Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: JonathanOfDrain on January 27, 2009, 04:50:23 am

Title: Simple animation
Post by: JonathanOfDrain on January 27, 2009, 04:50:23 am
(http://theywilleat.us/images/runrunrunrunrun.gif)

I think it's a relatively smooth run. 12 frames, colors are irrelevant right now.
I feel a bit weird about how far the arms reach back. Don't know if I should have him lean a bit more.

I'll try to start ?skinning? this running blob. Any comments and criticism would be appreciated.
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: Pizza Tom on January 27, 2009, 04:54:29 am
The blue arm does reach a little too far back in my opinion. I'd also recommend adding some head movement, it looks a little robotic as is. Other than that, looks fine to me.  :)
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: NaCl on January 27, 2009, 05:07:37 am
Hey,

I think there are a few things that could improve this:

- Add bounce to the guy. Usually the entire body moves up and down as a person runs. In yours, the head is not moving vertically and it makes him look a bit weightless. Usually, the torso and head are highest when the legs are most extended, and then it moves smoothly up and down
- Keep the arms bent at their most extreme point. Yours are straightening, and I've never seen someone run like that. They may decrease in angle due to the force of movement during the passing point (when they are both by his sides), but at the extremes they should remain bent.
- The leg straightens out as the body passes over it to push everything up, and the you push off with your toes. In yours, the leg remains bent after it lands, and then just lifts off the ground, there is no push

Other then that, looks good. It's quite smooth, just needs some hammering out to make it look weightful.
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: JonathanOfDrain on January 31, 2009, 03:56:30 am
Sorry for taking so long to do so little. I changed when our little buddy is in the air, I think it adds a bit of realism too it. Fixed the arms, yet they still look very wrong. I didn't change the head to bob up and down but was planning on trying to sub pixel it. If that doesn't work I'll go with your suggestion.
(http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/3632/runscarfenherorunsd2.gif)
I now see NaCl's comment about elbows. That'd probably do it.

I'm pretty terrible at animation so I hope to come out alive with this one. I'll fix those elbows and get some skin on him.

Thanks to NaCl and Regulus Awesome for pointing the things.


This is some minor tile work I'm getting together, feel free to critique these as well.
(http://theywilleat.us/images/tilesalmostthere.png)
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: ptoing on January 31, 2009, 07:53:22 pm
(http://ptoing.net/edit/12framerun.gif)
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: robotacon on January 31, 2009, 09:02:30 pm
Great post Ptoing. Now I will never have to post critic about a run ever again, I'll just redirect here.
The bounce is quite extreme but if you don't like it you can just not use it and the run still looks great.

Nitpicks on Ptoings version:
The blue arm is too far back on frame 9 so it moves forward again on frame 10 and then back again on frame 11.
I like it better when the feet move at a constant speed on the ground and it's most convenient if it's a game animation.
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: ptoing on January 31, 2009, 10:08:45 pm
Oh heh, that thing with the arm there was just me fucking up.
What do you mean with constant speed on the ground? you mean same amount of pixels of foot movage each frame?
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: PypeBros on February 01, 2009, 12:22:57 pm
great. It could be made even more cartoonesque by having the spine bowing and extending with the head bop, right ?
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: ptoing on February 01, 2009, 03:23:27 pm
Yes of course. The one I made is very simple and generic. You could do all kinds of stuff depending on what you do with the passing position and such, you can be very creative.
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: Ignacio on February 01, 2009, 06:15:35 pm
Sorry to dissagree with some of you, but, whereas I do like Ptoing' s running cycle, I am not extremelly satisfied... I think the main problem is with the arms. I haven't  downloaded the image, and took a close look in an animation program, but looks that the arms move exactly the same in every frame. I don't  like that, I think that the arms do follow the theory of the "bouncing ball" a bit.

(http://www.angryanimator.com/tut/pic/001_bouncingball/bal01.gif)
(Image taken from idelworm)

Arms move very little when the arm is at top back and top front, and a LOT during the passing...

Like this:
. .  .     .            .                           .                          .               .      .  . .

Sven did this (I think):
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Hope somebody understands what I say...  :crazy:
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: ptoing on February 02, 2009, 09:26:45 am
Actually the spacing on the arms is NOT even, but it certainly is not overly refined, but definatly not . . . .
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: Ignacio on February 02, 2009, 02:24:37 pm
Actually the spacing on the arms is NOT even, but it certainly is not overly refined, but definatly not . . . .

Sorry Sven, I don't understand a word...  :D You mean "Don't  mind the arms, I didn' t took attention to them"?
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: ptoing on February 02, 2009, 02:47:52 pm
What you mean with the  . . . . or  .. .  .  . .. is called spacing, how certain elements are spaced. The spacing of the arms are not even, not . . . . Tho there is a little error there as robotacon pointed out.
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: Ignacio on February 02, 2009, 04:59:48 pm
Spacing! Good to know another tecnical word, I really need them.

The spacing of the arms are not even, not . . . . Tho there is a little error there as robotacon pointed out.

The world I was not understanding there was "EVEN". Do you mean "even" as an "adjective"? Equal to "uniform"?

Then I agree... Sorry for hijacking this thread with this "discussion" (If there is another place where this should be made, please, point it to me), but don' t you think that, the more cartoonish, the most (.. .   .     .     .   . ..) and the less (. . . . . .)? (How would you express that; The more cartoonish, the more spaced, the more realistic, the more even?)

