Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: The B.O.B. on April 27, 2006, 08:46:12 pm
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If any one here is a frequent pixeljoint stalker, than maybe you've seen a lil of my work. I recently sent this one in; my rendition of the pirahna plant from super mario bros. When I finished it, I thought it looked fine. However, to my surprise, members at PJ opened my eyes to a couple issues with it. One was the fact that the lip colors fluctuated and changed as the frames progressed. The main issue, however was the animation itself. They told me that the reality of the chomp action didn't seem right. It had to do with the issue of the mouth bieng closed to the extent of it's reach. I'm trying to fix it, so I need some help. Cuz quite frankly, I want to make something the best I can without leaving it unfinished for once. So I'm blowing my special secret whistle to call upon the help of "The League Extraordinary Pixel'men"...
old>(http://img15.imgspot.com/u/06/116/17/pirahnaplantopt1146173536.gif) vs. new>(http://img15.imgspot.com/u/06/116/17/pirahnaupdate1146174126.gif)
So tell me wise ones, where else shall I improve upon this fragile flora of pixelated constructs? Seriously though, I wanna know what else I can do to make it better. Does any one here think the newer version is worse than than older version? Or have I improved slightly upon it? Been frozen for 50 friggin years here....need the info....
Thanks for listenin'...
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animation is not a strong point of mine, infact it's a weak point..
animation is camus' thing..
anyways, it does look a lot better.
I've had a look through the frames and i can't find anything to make me cry so it gets a thumgs up from me.
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this oozes b.o.b.
when camus rolls through next i'm sure he'll leave a 30 page analysis for you :) I'm not capable so i'll comment on the actual pixelwork. First thing that catches my eye are the greens. They look like some sort of shimmery satin material. The highlights seem to travel around rather than the object moving to catch the light.
love the ambition and non-linearity of both motion and design.
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workin on somethin for you..
ill have some crits up in abit
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Hey wow B.O.B. the update is awesome. The colours seem darker, which looks quite good actually, but i'm just wondering whether that was intentional. There's still something whining at me about the animation. I think you could try leaving the plant with its jaw locked at the end of the chomp for a bit, perhaps even shuddering, to increase the feel of a huge slam or shock. Just a lil idea though (but probs alot of work that might not make it better atall...) Now that i think more about it perhaps the quick snap is better... well owel, at least i put something into the ideas stew.
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B.O.B, your new animation is a great improvement, making the mouth opening much wider shows much more force in the bite. However at the end of the bite itself, the mouth doesn't move much, what bit of movement that is there is fairly slow. Consider making the head jerk back significantly more after the bite. However this does depend on the nature of the bite, the head wouldn't jerk that much if the creature actually sucessfully bit into another creature or object.
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aah i saw that over there, this new version is much better I think, you really get a sense for his mouth opening wide, which is great. The only crit I have is that the spots on the top of the flower's...well head i guess, they jerk to a new position pretty badly a couple frames in. otherwise its just as smooth as can be, awesome stuff!
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Great improvement!
I love the motion blur you've got going on here.
I still think its mouth should open earlier. I think it should start opening when it pulls it's head back all the way, so when it lunges forward its mouth is fully open.
There's a funny shift in the top part of the flower when it starts moving it back.
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I agree that the new one is a great improvement, though they both blow me away :)
Aside from what has already been mentioned, there's a bit of weirdness going on at the end of the bite (frame 11, I think).
As the plant's mouth starts to reopen, he has no teeth for a single frame for some reason. Other than that, the spot-jerkiness really caught me, but someone already mentioned that.
That said, this is one of the best animations I've seen round here, period. Hooray!
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Holy crap...I guess I got so used to drawing every frame, that I completely forgot to draw the teeth on that certain frame. Aside from that, I think the reason the spot on his head skips oddly over is because I may have accidentally left a frame out. When I get out of work, I'll add the teeth, and paste the left-out frame to fix her up. But uh, thanks for the comments everybody. This will definitely help me with my growing animation skillz....
"Larwick: I think you could try leaving the plant with its jaw locked at the end of the chomp for a bit, perhaps even shuddering, to increase the feel of a huge slam or shock. Just a lil idea though..."
Wow Larwick, when editing the animation, I was thinking about adding the hard chomp anim. in there also! I guess since you requested it, I'll try and add it in there to later on to help it out. Thanks for the advice!
Thanks again, The B.O.B...
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Is that a highlight or a famous pirhanna-spot on its head? Either way why does it jerk like that when the head is moving backwards? It shouldn't jerk like that at such a slow speed.
Sorry, but other than that I can't think of anything that hasn't already been said.
It's freaking awesome.
