Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Overkill on August 03, 2008, 06:18:10 pm

Title: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on August 03, 2008, 06:18:10 pm
It's been a while since I posted art for my sidescrolling game, Resonance: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=4523.0

The story for Resonance starts when a deadly electrical explosion occurs, from a big communications tower in the center. This explosion sweeps the entire village to shreds and keeps expanding. The player gets caught in this explosion and torn to shreds.

However, he is given a second chance, revived as a magical, resonant being. He doesn't know what the explosion was about, nor does he know if there are any other survivors. He suddenly realizes that he can have special powers bound to him by electrical communications beacons and starts to use this for his own survival.

But there are other survivors, resonant Electrofiends, brainwashed into thinking they're the next phase in evolution on the human race, and they're bent on destroying normal humans and all other living things who don't cooperate (including you!).

Then the player is constantly exploring and trying to survive assaults from the both the human front (who employ jammers and other tech) and Electrofiend front (who have their own beacon types that only they can access (until later) which give them boosts similar to you).

I've barely done anything in a year, artwise. I was sort of hoping on finding a pixel artist at some point, so I could spend more time on my game. But since that doesn't seem to be happening, I'll stop letting these pieces rot on my drive, and ask for some critique!

Anyway, I suck at drawing art quickly, so right now, I only have a few pieces!

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_grass.png)
My grass tiles, should look slightly similar to that thread from a year ago, except I think that they're slightly better done now.

The hero, oldest to newest. (Last updated on May 21, 2009):
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_2.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_3.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_4.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_5.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_6.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_taller.gif)

WALK (latest  May 26, 2009): (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip19.gif)


(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_beacon.png)
a beacon. I need to make several variations on this later so the game doesn't look so bland.

And here are some screenshots from the current engine build (there are tile errors, yeah):
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_screeny1.png)

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_screeny2.png)

Your comments, critique and edits, please!
Title: Re: Resonance - A metroidvania-style sidescroller
Post by: EvilEye on August 04, 2008, 05:29:56 am
Not too bad. It has some issues though.

On the first screen you can clearly see the tiling in the grass on the bottom. You need to keep the part that touches the other tiles the same color.

The water(?) on the first screen looks more like snow.

The beacon is at the wrong angle for a sidescroller. It looks like you're seeing it from a top-down angle.
Title: Re: Resonance - A metroidvania-style sidescroller
Post by: crab2selout.png on August 04, 2008, 08:52:07 pm
I really like how thick and full the grass looks. You nailed the texture. Your colours are pleasing. It's even got a good range of values to separate it from the background. When you said you sucked at drawing, I was expecting programmer's art, but this is clearly above that.

There were a couple thing I felt detracted from your tile set. Aside from the boxes mentioned by evil eye, you've got a couple places where you can see where one tile ends and another starts. I quickly marked some of them below. What's causing it in teh spots I noted is that you have those light green spots which all end at the same y position. Move a couple of them up and down and you won't have that problem.

One of my biggest complaints is that you just flipped your ground tile to make the ceiling and sides. I understand it as a time saving measure, but you should still edit them after flipping, to ensure they tile well and remove any obvious edges showing(and there will be edges).

This is some promising stuff you've shown here. And in case you weren't aware, there is a section of this forum for advertising projects, either paid or unpaid.
(http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/2186/resonancescreeny1hk8.png)
Title: Re: Resonance - A metroidvania-style sidescroller
Post by: Overkill on August 06, 2008, 03:31:00 am
Some of the REALLY bad transitions that evileye pointed out are just me being lazy plotting the tiles in the map editor. There are some transitions between tiles that don't exist, so I had to fudge them with cheap tile arrangements, and there's the odd spot I just got lazy and copy pasted tile regions on the map without fixing up awkward corners.

But the comments about the water and some of those ugly, squarish tile transitions are useful.

And I totally agree, the flipping of the grass was pretty cheap. It's a lower priority to fix that, but I'd totally love to have the sides and bottom be unique arrangements that kind of look more believable and less copy-pasted.

Oh, and something super cool I want to do but probably won't because of the crapload of work to draw extra frames: make the grass bend around and flatten when the player walks on it.

Thanks, EvilEye and Crab. I'll try to fix things when my math exam isn't staring me in the face, ready to kill me.



