A Steam Engine, with some wheel worries.
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: WIP (Work In Progress)
Forum Discription: Get crits and comments on your pixel WIPs and other art too!
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10112
Printed Date: 14 September 2025 at 2:12am
Topic: A Steam Engine, with some wheel worries.
Posted By: Winzenhimer
Subject: A Steam Engine, with some wheel worries.
Date Posted: 02 April 2010 at 1:31pm
Hey guys, I'm working on a project for the folks at Stencyl, but this sprite is giving me a little grief. My area of trouble is the leading wheel under the cow catcher and the wheels on the tender car. As you can see they don't appear to be moving at all, and I was hoping if anyone could give me some pointers on how to fix that. I thought that a "shadow" that slides back and forth on top of the wheels (and a smaller variant under them) in tune with the engine might help, but I'm unsure. Thanks! P.s., the low .Gif quality is just a side effect from my test animator, the final animation will be clean. |
Replies:
Posted By: HCGamer
Date Posted: 02 April 2010 at 2:21pm
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Awesome sprite!! Maybe try doing to the back wheels what you did to the front. ------------- This is not a sig, look away now. Go on, get. |
Posted By: Ruban
Date Posted: 02 April 2010 at 4:11pm
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Turn down the dithering. Seriously. As for spinning the wheels, try putting little dots on them that spin around. Also, the wheels that you can see on the other side of the car are not moving at all. |
Posted By: Winzenhimer
Date Posted: 02 April 2010 at 5:11pm
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Originally posted by HCGamer Awesome sprite!! Maybe try doing to the back wheels what you did to the front. Thank you, HCGamer! I would do as you suggested, but the large slab of green on the driving wheels is actually a counter-weight for the running gear, like you'd see on a real steam train. The smaller wheels wouldn't need a counter-weight because they are free rolling. Originally posted by Ruban Turn down the dithering. Seriously. I'm afraid that's not dithering. It's an aftereffect my test animator has when compressing files into .GIF, it's trying to make up for the lack of colors in it's auto-compressor by tossing dots around. Here's an example of the train in .PNG, the file type that will be used in the final animation.  Originally posted by Ruban As for spinning the wheels, try putting little dots on them that spin around. Also, the wheels that you can see on the other side of the car are not moving at all. I tried that in the beginning:  However I couldn't get the splices in the wheels to resemble rotation, so I opted for solid wheels. The main issue is indeed the smaller wheels, I'm not sure on how to properly animate them so they appear to be rotating. |
Posted By: Zeratanus
Date Posted: 02 April 2010 at 6:01pm
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I tried that in the beginning: However I couldn't get the splices in the wheels to resemble rotation, so I opted for solid wheels. The main issue is indeed the smaller wheels, I'm not sure on how to properly animate them so they appear to be rotating. Well the problem there is that they're not moving. You cant give the illusion of movement with them just staying still. You have to make another frame with them in the middle of where they are now, then alternate those, and boom - movement. |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 02 April 2010 at 6:44pm
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Originally posted by Winzenhimer I'm afraid that's not dithering. It's an aftereffect my test animator has when compressing files into .GIF, it's trying to make up for the lack of colors in it's auto-compressor by tossing dots around. Just so you know. While the effect looks interesting this is not considered pixelart. The train looks nice otherwise. ------------- |
Posted By: DGH94
Date Posted: 02 April 2010 at 7:12pm
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Originally posted by jalonso
Originally posted by Winzenhimer Just so you know. While the effect looks interesting this is not considered pixelart.The train looks nice otherwise.I'm afraid that's not dithering. It's an aftereffect my test animator has when compressing files into .GIF, it's trying to make up for the lack of colors in it's auto-compressor by tossing dots around. Uhm: I'm afraid that's not dithering. It's an aftereffect my test animator has when compressing files into .GIF, it's trying to make up for the lack of colors in it's auto-compressor by tossing dots around. So it's just an un-wanted effect. If you look in that same post, he has one of the frames as a .png, and it's much cleaner. |
Posted By: Winzenhimer
Date Posted: 02 April 2010 at 8:06pm
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Originally posted by Zeratanus I tried that in the beginning: However I couldn't get the splices in the wheels to resemble rotation, so I opted for solid wheels. The main issue is indeed the smaller wheels, I'm not sure on how to properly animate them so they appear to be rotating. Well the problem there is that they're not moving. You cant give the illusion of movement with them just staying still. You have to make another frame with them in the middle of where they are now, then alternate those, and boom - movement. Right, but I was unsuccessful in creating splices in the proper place to give off the illusion of motion. Because of this I've switch to solid wheels and now feel they better fit the locomotive. Originally posted by DGH94 Originally posted by jalonso
Originally posted by Winzenhimer Just so you know. While the effect looks interesting this is not considered pixelart.The train looks nice otherwise.I'm afraid that's not dithering. It's an aftereffect my test animator has when compressing files into .GIF, it's trying to make up for the lack of colors in it's auto-compressor by tossing dots around. Uhm: I'm afraid that's not dithering. It's an aftereffect my test animator has when compressing files into .GIF, it's trying to make up for the lack of colors in it's auto-compressor by tossing dots around. So it's just an un-wanted effect. If you look in that same post, he has one of the frames as a .png, and it's much cleaner. I'll just ram it in, the animations you see now are preliminary test animations as I simply copy->pasted each frame into a basic GIF animator. The side effect of this tool (and very reason I don't used this animator for finals) is that it only accepts GIFs and will (horribly) compress the image quality into a dotted mess in a vain attempt to make up for its itty-bitty-baby color well. The reason I don't use higher quality animation tools for testing is well, the current animator does a good job as a test bed and I can still easily see when something is aloft in the strip despite the color lost. The final animation will be in PNG and 100% unintended dot free. |
Posted By: Buddy90
Date Posted: 03 April 2010 at 12:27am
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I think it would help if you showed your gifs here in the cleaner gif animation program. Also, If you move the wheels just one pixel up and down it should fix the problem. ------------- http://ps3trophycard.com/profile/vilocon"> 
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