the art of animation
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=12953
Printed Date: 09 June 2026 at 2:48am
Topic: the art of animation
Posted By: Cyangmou
Subject: the art of animation
Date Posted: 13 September 2011 at 12:06pm
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I spent the last time with trying animating and after my last gallery entry there started some kind of troll war. I guess it was because I have barely no experience with animating and after my second fail attempt I thought it's a good idea to start a new (this time very small) animation experiment with a little bit help from our community. The creature design is rather simple and it's a small sprite. It's a flying skull and the cervical certebra creates a tail that the whole thing is in balance. I made a quick sketch (no pixel art, just the general concept)  and after that I did the basesprite just to see if it works (changed already here and there some details, added eyes, changed the shape of the wings... - I am also open for c&c on the base sprite  Now I started with animating the whole thing and it looks
actual like this: |
Replies:
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 13 September 2011 at 12:08pm
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Right now the up/down time is 50/50. I would do the wings going down very quickly, stall them at the bottom for a moment and then do a slow rise. This is only what I assume to be right, I don't have referrences or experience. ------------- |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 13 September 2011 at 12:25pm
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I'm just posting here to say that this looks absolutely awesome. Sorry for not offering something constructive. |
Posted By: Cyangmou
Date Posted: 13 September 2011 at 2:54pm
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@Hapiel ... wasn't sure about this, it seems to make sense but some birds are flapping rather with the same speed up and down... it depends on the creature. I also don't have references or experience it's only a question of the general look I guess. However I tried it out it and now it only depends on what's looking better.  |
Posted By: Qemist
Date Posted: 13 September 2011 at 4:06pm
| Nice stuff :D |
Posted By: onek
Date Posted: 13 September 2011 at 5:36pm
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i think there should be on more frame after the top position of the wings to ease out the motion and show the force needed to push the air down
also the actual down movement of the wings could be more rapid i think, maybe delete the middle postion frame... i tried this in a cheap edit... also i delayed the up down movement of the skull by on pixel and added one more frame before the up motion (some intention as the other one....) 
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Posted By: r1k
Date Posted: 13 September 2011 at 11:10pm
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heres a video I found on youtube that might help http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni_mS4cKPXY&feature=related - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni_mS4cKPXY&feature=related it shows a bat flying in slow motion from complete side view. I noticed that the way bats fly is a little different from what you are making though. I looked for similar videos but with birds but couldnt find one. Hopefully the bat video is atleast of some help though. |
Posted By: ChrisButton
Date Posted: 14 September 2011 at 5:56am
| Flapping wings isn't something you can just inbetween, although you can use it for timing, the frames themselves cannot simply be inbetweens of the two major keyframes. They have to flap. It's hard to explain if you don't know animation terminology. Do you know what I mean though? |
Posted By: Cyangmou
Date Posted: 14 September 2011 at 12:13pm
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@r1k: great help, I was looking exactly for something like this, but don't found something with this quality. @Chris: I guess you are talking about an blur effect or a shape distortion caused by movement. I'll try to add some effect like this although I don't know exactly how I'll create it, but I'll see, The general movement is for me atm more important than the animation effects. Once the move looks fine I'll start to block it out. However I studied R1k's reference video long time and I guess I got it how the bat flying movement works. Because of this I made another try with some rough lines and I also made the jaw clapping (but not completely sure if I should better remove it) Here's the try:  |
Posted By: Lathien
Date Posted: 14 September 2011 at 3:03pm
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I'm no expert in animation or bat-flying, but I think the latest animation you've posted only makes sense with a bat's body. Because it's just a skull at the base of the wings, the way you have the wings pushing forward doesn't relate to the entire creature's centre of gravity. I'm thinking you should either move the head forward and up from where it is and maybe attach the wings to a spine coming from the skull or have the wings push down in more of a backwards direction when they flap. But that's just my guess. Hope I helped. And you're animation is great BTW, that's the kind of work I aspire to get to. |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 14 September 2011 at 3:48pm
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Very well done on the new one! But, the wings needs to go lower, it looks awkward now. If you look to the video again, you will see that the lowest point is where the top of the wings are at the height of the top of the head. Everthing in a horizontal line. That is quite a bit lower than your current one, but I think you got the timing quite good!
------------- |
Posted By: ChrisButton
Date Posted: 14 September 2011 at 9:49pm
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Hmm, that's not what I meant, sorry!