Oh yeah, and since you mentioned it, Crab, I actually do have a thread looking for an artist if anyone wants to help: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=5741.0

Anyone who wants to help me out can drop me a PM or IM me or something still! I'm quite open to improving my own art style now, but prefer collaborating with a few other people to speed up the production.
Title: Re: Resonance - A metroidvania-style sidescroller
Post by: Helm on August 06, 2008, 04:13:05 am
Hello Overkill. Here's an edit for your main character.

(http://www.locustleaves.com/roamguy.gif)

First the good: Your color selection is wonderful. It's not often I do an edit without feeling the compulsion to mess with the palette, and here I really didn't think I could help it any. I like the color selection, I like the ambiance, good going.

The bad: Posture. Dude's going to roam the land, give him some sort of dynamic pose. Don't forget, the player sees this pose second to running the most, and think of the psychology of the player. When they stop pressing buttons and are thinking on where they want to go and they see a sorta constipated looking (no offense meant, first impressions here are important!) main character, they will not get that subconscious boost they would if they saw a posture that suggested power and determination.

A lot of what I did was adding stronger, more stylized legs to him, bending the arm as if to say "I can throw a punch at any time" and a rather arbitrate alteration to the head. About the scarf: I strongly suggest you pixel it as a separate sprite and have it hold wind according to the direction the character is going at, perhaps animate a small ripple for it, it's really not much of an extra workload for a very very pretty effect if you get it right.

I used the clothes highlight to bring out the hair a bit. This is extravagant and pretty anime-ish so I could understand why you wouldn't need that but I tried it for kicks anyway.

You will notice I made the far part of his body considerably darker: this has the effect of making the character not appear flat. Yet you still retain the partly turned for more character posture, it's a good - and very time honoured - point of compromise.

Hope I helped.
Title: Re: Resonance - A metroidvania-style sidescroller
Post by: Overkill on August 07, 2008, 07:23:55 am
I took a study break for a bit, and decided to work on the hero sprite! (matrix algebra final tomorrow worth 64% of my grade, and the prof didn't even tell us what's on it, just "like the assignments but harder")

Thanks for the edit, Helm, that was very helpful. My pose is slightly inspired off that (too much?), hopefully the player has more volume and looks less dull:

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_2.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_helmedit.gif)
<-  Mine     Old     Helm's  ->

And I had actually planned on making the scarf a separate, longer sprite at some point, but for now, I don't want to worry about paperdolling it on there, at least until I have a general idea of where to place it under the hero's frames.
Title: Re: Resonance - A metroidvania-style sidescroller
Post by: Helm on August 07, 2008, 07:41:26 am
I think I like yours better than mine (and good call on not using the hair shine) but there is still some issue between the length of the torso and the length of the legs. There's many ways you could resolve this... I'm happy to see followups. But algebra must come first now. Good luck with your exam.
Title: Re: Resonance - A metroidvania-style sidescroller
Post by: LordFred on August 07, 2008, 09:37:26 am
... I like the first and third... but in the first one you could put some reflect in the hair... like third... i like helm's hair... maybe a blend between the two...
Title: Re: Resonance - A metroidvania-style sidescroller
Post by: ptoing on August 07, 2008, 04:50:14 pm
Quite a nice development. Look at how Helm's has some more back at where the shoulders are. Your's needs that, I think, his torso looks a bit tube-ish.
Title: Re: Resonance - A metroidvania-style sidescroller
Post by: Overkill on August 07, 2008, 05:26:32 pm
I wasn't sure about the hair highlights yet, LordFred, since I'm trying to avoid a super-anime style for my characters. So for now at least, that's stayed the same. I'm probably gonna add some highlighting, but not quite as shiny as Helm's.

Also, good eye ptoing, I didn't notice the back just sort of ended like that, at 2 am last night. Hopefully this addresses that. I also corrected the coat edges on our right side, since they were just a vertical line before, and and also didn't give a good indication of where the arm actually was.

I'm not sure if I corrected the proportion problem between the torso and legs yet, but I did adjust the coat a bit to try and make it end more around his waist?

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_3.gif)

Thanks everyone! I'm almost thinking this guy's ready to animate. But before I do that, I'll address any major problems left, and I probably will get around to fixing some of my tile artwork there.
Title: Re: Resonance - A metroidvania-style sidescroller
Post by: Overkill on December 01, 2008, 04:33:56 am
I started to draw out some walking frames, but it doesn't look very natural at all, both from stills and in motion.

