Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Fingerfoods on August 14, 2007, 06:03:34 pm
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I made and animated a sprite for an RPG project recently but I can't say that I'm remotely happy with the hair. I think it's the antialiasing where it overlaps her face. Also, it's looks rather awkward animated. Halp? Crit on other things as you see fit, but keep in mind that I probably won't get to fixing them anytime soon as the hair is my main concern at the moment. Oh, and speaking of animations, does anyone know a good .GIF compiler? All I've been able to find is unFREEz and it sucks...so I've been using Game Maker.
EDIT: With GIF Movie Gear:
(http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1751/sunawalkcb8.gif) (http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/9683/sunawalk2es6.gif) (http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/3686/ravewalkcr8.gif)
--By the way, I'm new here. I think I was forced into registering when I compared my work to the likes of .Takam (of whom I am a very large fan) and wanted to improve. Hi.
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I think for the style you've created here, very simple, smooth, etc, with a walk animation, you've done most of what you can. Were she running you could add better mvoement to it, or if your shapes were less smooth, but the funny thing about walking is that hair doesn't move much except to wave slightly and bounce a little (mostly in back and for girls with longer hair).
I think the breasts are a little large and even as such moving a bit too much for a walking anim (enough for a well-supported run), and that their current animation could be replaced rather with some subpixel movement instead.
for the persepctive suggested by the skirt, the eyes and hairline should be lower on the face and the feet closer together.
The shadow is just plain _nuts_, but I like it like that, offly enough.
I use GIF movie gear for most final animations. It's cheap too, and you can use it for free if you like.
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I think the breasts are a little large and even as such moving a bit too much for a walking anim (enough for a well-supported run), and that their current animation could be replaced rather with some subpixel movement instead.
Don't mean to cause a reasonless argument, but I don't see the point in telling how overly large breasts are. Women in real life do have differently sized breasts, and I'm not sure why pixelated women shouldn't. It's like every sprite I see, someone tells the other to keep it at what the community seems is most acceptable. I think what Rave should do is keep the breasts, if he wants that women to have them large, then fine.
Now as a tip for making things move, try to remember, make them not move as much exactly. Depending on the kinetic force of an object, the object would move only where the energy is available. Less would go to the tip, while the most would go to the entire body of said object.
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her breasts are fine he was just criticizing how if you just used some subpixel movement would make the boobs less spastic...
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Whoo, crits. I'll try to address as many as possible. Thanks in particular to Adarias.
First of all, a lot of the comments suggest that the movements should be more subtle. Things like the exaggerated breast movements and the hair flopping over her face. I'm not aiming for realism; I'm trying to emphasize motion because sprites are small. They're a lot more interesting to look at when the physics have spun a little out of control. Revise your critiques, but the exaggerations are going to remain. Just to prove that I'm not looking to have my ass patted, is there anything you would have me change with this in mind?
Also, as Adarias pointed out, the skirt seems to indicate that the perspective of the head is wrong. I'm assuming that this is because of the receding size of the layers of clothing, but that was how I designed it. I'll show you what I mean:
(http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/1494/sunaraveot3.png)
The one on the right is much more colorful, I know that. Or, more precisely, the one on the left is more dull. It's a personality trait. :P
But I agree that the feet are too far apart; I never drew the legs under the cloth.
OT: So...how do I give myself an avatar image? I didn't see it in the profile page.
EDIT: I've decided to make the hair, at least, more stationary. I'll probably have the piece over her right eye move a little, though.
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There's exaggeration and there's overexaggeration. Style points are valid reasons for keeping something provided it does not interfere, but the breasts do. It isn't necessarily because of taste, it's because they look too incorrect:
realistic level : wow, realism. I'm impressed by the subtle movement, but not excited.
less realistic level : wow, this looks great and the movement is exciting!
totally unrealistic level: wow, I wonder what's overdone? I think it's the movement...
The perspective issue has nothing to do with your design, it has to do with your perspective. The face and upper torso are more front-on and the waist and skirt is more overhead. For the sprite on the right, his perspective is almost uniform excet for the belt (which could be dismissed as being loose) but his feet are attached to his knees.
