AuthorTopic: Animated Pogo Man  (Read 6819 times)

Offline MysteryMeat

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Animated Pogo Man

on: August 29, 2016, 09:31:23 am
So, i'm working on a rather large commission (for me, at least) and it involves this man pogoing past a group of people.

I'm not quite sure how to make this look better, however. I've spent a lot of time on it and I can't quite get the whole of it to look right.
Any suggestions?
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline 32

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Re: Animated Pogo Man

Reply #1 on: August 29, 2016, 09:47:33 am
A person on a pogo stick is essentially jumping. You jump by compressing your body and then decompressing. Especially your legs. Add more of that compression and decompression to the whole figure and you'll find it looks a lot more interesting. Remember to stagger the motion through the whole figure as the energy travels from the ground up through his body. First the feet and the pogo, then the hips, then the shoulders and then finally the head. And then spring him back out upright as he bounces into the air.

The key is motion through all points of rotation in the body, don't try to cheat it you'll just waste more time fiddling with stiff animation. I would suggest as an exercise to try simplifying the body down to it's four main points of rotation, head, torso, hips and feet/pogo. Draw each as a simple circle off to the side of your animation and then just animate that. Each one is just a simple bouncing ball with the animation staggered backwards by a frame to the one beneath it. Once THAT looks convincing it's as simple as translating that motion to the figure.

Good luck :y:

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Animated Pogo Man

Reply #2 on: August 29, 2016, 10:43:26 am
Problem is that I HAVE to be economical here. Despite the scale I'm expected to be doing this pretty cheap, and while it may seem pretty cynical I'm not really capable of doing a whole lot of extra frame-by-frame work when I agreed to be doing something otherwise simple and most importantly within my skills as an animator.
 I need to find some better shortcuts, I guess, is what I'm saying.

A longer aside, I really do hate having to do this kind of thing. I have to draw six other small 2-frame character animations in addition to this, and then have them sync with the bounce as he moves on past. Without object oriented animation programming this becomes a lot more difficult to accomplish, and on top of that I'm just...
kind of not great at animation, when it comes to putting pen to paper. I understand the concepts and have solid ideas in my head to translate, but that translation part always falls apart because I can't make my hands do the things I need them to.
To date my most complex animation was this here, which to be frank just doesn't look all that good AND took me several months to get done, meaning I can't do this on commission until I find some way of speeding up and refining my process, which despite numerous attempts since just hasn't been happening.
I want to get better and faster with my animated work, but I am also very attentive to my pricing and don't want anyone to feel like they've gotten ripped off, both the commissioner myself included.
Hence why I seek out viable "shortcuts" to make things that, while not technically superior, will still look good to the majority of people viewing said art. Like homestuck's use of sprites and spastic motions, to paint the kind of aesthetic I shoot for.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |

Offline 32

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Re: Animated Pogo Man

Reply #3 on: August 29, 2016, 11:05:21 am
There are no real shortcuts in animation and I tend to find that you'll waste more time trying to find a shortcut than you would just patching up new frames. Just animate cutout, and figure out which pieces absolutely need to rotate and commit to drawing a couple of unique frames for those, in this case you could probably get away with just the thighs and the forearms. Other than that the lower legs, upper arms, hips, torso and head can all just be swapped out for the bouncing balls you do in the test animation.

You just need to accept that if you want to make the animation look nice you're going to have to re draw some parts, pixel animators don't have the luxury of perfect rotation like cut-out animators do. If you're smart about it you'll probably be able to get away with only 2 or 3 substitutions for the thighs and forearms. And you've already got some of the work done on the arms. You really just need to get those legs going and there isn't really a way past that.

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Animated Pogo Man

Reply #4 on: August 30, 2016, 10:41:38 am
Augh, you're probably right.
I can't do much more for this one right now, it's already astoundingly late work for me, but I'll put some extra time this month into animation to try and get my hands flush with my head.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |

Offline nessx007

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Re: Animated Pogo Man

Reply #5 on: August 31, 2016, 07:04:29 am
Just wanted to drop in and say, I feel your pain! And godspeed on finishing the job. I've been in similar work situations and yeah it's quite an uncomfortable situation to be in for the reasons you listed. I can attest to the fact that you will get faster though as you do more work. I was new to animation when I started my first animation-heavy project and I spent way too long on my first ones. I still probably spend too much time (as someone who is overly self-critical) but it's a lot less than when I started, and I've learned shortcuts like using video/image references when I'm lacking motivation myself. At the end of the day, hired gigs are just that, a job, so there will be those pieces you won't ever be satisfied with personally, but as long as the client is happy, that's a wrap! Then you move on fresh to something else.
Hope this little blurb finds you well! We've got a fun little series documenting our progress on our SNES puzzle throwback game here:
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Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: Animated Pogo Man

Reply #6 on: August 31, 2016, 07:43:23 am
Work way dirtier.
Make 5-10 versions.
Use different a different approach/theory for each.
Compare.
Pick the best few.
Develop them further.
Compare.
Pick the best one.
Finish it off.
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Animated Pogo Man

Reply #7 on: August 31, 2016, 08:57:17 am
At the end of the day, hired gigs are just that, a job, so there will be those pieces you won't ever be satisfied with personally, but as long as the client is happy, that's a wrap! Then you move on fresh to something else.
Aaah, yeah I suppose you're right. I'll keep this in mind!
And piledriver, noted! I'll start doing that more, I need to stop relying on overcorrection so much anyways.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Animated Pogo Man

Reply #8 on: September 10, 2016, 02:57:01 am
Alright, so now I'm at a roadblock I don't think I'll be able to conquer through effort alone.
Namely, stitching the foreground animation and animated background crawl together.
I somehow need to get this:

To scroll behind this:

so that it LOOPS.
I'm working in aseprite and no combination of frame timings, layering, and manual copypasting seems to be working, does anyone have any ideas?

Feel free to throw in other critique too, I really want to get this done well but I'm also VERY SPECIFICALLY looking for advice on stitching these two together.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |

Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: Animated Pogo Man

Reply #9 on: September 10, 2016, 10:23:09 am


Modify what you have so that the math fits together.

Backdrop doods are 6 frames.
Pogo guy was 30 frames. --> changed to 18, a multiple of 6

Backdrop doods are 300 pixels wide. --> changed to 288, a multiple of 6 and 18
At 1 pixel per frame scroll speed, backdrop will wrap in 288 frames, same number as pixel width.

Now that all the math is right do the scrolling motion.
Place a duplicate of the backdrop next to itself.
Backdrop1.x = 0
Backdrop2.x = 288
Now move both backdrops 1 pixel per frame until Backdrop2 replaces Backdrop1.
Keep in mind the journey for B2 to replace B1 will take 1 more frame than the width.
The last and first frames will be duplicates, so delete the last frame.
I used Flash to created the scrolling with a tween, much faster than moving the backdrop per frame by hand.



Export pngs, import into GraphicsGale as animation, check the pixels, save as gif.

Messed with the pogo guy.
Try to focus on improving his motion
Make him shoot up, slow, hang at the peak, slow, drop down, compress, loop.
Didn't change any of the drawings, only the positions and frame count to adjust the motion.
Having the frame multiple limit in place will help you make choices.

The colors could be improved.
There are some clarity issues.

Here's the edited images:




And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1