dude.. his right leg (our left) of the first animation cycle.. when the 5 frames end come to the front without any sprites... basically is like it teleports..., make it go back normally....

Absolutely! It is still very much WIP
And luckily I didn't work on them too much :



I have patience.
OK, back to the drawing board for the cycles.
It was the best that I came up with after a lot of trying.

Maybe I will be using Ensellitis technique he used on his
walk/run cycle by using a wire-frame first....


Does anybody else use a different technique animating?
Or is it just a bunch of trial-and-error?


Best regards from

M.E.

should make 6 frames?
should stop this project?
should kill yourself?
should stop reading now??

I think that you should make it 6 frames, but I know your limitations so that won't be changed

Edited by dragonrc - 04 June 2007 at 1:12pm

Unfortunately.... The width*height of each tile would change.
Since the frames are calculated based on the width/height.
Propably that is not a good thing to do, but I couldn't figure
out how to do it differently in the programming language.



Indeed very WIP. But you got a good point I think. When investigating
the chrono trigger sprites there was movement in the hair and
clothes, but the legs & arms & head moved rather smoothly and
not so jumpy as I had done it.

The frame steps are too wide apart. They are missing in-between
frames in my animation.

I'm currently working on a 'slower' walk by keeping the legs and
arms relatively close together.



Actually, I start with the side-view as I have two in-game objects
when I flip it (of course not when the lightsource has been added )


So, this is where I am:

- Chrono Trigger
  Has three, four and six frames for enemies and the 6 one for the team
  players. When removing just one of the 6 frames the movement
  becomes lumpy/jumpy.
  So, I had to touch mostly every frame to make the movement
  'better'. At least that is what I hope for.
  Not sure if this is regarding ripping, but if I change the height and
  width and the placements of the limps I think I'm not violating
  the copyright. (Is there copyright on walk? )

I discovered that animation is a lot about timing.
When taking the same cycle with different speed
it is not really working:
(Very WIP)
This is 150 ms, which looks better than:
the one with 100 ms.



My game will enable the user to select the speed of the animation.
But I have a starting speed that suits the first (slow) one better.
There are a lot of animations to be done so I decided to go for
one speed to base my animations on rather than creating different
animation cycles for different selection speeds.
If the player wants to go faster he will have to be faced with the
jumpier graphics.

Am I on the right track?
Or, is what I'm talking about nonsense?


Thanks a bunch for everybody who is taking the time and
effort to help me.

Highly appreciated!


Best regards from

M.E.

quick sketch ups of a 8 frame run cycle from both left and right...  imageready screwed up my save for web prefs, so it is a bit screwed up...  but maybe it will still help

timing slowed down for reference

wire frame is good if you are doint a very very detailed animation.  such as a larger run and you want to have skeleton base to work with, for me atleast thats the best way.  animations this small, i clock the hell out of em

Dear All,

In one word:  AMAZING!
Your comments are really awsome!

The very biggest thing that hit me is that I was doing
way too much doing this.
You all might laugh at my stupidity, and I'm confessing
this only to help maybe another person who is reading
this to think twice of doing it like the way I was doing it.

You may know that I need a transparent background
for my game. So I tend to work with transparency on
in Gimp.
If I make a mistake I have to switch tools (Eraser instead
of Pencil). Also I need an outline in the game, but when
building up a cycle I of course do not need one!

When working on the excellent  8-frame piece from
Ensellitis I discovered that you CAN have the
legs and arms far apart, but it has to be nicely
timed to get a faster action.
In fact I made the legs run using a 5-frame cycle:  1, 3, 5, 7 8
(The front leg from frame 4  instead of the original 5)
The arms did something strange, but it made the point!
So disregard my comment that you can only
do a 5-frame walk/run with everything close together.





Lessons learned:

1. Use a background color and only one tool => Pencil
    Make transparent afterwards.
2. Use color blocks for different parts of the body
3. Do not work on details like hair
4. Remove shade/shadow
5. You can have large distance between frames
    but they have to be TIMED right!
6. Use reference lines to help you with the movement


M.E. Bows to his teachers.


Kind regards from

M.E.