I was embarrassed by how awkward this looks when animated with 10ms between frames, and "ping-pong" animation, so I decided maybe I'd better just post some stills. (also I don't actually preview the animation as a gif, I just open it in my game engine and I don't really have nice gif exporter right now :/)

So here you are! Some pointers on what in particular I can fix would be nice.

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_2008-11-30.png)

I'm thinking of redoing the animation, I'm thinking I'd better slow down, try and get the form correct before I draw over with details. Only thing is my old attempts at using stick figures to animate have failed sort of... badly. :(

Animation and sideview are two of my biggest weaknesses, and I'd like to overcome this. Any advice is very helpful. And yes, yes, I have looked at Idleworm's animation tutorial, and tried (but failed) to follow it. Thanks though.
Title: Re: Resonance - A metroidvania-style sidescroller
Post by: Willows on December 01, 2008, 07:01:14 am
Graphicsgale got inspired to do wierd things with colour when I saved it as a .gif

(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y73/SaboteurGreg/Overkill1.gif)

I think the biggest problem with that animation is that it isn't all there :D

You've currently got 4 frames of an 8 frame animation, which is why the legs and arms pop. The arm swings forward, but never back. Add another 4 frames that complete the cycle of legs and arms and I'm willing to bet it'll be a rather workable walk animation.
Title: Re: Resonance - Now with animation (kind of)
Post by: Overkill on December 01, 2008, 07:48:02 am
Well, except I had the frame order go reverse back to the start after it reached the last frame. I'm guessing that's a no-no? :(

Yeah. I'll see about drawing the other 4 frames, so I'm not being cheap (especially since my cheapness doesn't look proper).

Also srsly, what free software do people use for gifs.

EDIT: I see... ImageReady is tolerable I guess.

Anyway, this is the way the animation looks with the "ping-pong" playback I was using:

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_2008-12-1ugh.gif)
Title: Re: Resonance - Now with animation (kind of)
Post by: TrevoriuS on December 01, 2008, 08:13:21 am
He's not really bending his knees, which is the problem, and makes him look walking backwards. Though the arm and torso movemetns furtherly suggest forwards movement.
Title: Re: Resonance - Now with animation (kind of)
Post by: Willows on December 01, 2008, 09:27:08 am
Yeah, that's a fairly large no-no.

Though you -can- still be cheap, just not that cheap. And I was wrong, it's a 6-frame animation you've got here, not 8.

Take frames two and three, duplicate 'em and stick 'em on the end, so your sequence goes 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 2 - 3

Now reverse the legs, so the further away leg in 2 (the duplicated one) is the closer one, and do the same for the duplicated frame 3.

Copy the entire upper torso from frame 2 (original) and paste it to frame 3 (duplicate).

Copy the entire upper torso from frame 3 (original) and paste it to frame 2 (duplicate).

(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y73/SaboteurGreg/Overkill2.gif)

Ta-daaa! Much better result, only about 5 minutes of doing! Much tweaking needed to make it better, but it's still a solid building block to go from.
Title: Re: Resonance - Now with animation (kind of)
Post by: Atnas on December 01, 2008, 03:01:33 pm
When his legs make a ^ he should bob down and when they are like |> he should bob up. It's because his legs never change length, but the angle does.
Title: Re: Resonance - Now with animation (walk cycle almost done?)
Post by: Overkill on December 01, 2008, 06:11:37 pm
Thank you Willow! Your edit there was very helpful.

I took your advice, and this is what I came up with:
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_2008-12-01b.gif)

I also tried to correct the hop/drop to the walk so it'd correspond to the right part of the cycle, I don't really know how successful I was.

Also I noticed the hero's head was tilted fairly unnaturally back, so I leaned his neck forward a bit.

But I'm at least glad that this sprite is slowly being cured of its weirdness.
Title: Re: Resonance - Now with animation (walk cycle almost done?)
Post by: Willows on December 02, 2008, 01:25:34 am
Cool things, cool things.

(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y73/SaboteurGreg/Overkill3.gif)

The beauty of animation is that you get to start simple, and can keep adding and adding and adding all these different motions to acheive a better and better effect. It's a friggin' tweak and adjust party.