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I think SoM is a good example of over-exaggerating movement. Their animations were way too jumpy, and it just hurt to watch. I'd take the advice from Adarias, and not worry if it would mess up the style. And I don't think anyone here would give advise and not take in mind the size of the sprite and how drastic a pixel can change something. :)
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There's exaggeration and there's overexaggeration. Style points are valid reasons for keeping something provided it does not interfere, but the breasts do. It isn't necessarily because of taste, it's because they look too incorrect:
realistic level : wow, realism. I'm impressed by the subtle movement, but not excited.
less realistic level : wow, this looks great and the movement is exciting!
totally unrealistic level: wow, I wonder what's overdone? I think it's the movement...
The perspective issue has nothing to do with your design, it has to do with your perspective. The face and upper torso are more front-on and the waist and skirt is more overhead.
I guess I just don't see it that way, but I'll see what I can do. I'm not sure if I'm going to implement running animations - to be honest, I find animating tedious and difficult - but if I do, I guess I'll have the movements down - breast-wise and otherwise.
For the sprite on the right, his perspective is almost uniform excet for the belt (which could be dismissed as being loose) but his feet are attached to his knees.
His legs always bothered me, but my sprites have generally stubby legs in a deformed, almost chibi-sort of way, so I've always put off editing it. That, and he's fully-animated in four directions, which would make him a pain to tear into. I'll probably do that after a demo release; I'm trying to finish up to a certain point before I go back and nitpick everything to death.
EDIT: The comparison - the waist-down issue has not been addressed yet. Ignore the flickering shadow and odd foot placement on the breasty model:
(http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1751/sunawalkcb8.gif) (http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/9683/sunawalk2es6.gif) -and, for good measure- (http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/3686/ravewalkcr8.gif)
I honestly prefer the impractically thrusting chest motions on the sprites, but if it's really that bad I'll find it in myself to part with them. Especially on Rave (the red/white haired one); but he's much more acceptable as such because of his eccentric nature (it's explained in-game - he's a kind of village idiot in armor). And the hair. All of my friends have said that the movement helps, not hinders. Maybe I just watch too much anime, in which hair bounces at the slightest movement.
On a different note, how can I make Suna (the one on the left) a little more exciting to watch within reasonable realism? Right now she's much too stiff for my liking.
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Well, I got one frame to scan through with two channels, but now the damn thing shut up on me compeltely and im too tired to fix it...
(http://xs218.xs.to/xs218/07333/FemWlak.gif)
this is a passing keyframe from a sketch animation I was working on for you. Things to look at in this frame:
She's completely overbalanced onto the supporting foot, balanced, falling sideways. The retreating arm goes out slightly to steady her. Her shoulders and legs are not on the same rhythm in terms of yaw (if this animation is an 8-frame cycle, as it happens to be, the arms are a frame behind, still between extreme and passing) but in terms of roll though, hips and shoulders remain in balance. The skirt is trying to stay where it was before, but the knee is pulling it so that it tightens smooth against the upper leg and in the next frame the leg straightens out, pulling the entire skirt forwards, before making contact, where the skirt will continue with a bit of momentum, billowing out past her ankles. In a sexier character, both of those moments and others would be played up to the extreme.
Sorry i can't scan the rest of the animation yet, will try to fix that soon enough.
Nobody said the hair should stop moving, I was a little suprised when you nixed it actually. I just said that it moved about as much as you could move without adding in an industrial fan that follows her around.
About the chest, i'm not sure why you seem to think this is an all or nothing type of situation. The point of my last post is that you can add these movements, you've just gone overboard with it a little. Wiggle the breasts, but restrain them by a pixel so that the poor girl isn't extremely uncomfortable. If they move that much when she walks, where will they be when she runs, behind her?
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Nobody said the hair should stop moving, I was a little suprised when you nixed it actually. I just said that it moved about as much as you could move without adding in an industrial fan that follows her around.
Moving pieces of hair with that much antialiasing by half-pixel increments can be a pain, for one thing. You can see how jagged the arms are on other frames. I'll give it a shot.
About the chest, i'm not sure why you seem to think this is an all or nothing type of situation. The point of my last post is that you can add these movements, you've just gone overboard with it a little. Wiggle the breasts, but restrain them by a pixel so that the poor girl isn't extremely uncomfortable. If they move that much when she walks, where will they be when she runs, behind her?