Hello All,

After a week of practice it is time to show you where
I am.

During the week a lot of what I did ended up in the
trashbin.

Most of the time I spend was trying to figure out where
the ground is.
I think I have the forward foot (the one facing us).
Not quite sure about his behind-leg.

I tried to use another reference line which I removed
in the last version as it was a bit like he was walking on
a train-track when I kept it in

So what did I do?

1. Use a background color and only one tool => Pencil
    Make transparent afterwards.
2. Use color blocks for different parts of the body
3. Did not work on details like hair
4. Removed shadow
6. Used reference lines to help with the movement


The one I wanted to highlight is this one:

5. You can have large distance between frames
    but they have to be TIMED right!

After trying to figure out what was wrong with one of the
movements I realized that two frames after eachother
where too similar with stands of the arm.

        --->  


When two frames have too similar overlapping limps, it
looks like a jitter / swapping of the limps.

Boy, you need to watch out when you place those things.

The more I work on these things the more I think that
timing is the most important thing in animation.
The refrence lines and the sloppy pixels are not even
as important as the timing. I dare to say that you can
have a nice looking animation with sloppy pixels and
no reference line(s) at all.....I still need a lot of
practice on the timing.

Is timing something that you can learn?


This is what I have now:







@dragonrc: The arm movement like you have mentioned was attempted 
                 but it felt kinda strange. It had a clockwork pendulum effect.
                 Must have been my timing , I guess .....


@ensellitis: One time I had the 100ms timing again and the
                    animation looked really, really smooth and nice.
                   But I wanted the 150 ms and then the error showed!!!
                   So, unfortunately I can't hide them. I need to have it
                   spot on. A long way to go then .....


Kind regards from


M.E.

Hello again,

A lot of testing was done the past days.

The birdseye view is looking a little more like a stumble than a walk. The head seems oversized.

On your sideviews, I think the light brown leg should be bent a little bit more.

Hello Metaru,

Thank you for the investigations.

Unfortunately the suggestion you made (using two identical frames with
half-timing)  is not working for me.
Each frame gets exactly the same amount of timing in the game.
So your cheat does not work for me.
Nice suggestion by the way

Maybe in the end I will be better with the 5 frame animation.
At least I give it a try of three more weeks and see what comes up.


OK, I will try to match the point of view of the sprites to match the
chronos and see what happens.

Saludos Dear Sir.


Best regards from

M.E.

Hello All,

Here are some new walkies in this post.

I think the relaxed walking is now going much better:



The birdseye view is indeed emphasizing the body
parts a bit too much. I think I need to skew it a bit
so that reads more like a side-view than a upper view.

Another attempt on a (bit more) dynamic walk
by lifting the leg higher.



This one is real scetchy but I am attempting different
things at the moment.

Do you think that I should make the relaxed walk
more dynamic? Or is the relax walk good enough
to continue working on / with?


Best regards from

M.E.

Hello Metaru,

Thanks for the arm movement. I knew that, but forgotten
about it

This is what I did :
(This has a little bend in the movement, and attempt at large muscles)


Straightend out and fattend:



Hair and other stuff:



While I didn't had a problem with the proportions on the
color-block animation, I now think the figure is out of proportions.

I think he should be a little longer?!? I'm a right?
Is something else wrong? Before I'm working to far on it,
I would like more opinions.

Is the straighten out pose on the arms better than the bended one?

How about the muscles? Should I try to get them in?

I am also struggeling with the dark outline. Not sure
if I should do a sel-out or a regular (semi-)black line?
Most of the other objects have dark outlines.


Thanks in advance for all advice and comments.

Best regards from

M.E.

Ah, a new update. It is improving very well!

Hello All,

Here another update.

The lines are a little smoother now.
I removed a couple of pounds on the hero, so he
is a bit more in proportion (I think)

@Metaru: I changed one of the frames with an upward pointing
                foot which hopefully makes the walk more on the whole
                foot in stead of the toe....
@Dragonrc: I have moved the body a bit so that it was aligned more.
                   The character was sometimes one pixel further.




Is the animation too quickly?

I've attempted a non-upwards movement:


But that does look strange as well.