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alrights, so heres my 2 cents
since ya want some crits ;)
(looks good by the way)
lets start with the sprite itself, disregarding the animation for the time being...
heres a quick edit i made that might help to illustrate what im talking about better:
mine ----- yours
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/flaber/extra%20stuffs/bob1.png)
first i got rid of the extreme yellow highlights. i found them to be very distracting and not suiting the material it was on. stems and flowers are delicate.. they do not have extreme contrasts. so i took your next lightest shade for green to replace your yellows on the stem. created a new colour for the flower.
then i looked at your outlines. if this is a sprite then generally you have the outline as a dark colour (opposed to colouring into the lines) to allow your sprite to be put onto whatever background it is placed. for things like this, i like to look at it as inner and outer lines. your outer lines are the ones that are just on the perimeter of the object, while inner lines are details within. The outer line should be the darkest and only used in the sprite in the darkest of places. The inner lines defines the details inside and helps to AA the outer line. I did this for the stem and flower.
next i found that there was no real defined lightsource... so i put it as top left corner.. because of the ambient green you used on teh side of the face. then i reliazed that the eye can easily be missed, which shouldnt happen (in my opinion) because the eye can give alot of the expression and emotion. So i darkened under it and threw in a brow to help emphasize it more giving more personality to your plant.
i played with colours a bit.. dropped some contrast to make it more delicate and just played around abit. on the stem.. lighter colours are more washed out then the darker ones, similar to a real plant.
i tried to keep the vibrant colours without alot of contrast to help give a more natural feel.
i find your sprite very distracting with the yellow highlights and undefined lightsource. some of the lines such as on the outer parts could be darker, and you need to define the different sections more especially the lip right around the eye.
thats roughly about it.. hope my edit made a bit of sense.
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now onto animation.
personally.. i feel that there is too much going on at once. when the stem zigzags, leafs expand and the mouth blurs i find to be way too much happening that you become overwhelmed and you arnt able to blatently see what is happening. especially the section where the head blurs between being closed and chomping i feel is too 'blurred'.. opposed to a progression with the blur i instead see 3 main key frames. closed, mid blur, and chomp. the blur should be the transition frames between closed and chomp. im order to do that, since it is such an exageration perhaps throw in another frame. it all happens to quickly and just as you realize whats going on its over.
mmm the steam and leafs seem alright. however.. the only section that bothers me a bit is when the stem zigzags. it seems to zig when the motion blur is happening. yes i understand that you want to show the force and jerk movement/decision that happened.. but since he is reaching out like that the stem should tighten and narrow. like pulling on an elastic band. at a relaxed state it is larger and more mobile. but when stretched out like when the head is chopping the stem should narrow out and become more straight/stiff. give it more of an elastic feel like the plant is reaching out as far as it possibly can before it reaches its limit opposed to an explosive energy. this might help to tone down the commotion aswell.
again lightsource.. keep it consistent, and try not to run the highlight lines up and down, backand forth like that on the stem. from what i know.. highlights shouldnt move too much because the lightsource doesnt. its the shadows that move, and highlights remain mostly in the same spot - i believe.
the final chomp i feel should be held longer. with that much force put into it he shouldnt be able to recouperate so fast. give a small pause there, to show the true impact that the plant was intending. here it looks like he builds up all this force, all this power but decides to pull out just at the last second. he does not follow through with the bite. even by watching it the key frames seem to be the motion blur and then halfway into the pull back. the chomp itself seems to be a transition frame, when really it should be a major key frame since that is the whole point to the effort put in by the plant. i barely see when his mouth first closes, when that should be prominent. also, throw in a clenched jaw at the chomp.. show some cheek bones.
the leafs on the head all seem to change size. getting larger. the leaf on the side of head (our right) seems to jump up aswell. theres probably too much movement on the head leafs too. the ones on the stem are fine because they could be considered arms or hands, that wind up for the chomp. but the ones on the head should be thought of more as hair. as the head moves backward, they shoudl sway front alittle. as the head shoots forward, they should almost be flat against the head. right now they seem to be doing their own thing without much sense behind it... no forces causing them to do that.. doesnt make sense for them to relate to a limb.. probably adds to the clutter.
right before the plant goes in for the chomp, perhaps pull it up higher, make it seem like its drawing up to its full height kinda puffing out its chest almost -- making itself look big and intimidating. perfect time would be when it is facing straight front probably.
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hmmm, so thats about all that i can see right now. but its late.
perhaps ill take a better look at it tomorow and see if i can add anything else.
hope this helps, and hope that i made sense with what i was saying
very soild animation.
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Here's a quick edit of the plant...
(http://img15.imgspot.com/u/06/117/03/pirahnaupdate1146210540.gif)
If you can't tell, I just added a longer forcefull chomp at the end, creating a tiny quakeful motion blur of the mouth. Also I fixed the traveling white spot on her head, and gave it a darker background to further illuminate the animation...