What atnas is saying is this:

When your character is in its pass position(Your frames 3 & 6 are pass positions), one leg will be bent and passing, and the other will be straight and straight up & down. At this position, the character is at its tallest. When your character is in "contact" position, its legs will look like an upside-down V (your frames 1 & 4 are contact positions) and the character, in your case, will be at its lowest.

In walk cycles with higher counts, you'll have a "recoil" frame right after the "contact" frame, and the "recoil" frame will actually be lower than the contact, as the recoil frame is the frame where all the weight is transferred to that one leg.

Having said that, I actually screwed it up in my edit. I've got the pass positions as the highest, but I have the frames right after the pass positions as the lowest. In yours, currently, you've actually got the pass position as the lowest, which ain't so good.

Another thing I gave a go at demonstrating is that everything that isn't actively getting propelled by a muscle or something will want to stay where it was in the previous frame. So, basically, for the hood and the hair you have the action one frame behind the rest of the animation, so while the entire body goes up at frame 4, the hood should go up at frame 5. When the entire body goes down in frame 5, the hood, one frame behind, will go down in frame 6.

This theory works for anything limp and hanging, so use the same idea for the hair and anything else you want to bounce for a more natural feel.

Another thing:

We rotate our shoulders when we walk around. I believe our shoulder movement is opposite the rotation of the foot, but I don't reaaally know. Simplest is to have the shoulders move forward and back with the movement of the arm.

Another thing:

Keep your shading simpler. Not only is it easier to work with simpler shading, it also makes it easier to look at. Less for the poor ol' brain to figure out. If you're determined, you could always add details after the motion itself is good and done.

Also watch that you don't stretch any bones!

(Why is it that people always forget the S in my username?! :D)
Title: Re: Resonance - Now with animation (walk cycle almost done?)
Post by: Tobe on December 02, 2008, 01:46:47 am
I'm always impress by  programmer that do all the artwork themselves. I'm an artist, but it's not like I can manage to learn programming.

C&C wise, I'm not sure if I'm right (again), but the upper body seems to lean slightly towards the camera. It almost looks like a 3/4 top view, rather then a 2D platform view.... that, or you can just try placing the eye more towards the nose.
Title: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 22, 2009, 01:41:36 am
Hello! It's been a while (about six months) since I updated. Recently, I decided to work on Resonance again.

I updated the hero sprite to have more crotch room, and less squished of a head. Fixed the scarf to have improved shading.
EDIT: Improved shading on the hair to be less flat and attempted nicer AA on the edges of the face.
EDIT 2: Improved shading on the jacket.
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_3.gif) -> (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_4.gif) -> (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_5.gif) -> (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_6.gif)

I decided to start over my walk animation, since I really wasn't planning my old walk cycle at all, I was just randomly moving limbs. I started reading the Animator's Survival Kit. Man that was useful!

So I present you with this 8-frame animation (arms and legs feel short, but they're sort of shrunk on the original sprite):
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip.gif)

Crits appreciated.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Tuna Unleashed on May 22, 2009, 02:29:41 am
IMO the body looks too tall for the legs.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Tobe on May 22, 2009, 02:51:41 am
Yea, I agrees with Tuna Unleashed. The ratio of the body and legs are like 1:1. My usually my preferred structure.
As for the walk cycle, it seems the body leans too much to the front.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 22, 2009, 03:49:56 am
Okay, I was going for a shorter character, but actually, you're right. It looks a little odd. Come to think of it, I like the taller look too.
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_taller.gif)

I will probably be modifying my animation again tomorrow. I don't really see the forward lean though you're talking about though, Tobe.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Tuna Unleashed on May 22, 2009, 01:00:20 pm
The walk animation also snaps at one part, as if it's missing some frames.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Tobe on May 22, 2009, 02:22:13 pm
(http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b4/LockeSG/sample.png)
I ain't much of an animator, so I might be wrong. But this frame looks like he straighten his leg too much, it looks kinda unnatural.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: robotacon on May 22, 2009, 02:51:23 pm
(http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b4/LockeSG/sample.png)
I ain't much of an animator, so I might be wrong. But this frame looks like he straighten his leg too much, it looks kinda unnatural.

