HAY GUISE
I'm lending a hand in the art department of a couple of (as of yet! ) backwater roguelike projects, and for one of them I've gotta do two-frame animootions. I'm trying doing a base sprite and then editing it to make characters and monsters.
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Walking animation. I used as reference some walking cycle tutorial I found around here. Cantremembername. But now I'm thinking that perhaps the second frame should be another pose, not the opposite contact pose.
Can it be C+C tiem nao? plz?
Two frame? I don't really know about that; as far as I've heard, or seen, it's practically impossible to pull off a two-frame walk cycle and make it look, well, THAT good. Or past decent, in any matter. It took me a while, actually, to distinguish between either frame in the walk cycle animations. Oh well. I figure it's limitations--at least make the sprites good.
My suggestion, perhaps do it the way some NES sprites did it (I think): make a sprite where the limbs are at full-swing, farthest from the body (like what you've got here, but make the back and front limbs harder to distinguish from eachother), also lifted up from the ground a bit. And then make another sprite, similar to the standing position where the limbs are about down (or just rework the standing position), and loop it of course. As for the animations where the character is walking up or down, you might have to sneak in a third sprite as well, and nudge it in between the two sprites you already have. On the lower right, you know, so it would go somewhat like this: left arm close, both arms down, right arm close, repeat.
Quick! An edit!
There's also
this tutorial for decent two frame walk-cycles I encountered some years ago, if you're looking for an animated example, or haven't come across it already.