WIP (Work In Progress)
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TrulyVile
Seaman
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Joined: 06 November 2015
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Quote TrulyVile Replybullet Topic: Run Cycle and Other WIPs
    Posted: 06 November 2015 at 1:20pm
Hello! I'm currently making a game with a lot of animations but I feel like I'm having a lot of trouble giving the player character's animation the right...personality, character, flow.

Currently I have three animations I think are decent, but don't have the personality I'm looking for: the run, the idle, the strike. All fairly early WIPs (I'm thinking of adding some recoil to the strike when I fix it up, and of course adding the head/hair to the run cycle)



Note that it's a platformer: the character has no real athletic training so I'd go for a kind of clumsy, always-sticks-the-landing-on-accident feel if I knew the finer points to infusing the sprites with personality.

Does anyone have any advice, or maybe links to resources/articles/tutorials about bringing life to boring animations?

NOTES: All sprites in the game are 4 colors + transparency. Frame count doesn't matter but I'm trying to keep everything under 30 frames. The style is somewhat inspired by black and white cartoons.

Thanks for reading, advice/criticism greatly appreciated.
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Lindion45
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Joined: 03 June 2016
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Quote Lindion45 Replybullet Posted: 19 November 2015 at 6:45am
I feel the run animation is a little too bouncy? Like I can see that over exaggeration is the key to make something look fluid, but I feel it's a bit overdone.
The way her torso twists from side to side looks good, but when someone is running, their head doesn't maintain the same location, it bobs backwards and forwards slightly

Also for someone who's supposed to be a bit clumsy, I'm impressed she's running so confidently in heels!

As for the umbrella swipe? I think that's what she's using? Maybe a bag?

The foot rising up behind and step forward is a nice little detail! But I think her face staying still for those few frames looks a little strange, along with her hat seemingly bobbling about all over the place.
In terms of the actual swing, I feel it would look a bit better if the speed of the object started slow, and increased as it gathered momentum. Maybe even in the final frames you could add a bit of pixel blur?
If she's clumsy, she might subtly lose her balance a bit after such a strike! Also, her hair is pretty much static!

The idle animation looks a bit overstated as well. She has a very severe twitch! Maybe just a slight breathing animation of her upper body and head, rather than a full bobloop!
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