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Top Pixel Art - June 2021 (#8)
You might be interested with the artist's technique, I recommend scrolling to the bottom comment.
Mate, such a honor coming from you.
I would also love to make a collaboration with you some day !
I'm also guilty of rarely finding time for personnal pieces, I've used this Shibuya expo to motivate myself and try doing different stuff from usual pixelart sprite work. So let's ping each other as soon as we find a good excuse to make a kickass piece together !
Wow, you're the first one to notice this details ! As my "fake" camera is aiming at the girl, I wanted to give a camera shake feel to push the speed effect while remaining a calme movement.
To do so I've used a scrolling up tween (50% of the total loop cycle) while scolling down-right the result. Therefor it gives a "-2px:-1px" translation results but alternate the tween depending on the even/odd frames ( as it is not a 45° motion). I might not be super clear here, let me know If you want a sample anim of it !
I call it the catch-up FX. It is also super usefull on auto-aiming particles ( like a vector field pushing the part while this one moving).
You've become my favorite pixel animator over the years. You're work is outstanding. Thank you for taking the time to create personal pieces. We need more of that from talented artists like you. Too many artists get caught up doing commissions and don't get to experiment as much. (I'm guilty of this).
Anyway onto the specifics. There's a lot to unpack and investigate in this animation. So many thoughtful details. I'm not a big fan of glitch style animations, since most artists go overboard with the effects. But you kept it simple here.
I notice the background shifts in an unpredictable angle, so it sort of rocks back and forth as it goes down to the left. Great choice. Was this intentional, or a happy accident? A smooth background motion would probably not work as well. I never would have thought to do that.
I'd love to do a collaboration animation with you some day.
Thanks you so very much, as I have very few moments to make "big" personnal pieces, I really did put a lot of myself in this one. Trying to explore new grounds and technics.
I've spent a long time making research about any kind of infinite loop motion that inclued acceleration + friction. From Lutz, Axels, parkour or Diving... And finaly, I stumbled upon the work of @juliegautier.nery + @guillaumenery That I was already following as I'm a diver.
In this video , Julie is doing a triple loop using the bottom of the pool. This was the closest thing to what I was evisionning. Slow, calm, yet Powerfull. Lots of grace and strengh.
Then I've studied the 3 loop in order to find how to make it infinite, using the head + shoulder movement (lutz + swimming technique) was a gracefull way to create a sens of "kick" / dynamism while remaining a contained and "self protecting" move.
Then I went for the compo, I already knew I was aiming for a golden number spiral, as it express this infinity concept so well. ( your can see the compo construction golden rule spiral blinking on a few frames). Showing it explicitly was my way to translate the self introspection on this creative process.
After fiding the right keyframe position I've pixelart the subjects using those motion ref try to keep the flow and not fall in the cluster stiffness some realistic pixelart tends to have. I kinda fell in this departement tbh.
Then I started to find the surealistic surroundings, at first I went for a parallax + fake 3D motion, but This was taking too much space in the compo and was loosing the calme vibe. Went for space as a easy way to create depth, loneliness and contrast in the compo.
NellyVan / came2slide / redmilion > Thanks a lot for the support !
Ho yeah, I did spent like a week of work on it over a month and a half. From the concept, researchs, animation, rendering, VFX... Pixelart can be such time consiming process when going hi-rez !
Merci Beaucoup =)
Yeah you're right about those proportions issues.
As I went for a super slow FPS on the women's rotation, the acceleration frame ( using head and shoulders to gain momentum) felt wired. Therefore I went for a fake smear/morph on the head to suggest the fast pace of the transition. That what cause this problem as i did not really mastered such hi rez pixelart smearing without going too cartoony.
Yeah, cropping it was a shame. If I find time I might make a PJ version of it with less loop/variation.
Thanks a lot !
I can't express how impressed I am... Oh, wait, I actually can!
I am VERY IMPRESSED.
Did you overpaint video or something? Or is it fully out of your head?
Amazing work! Can't even imagine how much time and effort that animation must've taken.
Vraiment très chouette comme proposition pour la Shibuya Pixel Art, Alexis ! Félicitations ! 
Shame you couldn't upload the full piece...
Anyway, I think the work on the figure is good - clusters are neat, the lighting is consistent with the volume.
I really like the afterglow around her, too. In a few frames, her face sometimes loses consistency in terms of proportion, but it doesn't take away from the smooth flow you've achieved, especially at around ~200 frames.
I also enjoy how you've made the piece feel a lot more alive thanks to the VFX, it really is part of what makes a Mr HK piece - though if I had a nit to pick, I would love to see some VFX travel behind the woman, as it would give a bit more depth to the scene!
Regardless, you did a good job and the outcome is very pleasant to watch. :)
Pity it had to be cropped, but it still looks fantastic! Hope this gets in!
This is a cropped version of this piece as the animation was over the max file size (1.9Mo ). Yes, this kinda ruin the composition, but I was not able to cut thru those frames I've spent so much time on. Compressing was ruining the color / clusters, frame skipping was messing up with the anim/flow.
If you want to see it full (but compressed) : https://twitter.com/mr_Hk_/status/1407693333531705345
As a matter of technic, as my previews entries, I use numerous color indexing methodes to animate the BG / stars. It's full photoshop, using video layers and color table real time indexing. Some might call it wizardery as it is a rendering process. But in our age where aesprite do auto dithering, auto ramp, color blend and so much more, pro motion let your script those kind of processing, Unity/ after effect let you animate in 3D space, I feel like this piece remains 98% made by hand, with great care to the core rules of the medium while trying to push the boundaries of the medium using game dev tech.
I really hope Pj could evolve in terme of guidelines and size limite. I was not able to publish here most of my recent work and I really missed the mature feedbacks, pinpointy C&C I was getting from this amazing community.
What do you mean by render ? You've got most of the process details explained in my previous comments.