.