It's a result of the feet traveling at an uneven speed on the ground, one of the two comments I have about almost all walk cycles. The other one is heel strikes but Overkill has one in this one so I'm happy.
I'm getting tired commenting about that because I sound like a jerk but it's really good advice.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 22, 2009, 03:53:04 pm
Eeek! You're right. That definitely doesn't look natural. I had the hardest time with the "down" frames of the animation, honestly. I'll try to fix that.

I am jobless at the moment, so I've been trying to not get too distracted on the jobhunt. ;_; Animation and drawing is fun though :(
I'll look at this later today.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 23, 2009, 02:25:17 am
Okay, so I (think) that I fixed the leg problem, and I completely redid the arms so the motion would look more even.

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip2.gif)

Something kind of annoys me about the back arm still though. But I can't quite put my finger on it. It almost seems like the back arm has no elbow in some frames? :(

EDIT:

I think I fixed it.  Now the back arm doesn't look totally off, and single frames aren't as ugly: (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip3.gif)
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Avocado on May 23, 2009, 03:24:58 am
My Sloppy Edit: (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/Gazner/resonance_hero_strut.gif)

I'm no animation professional, but his arms look very stiff in your animation.  This is a quick edit so it has some problems, and you might not want something as upbeat with the arms swinging, but I feel like some bending should happen at the elbows.  Good luck!

Edit: For a less strolly thing you could try keeping the hands where they are but bending the elbows so that the upper arm doesn't move as much.  I don't know how well that's going to work but that might be what you're looking for.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 23, 2009, 05:56:49 am
Yeah, you're right. I knew there was SOMETHING off. Okay, so I added arm bending. Not quite as upbeat, but still a brisk, determined walk.

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip4.gif)
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 23, 2009, 08:33:40 pm
Now with details. The leather was especially painful to do. ;_; Needs a scarf, and some head/hair movement.
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip5.gif)
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Dr D on May 23, 2009, 09:15:01 pm
Hmm, it just looks odd to me now. It doesn't seem like he's really picking his foot up, more like some kind of awkward sliding movement.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 23, 2009, 09:20:04 pm
Ngh, this is true. I started hurrying the leg details, because after looking at the same walk cycle for a few hours your eyes eventually go kjdsfdgkldfgkjg and stop noticing things. I think it's mostly the back leg that causes this odd effect. It definitely looks broken or something.

To be honest, I need to take a break for a bit. I think I'll grab supper, and watch some TV. I'll see if I can address this later.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 24, 2009, 03:41:14 am
Took another look at this. Now there's head motion and legs seem a lot less broken (to me, anyway).

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip7.gif)

I think at this point, I will require edits to really understand what can be fixed. It's tricky for me to deal with the subtleties here.

EDIT: Souly pointed out he's missing a neck. That's a pretty big oversight. How did I not notice?!

Also, made the arms bigger.
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip11.gif)
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 24, 2009, 08:49:02 pm
Okay, after a bunch of advice from Arachne and Atnus (on Tigsource), I corrected the legs and arms to look less noodly while also avoiding stiffness:
Thanks to everyone who's given me suggestions so far! I'm about ready to move on to new animations, unless there's still something outstanding.
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip13.gif)
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: 1up on May 24, 2009, 08:56:58 pm
To be honest, it still looks like it needs a lot of work. The limbs aren't as noodly and flailing all over the place as they were in your last edit, but everything seems kind of

jumpy. His arms seem to be bending halfway down his forearm, and the whole swing with the right side of his body could either be made longer so it doesn't look so random and sporadic, or you might just try shortening up the back side and lowering the framerate a bit
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 25, 2009, 02:01:22 am
Okay, thanks for the honesty. I've tried to take your advice. I'm hoping it's a step in the right direction?

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip14.gif)

EDIT: A really quick replacement to the head, since it seemed too stiff when it was facing directly forward like that. Not sure if this improved it or not.

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip15.gif)
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Atnas on May 25, 2009, 12:02:34 pm
Better, but take a closer look at the arm closest to us. It's only moving at the elbow. try making in swing more from the shoulder, then as a side effect having the elbow move. Walking isn't a very conscious motion, but if you walk normally you'll notice you aren't doing much to your elbows, its actually all moving from the momentum the shoulder brings when it swings. So you may want to tone down the shoulder swing a little, because the forearm usually does not go past the butt when it goes back.