I'll try and draw an example later if I remember. :-)
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 16 September 2011 at 2:17pm
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Motion is so much better now. ------------- |
Posted By: Qemist
Date Posted: 17 September 2011 at 2:09am
| The motion is defenitly better but as mentioned the head needs to be placed higher and maybe even his direction hes facing as the wings seem to fly left, while hes facing diagonally.. but ofcourse you can always look at a different position then you are walking too.. although you might slip on the pavement.. :p |
Posted By: Cyangmou
Date Posted: 17 September 2011 at 6:07am
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Finally found some time to work again on it. I changed lots of the things which were said. I placed the head higher, wings go deeper now, corrected the perspective too (just moved the right - head's left - wing some pixels back) and I also changed the movement of the head that the force and the weight is more obvious. @Lathien: From the anatomical and real side side you are of course right. I guess it's not possible to add wings to an real skull this way, there would not be place for muscles that they can move and of course it won't work because it's not possible to balance the whole thing out. But that doesn't matter me as long as I am just doing a monster design which should look cool and fun. Here is the new version:  |
Posted By: Lathien
Date Posted: 17 September 2011 at 11:24am
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That looks great. And from what you've done now, this actually does adress what I was saying. Now the skull/body moves back on the downward flap so it makes sense when the wings flap forward. Great work, I can never get my animations this smooth. |
Posted By: Souly
Date Posted: 17 September 2011 at 11:49am
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I think your pull back is way too dramatic on the skull. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPvmRKoPHk8 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPvmRKoPHk8 Watch a real bat in slow mo check out those finger bones they bend much like normal fingers. But notice how Bart the Bat does not really pull his body back so far, it does pull back but it's very faint of a movement. also pay attention to the stretch from the foot to the pinky because its looking very jumpy. I'd like to add that the tail looks like it's a part of one wing rather then both. maybe adding some kind of bone/spine to it, may really help it feel more centered. ------------- 
I am the jesus of PJ. |
Posted By: Cyangmou
Date Posted: 21 September 2011 at 3:08pm
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FOund again a little time to work on it. Cleaned it a bit up and started with blocking it out. Changed also some minor things.  |
Posted By: Cyangmou
Date Posted: 02 October 2011 at 2:57pm
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reanimating this topic again, took longer than I wanted to. I played around with the colors (are maybe a bit pale in the shadow area, but much nearer to that what I want) And I worked out 2 frames, now I am thinking about how underlining the movement with a nice blur effect between these 2 "static" frames. Also added the holes of the wings roughly.  |
Posted By: Qemist
Date Posted: 03 October 2011 at 1:10am
| SHIIIIICK!! This is gonna turn out so badass when I see the frames that are detailed man you sure got some real smooth animation right there! |
Posted By: Cyangmou
Date Posted: 13 October 2011 at 1:31pm
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Ah, started this exactly a month ago and don't really came forwards. I am feeling like stepping at the same place if it comes to this piece, however I overlooked it today again and made some changes to it according to some things I learned the last weeks. The thing which I am most interested right now is the style question and I am asking myself if it's not better to think about the general style of the sprite and maybe experimenting with it a bit more. The thing is quite simple,  it's showing 3 lines with 3 different skulls (1: old skull, 2: new skull, other colors, 3: new skull with old colors) If it'd be used with a background I guess the first or the second line is more important. If it comes to prsenting the single sprite the third line is the strongest one I guess. The big question now is of course which one looks best, and which one has the best reading. Maybe some of our psecialists have some good advices and experiences to share. |
Posted By: Lathien
Date Posted: 13 October 2011 at 2:15pm
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I'm no specialist, but I'll give it a try. I definitely think that the new skull is better, so the first is out for me. As for the other two, it really depends on what style you're going for. The old colors look like a Castlevania style of sprite, where accurate colors didn't really matter and they were just going for something that 'popped'. The other colors looks more realistic to bat wings. It looks less psychadelic and more like the style of today's games, where everyone goes for realism and every game is made of different shades of brown. But even though I don't like that style of modern games, the new colors look better to me, possibly because of the amount of contrast between the blue and red, two colors that really don't mix well. Well, that's my opinion. Hope it helps :) |
Posted By: Qemist
Date Posted: 13 October 2011 at 6:35pm
| I love the new colour and skull! just finish the animation and you're set dude! |
Posted By: Cyangmou
Date Posted: 27 November 2011 at 7:44am
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After working on this each day about 10 minutes it's nearer to finish now. I changed the colors, the face expression, worked out the frames and added a shadow to it. I also smoothened out the animation a bit.  |
Posted By: mdog95
Date Posted: 27 November 2011 at 8:54am
| Very nice. Maybe draw a background for him now if nobody else has more critique. |
Posted By: Partack
Date Posted: 27 November 2011 at 2:24pm
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i didn't know bats flew like that.. it looks weird to me.. kinda like the wings are going forward in a grabbing kind of fashion..
that being said, the animation is smooth and beautiful and the motions are very convincing, they certainly suggest flight and air resistance. I think i prefer the red wings better. I don't know why. they look more bold and kinda strike me more than the pink. Other than this, i have nothing more to add i'm afraid. Edit: wait, no, i have a critique actually the way the bat is suspended in the air kinda bothers me slightly. it looks like the base of the bat is .....hovering. on a magnetic field.. and the wings are jsut lifting the bat up off the magnetic field.. I think it has something to do with the pause before the wings flap down again, i can't be sure.. it seems to me that the bat would fall further down if it had its wings moving upwards for that speed and length of time.. also (And you may hate me for suggesting this because of all the hard work you've already put into it) But i don't think the wings flap down far enough.. which might make the 'grabbing' affect i mentioned earlier a side effect of this.. it feels like the wings should push down for the bat to go up.. I could be talking out of my ass though so i dunno. maybe someone else has some feedback in relation to all this. |
Posted By: Qemist
Date Posted: 28 November 2011 at 8:13am
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it looks amazing! :) |