She was sort of supposed to be twisting her torso slightly, hence the movements...they aren't bouncing as much as they're turning, see. But that sort of movement is better for running, anyway. And again, they're not even moving by an entire pixel, so I usually avoid that sort of editing. :P
Nice sketch, BTW. Obviously, the leg movement won't be as pronounced, but it's helpful.
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Yup, poor scanner is now totally kaput. Sad...maybe the shop will bring it back.
If you give up on an animation because very simple AA is too much work, you'll win the "laziest member of this board" trophie.
The breasts move quite a bit, we can see the pixels just as well as you can. There's no need to redescribe the problem.
Feet glued to knees isn't nitpicky, it's detrimental. I'm sorry you didn't catch that earlier, but this really can't be written off as a style point.
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If you give up on an animation because very simple AA is too much work, you'll win the "laziest member of this board" trophie.
I don't recall saying I'd give up...I said that I don't like animating and that the antialiasing makes it tedious.[/lofty]
Feet glued to knees isn't nitpicky, it's detrimental. I'm sorry you didn't catch that earlier, but this really can't be written off as a style point.
I'll play around with it a bit, but on that particular sprite I'm curious as to your opinion on the hair, as it was you that addressed the point that hair doesn't move much when walking in the first place.
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the hair movement is exeggerated but not beyond taste. I worry that it will appear that the ends are stuck in place the way they really don't move. Especially true if the camera scrolls with the character (dunno if you have rooms or scrolling areas).
Also you'ld mentioned armor, but i'm not sure I see any?
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the hair movement is exeggerated but not beyond taste. I worry that it will appear that the ends are stuck in place the way they really don't move. Especially true if the camera scrolls with the character (dunno if you have rooms or scrolling areas).
Also you'ld mentioned armor, but i'm not sure I see any?
On the red/white haired kid. I am aware that it's merely a breastplate and puffy pants (if that's what you mistook for knees) and that it's basically a solid mass of metal, but it was actually ornamental armor on display, not meant for combat. He doesn't know that, of course.
The camera scrolls on the larger boards but it doesn't look too bad in-game.
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I can see your forms, but it doesn't read as armor. Ignoring the fact that nobody could wear it, since you seem to encourage that, metal is seldom white ("white armor" even refers to the milanese full-plate style, because the idea that it could refer to the color of the armor never occured to people), and even where it could be white it is much more high-gloss. Id try shading it like metal if you want it to read as armor instead of a stiff shirt
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I can see your forms, but it doesn't read as armor. Ignoring the fact that nobody could wear it, since you seem to encourage that, metal is seldom white ("white armor" even refers to the milanese full-plate style, because the idea that it could refer to the color of the armor never occured to people), and even where it could be white it is much more high-gloss. Id try shading it like metal if you want it to read as armor instead of a stiff shirt
I seldom do shiny. Would upping the contrast and condensing the highlights do the trick?
Also - new proportions, with nude comparison! (http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/5863/unclothedna7.gif)
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you might be over AAing the armour which would lead to cloth-like appearance. Up contrast and pull out a shade or two
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Would upping the contrast and condensing the highlights do the trick?
Yes, quite well, but when you sya upping the contrast, you need to mean getting down to rather dark areas and rather bright. Currently, your third darkest shade is dark enough to provide a base color (current base color is your second brightest which makes the highlights bleed out and lose crispness). Also, using colors instead of gray might help get the "i am reflective" deal going, say a bright blue or yellow over a darker brown or green depending on the common terrain.
just a reference, your metal is brighter than this but it's a good pic to measure light chaning on :
(http://www.humorcolumnist.com/images/Dscn0905SuitsofArmor.jpg)
Any armor buffs out there know what this might be? All I can tell from the photo is that it's most likely 17th century HRE, but beyond that the origin is a mystery to my eyes.
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I like your animations nice and smooth, except the armor needs to be shiny as far as i can see.
Adarias i think thats the spaniards there becuase of the cloth.
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Chig- you're probably right, being that the shield in the far back is most certainly a spanish pattern, but i'd be almost sure the white&black on yellow is the HRE. During the 17th century spain was still part of the HRE, so it all starts to make sense...[/OT]