Also
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_taller.gif)(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip15.gif)
When put side to side, you'll see another problem. Just shorten and slim him down even more. :3

I'd do an edit but really, not much can be said that Arachne already said. (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=167.msg203776#msg203776)
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 26, 2009, 12:53:29 am
Thanks again, Atnas. Tried following your advice about the arms. I lowered his neck too, and adjusted the thickness of the coat in several spots. It should look LESS odd now when compared to the idle stance (not quite there though).

Also took some advice from JaJitsu on Tigsource and reduced the turning of the body so it's not so excessive when the front arm goes back. Hopefully this has been an improvement.

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip16.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_taller.gif)

Need to put his jacket pocket back in so the leather isn't so dull looking, and go for the scarf. I'll also try and trim 'im down more to fit with the idle pose more.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 26, 2009, 07:21:46 am
After a bit more work, here is what I've been able to make:
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip19.gif)
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Atnas on May 26, 2009, 08:50:38 pm
Awesome! Much better!

Sorry to put it through the same test again.
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip19.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_taller.gif)

Honestly I would change the idle sprite this time as well as the walking one. Earlier in this thread Helm pointed out he would change the leg to torso ratio, and I wholeheartedly agree. The proportion you have in the walking sprite looks much better, but I think the walking is getting a little too big. I'd compromise between the two.


(http://www.lolipopsicle.com/linky/help/overkill.gif)

Here's how I'd change the idle around. Among upping the contrast, I changed the proportions and pose of the legs, as you can see in the little line figure to the right, I curved his spine, and gave definition to his face. You had lots of dark undefined areas. I don't think negative space works on characters that move about the map. I think they work best as positive space, so there's no confusing any of the background for the character. You were AAing some 45 degree angles which just blurred it up. Also, I took out the pocket because I don't think little details like that are necessary when there are plenty more characteristic features you could emphasize.

Absolutely love the character, just make him more solid! Be bold with colors and shading, don't mess around with any soft transitions, it's not doing the art any favors. I'm sure you'll do a good job, you just need to push yourself a bit more because from what I've heard you say you're not really fully confident in doing the art by yourself.

Don't believe in yourself! Believe in me, who believes in you!

._.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Overkill on May 27, 2009, 01:39:58 am
Thanks Atlus again, for your encouraging words and the edit! I BELIEVE. :D

I'll see about using more solid shading and redoing the idle pose later. If I make some super fancy changes to the idle, I'll probably reflect them in the walk. Otherwise, I might just make it mirror the proportions in the walk.

In reality, I sort of wanna be finished this game in my lifetime >_<. I can live with a few flaws, even though it may mean it's less aesthetically pleasing than it could be.

I mean, I still have tons more actions to do for this character, plus tile art in a bunch of different settings, a variety of enemies, and special effects like explosions and pew pew lasers.

It's pretty brutal how much resources I need, really. But then again, I imagine the next animations will go nicer now that I've got it going, and really, tiles aren't TOO bad, just annoying to piece bigger scenes together sometimes (especially since I want a big urban area with parallax scrolling).

For now altered the pallete a bit. More contrast things. I kind of don't want super duper saturated shades, but I did bring it up quite a bit on the highlights and shadows, and made the thing have more hue varations. Might be hard to compare with this grey background at 1x, but it's definitely noticable when I view it with Paint Shop Pro 4 (or if you zoom in more).
(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip19.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip20.gif)
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: 1up on May 27, 2009, 01:48:54 am
make the limbs a bit less jumpy and remove, or at least lessen the scarf movement a bit and it looks like it should be good
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: politopo on May 27, 2009, 07:14:00 am
nice, but I think His walk is too slow to make his scarf wave like that, it should just dangle a bit.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: LODYblokady on May 27, 2009, 08:17:08 am

(http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip19.gif) (http://www.bananattack.com/stuff/art/resonance_hero_walk_wip20.gif)

If you have a really windy scene then that would go perfectly, as the character has to make more movement in his limbs to push through the wind.
But for a scene with no wind, you need to but about scarf and limb movements, like everyone said.
Title: Re: Resonance
Post by: Helm on May 27, 2009, 09:10:34 am
The feet spend too much time in their extreme positions and not enough time in the middle space between the steps. The effect is that of gliding with a slightly uneasy pendulum illusion where left and right leg become the same. Sorry to say this means the animation needs fundamental reworking in my opinion.