*Edit****
below is two animations without the blur frames. The top is the anim. without the first blur effect, and the bottom anim. is without the chomping blur effect. The reason I'm showing you this, is to help you see how the chomp's after-effect shake WOULD or WOULDN'T emphasize the rest of the frames.
1)(http://img15.imgspot.com/u/06/117/04/pirahnaupdateDEL21146212370.gif)
2)(http://img15.imgspot.com/u/06/117/04/pirahnaupdateDEL11146212240.gif)
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@Flaber: Jesus Herbert Christ Man!! I just got a stern crit there. It's always interesting to find the problems other people see in my works, while I was blind to it. Not that it's a bad thing though. Great crit Flaber, I see everything you are talking about. I never knew that my high contrasted colors(mainly the light yellow) weren't up to par for the sprite.
I do, however, like what you've done with my sprite. Gives er' a soft feel, where mine looks like she had a high dose of radiation fed to her. And about the zig zag motion, I had actually thought about and was going to create the long, thin, outstretched stem for the animation. However, I challenged myself to work within a 100 width pixel space. I did have several "proto-type" frames for this outstretched motion, but they were erased as each of them seemed to not look right with the rest of the animation. Therefore, I took the short-cut and just used flashiness over technique, and used the zig-zags. I'll try in the future, however, to utilize more technique in my animations.
Now that you mention it, it is true that light on an object stays the same, and shouldn't be moving. I initially remember basing the shiny-ness off a wet women walking out of a beach. I guess I just got too confused when watching the sun light reflection on a womans leg move up and down on her curves. I was so caught up in the movement of the leg, that it tricked me into thinking the reflected light source was moving. It's obvious now, since most light sources stay still, that it's reflections shouldn't move either. I feel like such a dumb-ass now! Thanks for pointing that out, I never would have figured it out on my own.(damn hot women, and thier ability to turn my brains into mush)
Well than. It's back to the drawing board for me. I'll be back. Any further crits would still be great to hear though...
Thanks again everybody!
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I like first one :)
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Impressive edit B.O.B. The shake adds alot of force to the bite, I really love the exaggerated feel you gave to the sprite. Honestly I enjoyed the high contrasted look you used >_<, its pretty lol. I see what you ment about the lightsource, reflections are very tricky things they are. Anyways, great job with the animation.
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The new edits are nice, although it seems to me that opening the jaws WHILE moving the head forward adds secondary motion that distracts from the speed of the lunge.
Try imitating the movement yourself (hopefully nobody's watching). If you imagine taking a big bite, you won't open your mouth while moving your head forward, you will open it before.
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id say i like the first one under your edit better.
the first blur motion seems to slow down the animation/attack. makes it look like hes sneezing.
the first one with just the mouth blur seems alot better to me. more of a surprise attack, and the quickness of the attack, and the delayed after-ness helps to show the power behind it.
taking a quick look now cant see anything too wrong (that i havent pointed out already). maby ill take a better look later, but as of now seems alot better.
then my only other suggestion would be to work on the cleaning the sprite itself, aside from the animation.
nice edit
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Pretty cool.
You really need to change the preparation for the chomp. I really expect him to bit in a "horozontal" direction rather than a "verticle" one. Instead of turning his head, I would gradulally pull his head back and rotate it downward a tad. Also, the shaking affect of the chomp just ... doesn't do it for me; I would suggest rotating his head downard on the frame where his mouth closes.
The colors confuse me also; its hard to distinguish what is the mouth and what are the teeth at 1x.
Nice job.
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(http://img15.imgspot.com/u/06/117/04/pirahnaupdateDEL21146212370.gif)
- I like this one better, because of mainly what flaber says. Leaving out the motion blur puts more emphasis on the chomp. The chomp is the main focus of the animation. It's what she's trying to do, it's the climax of the animation. Make sure you make the chomp what the viewer focuses on.
- Hmm, the shudder. You have it now as four frames, I think. You should definitely bring it down to two. If this baby's chomping all day, she's probably somewhat used to the motion so that she doesn't shake like an earthquake every time. Two frames should be enough to get the feeling down enough without drawing too much attention to it.
- As for the zig-zagging motion of her stem, I really think it should only zig-zag to correspond with the shuddering motion. It would probably only assume such an odd shape when great force is applied, aka the actual snap of the jaws. IMO, you should wait until the instant the jaws are shut to send the rippling shockwave through her.
I really like it when artists work as hard as you are changing their art and taking crits to heart. I pat you on the back, sir.
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instead of moving his head to the side u could always lean his haead back. and then make it lunge