Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: JonathanOfDrain on June 25, 2007, 10:53:51 am
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I've been working on a game with my friend in Australia for a while called 4Heads (http://coffeehat.uiv2.com). It was a silly idea that has received a good deal of support from other people. We only had a demo and we are now finishing the game. It should be out in a month.
A few people have been giving us crap about the cuteness of our games and how they lack any level of seriousness so we're planning on making a slightly serious game That means we'll try to avoid all those vibrant bright colors, use some more detail and have a slightly realistic "world". We've discussed making a more action oriented game that would still be in the same "world". Since it will involves more action we'll need some attack animations. I thought since these creatures don't have arms they'll have to smash with their heads or head butt other creatures. I made a quick animation and it turned out badly.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/SariK/laugh.gif) It should have named it flaccid.gif because it... looks flaccid.
Here's a good picture of what they look like:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/SariK/piratehead.png)
I was never really good at animator and always avoided it (didn't help) so now I'm asking for some help from you.
Here are some of my sketches (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/SariK/sketches.png), smash animation was drawn out at the bottom right.
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I'd say have it pull back a bit more with a slight pause, then lean out a little faster, stretching farther with another pause when it strikes. A head butt usually has fairly sharp movements.
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personally, I'd
Shorten the time it takes for the head to move through the attack
add some weight on the end
and try motion blurring/faster motion to smooth out the animation.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v124/zolthorg/faster.gif)
I'd also say that you should experiment with some jiggling motion
edit:
maybe you could start with a smaller scale to even out the motion
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v124/zolthorg/Image1.gif)
i threw in some of that jiggling i was talking about, as well as a 'flash' to indicate impact.given that they're tall people, it doesn't seem they'd be able to bend very far which throws off a lot of the impact.
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Thanks Zolthrog. I think your "blurring" is better than the blurring I had in my head. I planned to have lines trail like on most animated sword swings. I planned with the great edit you made and go this:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/SariK/smashattack-1.gif)
I wanted to add a stomp to emphasize intensity and I think it works. The resetting looks bad though. Should I have his foot pull back faster or instantly? I think his back leg looks slightly boring but I don't know what I could do to change that.
I think I'll play with the blur a lot more when I start coloring it a bit.
Thanks for all the help so far.
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For the resetting of the foot, I think the guy's foot should step back instead of slide.
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I tried a step. Maybe it's too quick, but It's a step regardless. Makes me want to make the stomp more stomp than step. I'll edit this post in a few minutes with an edit. Also you can tell I don't know what to do with this large empty places on his body, I tried making some highlights and shadows on the moving "leg" but still don't know what to do for the rest.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/SariK/smashattack1.gif)
EDIT:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/SariK/smashattack2.gif)
I played around with it a little and I think the purple-blue looks good as the shadow color. I made solid blocks for highlight and shadows instead of messy dithering.
I'm kind of confused at what I should do now.
EDIT AGAIN:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v189/SariK/headventuremockupss.png)
I was getting tired of working on him so I moved to his enviroment. I need to brighten those things up and make them look like toys, I want to add really "cute" rocks. The whole game should have a cute look and it's off by a little and my brain is shutting down.