Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: SteamCaptain on May 20, 2015, 09:04:17 pm

Title: [WIP] Gargoyles Quest - Walk cycle
Post by: SteamCaptain on May 20, 2015, 09:04:17 pm
I'm always imagining remakes of older games and end up doing lots of art.
At the moment, said game is Gargoyles Quest for the Game Boy.
I love how the game merges both RPG and platformer elements to create something unique.

Here's Firebrand, the main character.
(http://pixel-icious.com/wayofthepixel/firebrand-idle.png)

Was working on his walking animation and it felt a bit off:
(http://pixel-icious.com/wayofthepixel/walk_animation.gif)
Still tweaking the legs, but is the top to busy/wobbly?

Would love your view on it!
All C+C is welcome
Title: Re: [WIP] Gargoyles Quest - Walk cycle
Post by: wzl on May 24, 2015, 12:22:48 pm
Nice work on the character, looks really clean and readable.
The animation is pretty nice so far. What i feel is missing is a bit of movement in the torso and for arms. the slight swiveling back and forth of the forearms conveys the idea but it looks off to me.

Good job so far  :y:
Title: Re: [WIP] Gargoyles Quest - Walk cycle
Post by: Conzeit on June 16, 2015, 10:39:57 pm
First of all, what a lovely lovely sprite. Second, LOVE that you're doing this weird little game. too hard for me to finish but still great. ever think of adding some *modern* mode to avoid the more spammy/grindy/punishing aspects of it for those of us who are a bit meeker? :p

Third, THE ACTUAL ANIM, heh :p
what bugs you is the contact frame isnt very clear, you never really feel like he's touching the ground, like he was a doll hanging from the air flailing his legs without touching anything.

there is very little effort going on, which makes it feel like there's no inertia and all that makes the animation feel weightless.

(http://pixel-icious.com/wayofthepixel/walk_animation.gif) (https://i.imgur.com/AYxAThE.gif)
All my edits were focused on adding to that feeling of weight, without making Red Arremer himself feel heavier, keep that sort of whimsy of the original runcycle.

most of the work was on recoil at the legs, 3rd frame on both of our anims. I added a frame where he fell down a lot further, bent his spine a little and  I also dragged his head one pixel down, all this to show that he needs to put effort to go back up like he will in the next frame,  fight inertia and give the anim weight. You dont NEED an extra frame to do this, if you need it to be this amount of frames in the engine you can cut it, but make sure that the contact frame has all of these charactersitics to give it weight.

I also did the same thing for frame 8 and 9, recoil frames for the second step

now for frames 1,2 I tried to make the legs hit two different extremes for each frame, in 1 forward leg goes highest, back leg goes backmost, on frame 2 forward frame goest forward the most, back leg goes upwards the most.


ARMS

in general, I just tried to have them lag a little bit so that they didnt land at the pose at the same time as the rest of him. in frame 3 when the body falls they are a bit higher, then in frame 4 they go lower, they land one frame later than the body. also, on frame 2 and 7 I had the hands go up by like 3 pixels cause it kinda looked like he was going BOO! keeping that whimsy of the original :p

eh, I still feel like it has too little effort....but I hope this points you in the right direction

Also, you named it WALk...it's actually a run..or trot atleast, so maybe that's why it lacked weight

EDIT: Right now I'm looking at this example
(https://i.imgur.com/99hzG7C.jpg)seems I should've put the recoil AFTER the contact frame. my bad :p IMO if you cant have both contact and recoil go for recoil every time, otherwise you get that weird weightless effect.
tried an edit with the recoil like that (http://i.imgur.com/cpXtXCx.gif) ...better?

hahaha just realized you actually thought the original was too wobbly XD let's see what you make of ALL this.