How we grade animations
Four lenses, each scored 0 to 10. An animation ships only when every lens is 9.5 or higher. Draft for your sign-off: the clips below become the reference every reviewer grades against.
1. ReadIn about a second, can a player tell who played what on whom, and what changed?
2. MotionWeight, wind-up, impact, follow-through, body parts moving together, feet on the ground.
3. StagingCamera on the action, no needless cuts or detours, faces readable when the reaction is the point.
4. FlowClean hand-off to the next card, reaction or turn. No overlap, no stuck poses, no dead air.
What the numbers mean
| Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 10 | Holds up frame by frame at 4x slower. Nothing to improve. |
| 9.5 | Ship bar. Looks deliberate and solid even stepped through slowly; only nitpicks left. |
| 9 | A trained eye sees something (a little stiff, a beat too fast); a player probably won't. |
| 8 | A player notices: floaty, springy, weak impact, awkward camera. |
| 7 and below | Clearly wrong: the action is unreadable or happens off screen. |
Automatic fail (that lens is capped at 8.9, no averaging)
- Clipping through a body or prop
- Feet floating off the ground when they should be planted
- A single-frame pop or snap
- A stall or freeze over 100 ms
- The key action happening off screen
- A pose that never releases
- A camera snap in the middle of an action
How evidence is gathered
- Recorded on the Mac mini with real graphics, every frame, at real speed and again 4x slower.
- Graded from your seat and from an opponent's seat.
- Anything not seen stays ungraded, and a card with an ungraded lens can't ship.
Reference clips: Motion
Robbed stomp: three levels side by side (4x slower)
- 9.1 Game today: the whole body springs up and down and the feet leave the ground. Lively but rubbery.
- 8.7 A rejected attempt: barely moves, and the slam squashes in a single frame (auto-fail pop).
- 9.5 Shipping: leans onto one leg, lifts the other high, the slam builds over three frames, and the support foot stays planted.
Same three, real speed
Hit by a card (4x slower)
- 9.2 Game today: the animal is launched and floats above the stump with its shadow left behind (auto-fail float).
- 9.5 Shipping: recoils over planted feet, and the head snaps back a beat after the body.
Reference clips: Staging
You cast Market Crash (real speed)
- 7.4 Game today: the camera cuts to a close-up of your pig for about 6 seconds while the crash, the coin loss and both victims happen off screen.
- 9.25 PR #308: the camera stays on the board and everything is in view, but your pig's face can't be read from behind. Waiting on your call.
Reference clips: Read and Flow
We don't have clean examples for these two yet; the audit never recorded card-vs-card moments. Proposed captures for anchors:
- Read: a single attack card (Steal) from your seat and from an opponent's seat, to show who-did-what-to-whom at 9.5 vs a muddled one.
- Flow: an attack answered by Reflect, then Void answering that, to show a clean hand-off vs overlap or dead air.