Or is the movement with the upward step the way it is
supposed to be?

Outline and smaller head:



At least I think the animation is smoother than before.
Is that a good assumption?


Thanks for your comments!

Best regards from


M.E.






Edited by M.E. - 29 June 2007 at 4:27am

Hello DragonRC,

Thanks for the arms!
I've attempted to edit it.



The hands switched sides in the animation you made so
I opted for a little view of the backarm.
When attempting to copy the changes to the back leg
the animation didn't flow anymore. I will investigate further but
for now I think it reads better anyway.

The 5th and 2nd frame have the upwards movement as they
have the full stretched legs as far as I can see.

I made the shirt one pixel longer.

Here are the mockups:



Outlined:


No shadow yet.

I think the outline version is what I should use.
Or a semi-selout.

Or, maybe I should use different colors alltogether?


Can I work on the details now?!

Best regards from


M.E.

YEAH

I have permission to color.

Well that brings me to the point where I ask if
different colors in frames helps or does not help
with the animation....

Look at my hair for instance.
I used different colors on the same spot to
try to get movement simulation.

Is this something that works? Or should
I refrain from using different colors in
animation?



And Metaro: I'm a peacefull man: no weapons!!!!
But there will be a sort of a cannon-character (we have to block it!)


Best regards from

M.E.

I am liking your character. I think the more detail (like the hair color change) is always a good idea for hero sprites. A gamer is more focused on this kind of sprite than other ingame elements.

On your next update throw #1 on a bit of game BG. I can't tell how distracting that zombie hop really is.

Hello All,

After some time watching and running in the game I decided
to keep the two frame upward movement.
No upward movement really looks weird like it slides on
the grass.

The shadow was way to black causing a 'cut-out' look.

Also the arm movement was made a bit more dramatic
which gives a better flow I think. Making the hand
lighter made it better to see.

What do you think?


             


Best regards from

M.E.

That last update looks good now to me ;)



*So I visited your PJ gallery profile and noticed you have nothing, no pixels, no faves, no comments...you gotta spread the love, man. Give back to the community that gives freely to you on occasion


Edited by jalonso - 07 July 2007 at 8:07am

HAHAHA... looks like Mr. M.E. is having the same problem with the login system that i had in the past.

That's not true, I'm sure that your comments are always recieved. you've made yourself a reputation here, and i'm sure that you can give a good advice or two (and not only technical issues -dithering, colors, animations and stuff like that-.)


and this is what i mean with 'not only technical issues'.

solve? solution? i never got one of those. if i'm correct, you can't login to the gallery using the same password you use in the forums. what i did was to request a new password thru the password recovery system, and then it could log in to the gallery using that new password wich was sent to my email, and of course use all the features of the gallery(submit PAs, rate, comments). when i needed to log in to the gallery, i had to go to my inbox, copy the password, and so. after a couple of months, i learned the code and now its just part of... well, i know my password.

the others? more experienced? hey! and where im supposed to be there? we ALL learn from each others. maybe some people had spent more time pixeling, and had one thing or two under their sleve, but im sure no one considers himself as a "master"(and my avatar is, ironically, a good example). i'm always wandering in the WIP forum because i try to learn from others attemps, it doesn't matter if they're newbies or seniors.

ok ok... no more morale-rising dialogs, i dont want to sound like the William Wallace of the pixeling.

back on thread:
the front and back walk need an entire redesing. notice how the legs change during the animation of the backwalk? and in front walk, our hero looks a bit femenine... he walks like he only used his rigth leg to advance.
about the size, why he would change his stature? the size of his body should always be the same. just think how abrupt would be the change when a player walks to the north and then walks to the south.
the arms: in the backwalk one his left arm doesn't move. while the rigth one just moves his elbow.
in the frontwalk the arms look fine, but for some reason they look as they were united to the body. but that is just a personal point of view.

as always, looking foward to help you.
slaudos

Hi Hi,


Yet another update.

This time I tried to broaden the walk to give
it more mascularity.

One with outline so that I could view it in
the game. But I promised not to do details
as long as I don't have the permission








Is this better?

Best regards from


M.E.