Some seemingly normal video game animations have a single fixed frame of body horror smear frames. There was a time when smears were vital in games, but not much happens and there is a very good reason for their disappearance.
The smears date back to the early days of modern animation, when artists studied live action film to have a better understanding of how to describe action realistically. They found that when someone moves fast, the film does not capture clear images. Instead, the movement translates into color fading. The animators experimented with these images and came up with smears to mimic this optical illusion. It is especially visible in very stylistic cartoons such as Looney tunes.
This stylistic approach to speed can be seen in modern games that rely on that aesthetic of retro animation, such as Cuphead and Skullgirls. But it’s also visible in the franchises you wouldn’t expect. In particular, the Capcom fighting games of the 90s and 2000s, especially Street Fighter, relied heavily on smears to sell fast and fast action. Although we don’t think of Sonic the Hedgehog as a tribute to the old Warner Bros. cartoons, the franchise uses smears to get the same kind of satisfying move.
It is much harder to do smears in 3D animation than in hand-drawn animation. Games like Crash Bandicoot and Overwatch put in extra work, but using skeletons and mesh means a lot more finesse to get a smear that looks and feels good.
Watch the video above to see some amazing frames and find out how they work and why they are so hard to make in 3D animation.