For example, if you see Usaian Bolt running, his spacing is almost even, if you see a cartoon, the more spaced the movements of the arms are. Same with bouncing. Profi sprint runners doesn't bounce. Cartoons do. (At least that' s what comes to my mind if I try to visualize them running...)

And, to finish, I post an unfinished animation of mine, with lots of errors, I know (The arms shake between in high point, contact, recoil...) but would probably show what I mean about spacing.

(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/La_Lore/IndyRunning.gif)
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: Ben2theEdge on February 02, 2009, 08:21:13 pm
Even in a realistic animation the rules of spacing apply.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=vtjJe4elifI (http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=vtjJe4elifI)

Notice how spacing creates the sense of momentum and weight here, even without using a lot of frames. Without proper spacing everything will seem floaty and abstract.
You can make things more cartoonish by exaggerating the momentum but that doesn't always work. The spacing should have more to do with the weight and velocity of the object you're trying to convey.
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: robotacon on February 02, 2009, 09:17:40 pm
What do you mean with constant speed on the ground? you mean same amount of pixels of foot movage each frame?

Exactly.
If it's a game sprite and it moves at a constant speed you want the foot to land on one place and stay there until it is picked up or the character will slip and slide on every step.

EDIT:
Ignacio got the same problem with his run making it look like Indy is running on a treadmill
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: ptoing on February 02, 2009, 09:26:31 pm
well yeh, that is ideal i agree, but it depends on the type of game and in some cases this can be pretty much neglected.

actually some other gif I threw together, can't remember whose sprite this is D:
(http://ptoing.net/walklogic.gif)
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: blumunkee on February 02, 2009, 09:33:27 pm
It's MadGarden's. I remember Helm insisting that any respectable programmer would make the movement pixel perfect. I think Mad was fine with letting him glide.
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: ptoing on February 02, 2009, 09:40:44 pm
the simplest solution there would be to simply adjust the animation to flow like the top but have the foot to ground thing proper. Not like that's hard
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: JonathanOfDrain on February 03, 2009, 01:31:24 am
Wow, these feedback is almost over whelming. I usually get a few replies that don't help or make sense. This is a nice change. Thank you.

(http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/7703/smoothrunnahtu9.gif)
I think this is a big improvement. The legs haven't received much work, I'll get to that soon. The head too, don't know why I didn't get to that.

This is just a test. I think I need to simplify it. I like the eyes.
(http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/329/testeejl0.png)
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: Ignacio on February 03, 2009, 08:18:46 am
Robotacon, I don't get you... Are you critizising the motion or how I "mounted" the frames? Because, yeah, my Indy is static, like moving in a treadmill, but because I "mounted" the animation to look that way... If I "mount" the animation to do it dynamic, it is dynamic.

(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/La_Lore/IndyRunDynamic.gif)

Look at the foot when he does the passing... Static in the floor, same amount of pixels for the foot, ever... I am sorry, maybe I missunderstood what you say...  :'(
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: ptoing on February 03, 2009, 09:23:45 am
EDIT:
Ignacio got the same problem with his run making it look like Indy is running on a treadmill

Eh, you do reaslise that it is not possible to do otherwise in a gif image where you just loop the animation but don't move it left or right?
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: PypeBros on February 03, 2009, 09:50:19 am
Wow, these feedback is almost over whelming. I usually get a few replies that don't help or make sense. This is a nice change. Thank you.
This is just a test. I think I need to simplify it. I like the eyes.
(http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/329/testeejl0.png)

I think there are two things beyond "bopping" that you haven't addressed yet.
- spine angle : in order to run, you have to move your weight forward, and so you will not have your spine vertical. The faster you run, the closer to the horizontal you'll get (though you won't reach the horizontal in a realistic world). I see your character still very verticalish.
- legs extension: your energy for the next step is given by extending your leg quickly (a bit like for a jump) after the passing by. Whether it makes you bop or boost forward is another issue, but the leg extends. This happens in frame 10 with ptoing's run, but your animation still lack this: the leg pass by and gets off the floor without having being extended at any moment.
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: Ignacio on February 03, 2009, 01:30:50 pm
Exactly, Pype...

To clarify... I am a runner (Well, basically I am a biker, but I swimm and run as well...) so I know what I am talking about when I say that there are different ways of running.  ;D

What Pype said is not 100% accurate in real world, to be honest... I remember a British 400 meters runner who was famous for keeping his spine totally vertical (I can' t remember his name, but he was amazing... Totally vertical spine, even in the corners...). So, to summarize... EVERY person RUNS different.

BUT

We are not biomechanics... We are "artists" and we are supposed to do art. One of the biggest steps I gave in my path to be an "artist" was when I started to think less about reality and more about what I wanted the observer to feel. ¿Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower are 2 kilometers away? Ok... Who cares? If the observer is playing a game located in Paris and he wants to see one background in Notre Dame and the following one in the Eiffel Tower, give him that.

Same here... The slower you run, the more boooooouncy and the more vertical the spine you do. (For example, I like to do loooong steps when I run, but when I do stamina trainings with someone who is slower, I must do the step A) Shorter B) slower... I decided to do it slower, so, what I basically do is running doing loooong and high jumps) The fastest, the less bouncy and the most horizontal the spine must be. If not... see the master:

(http://www.justpressplay.net/images/stories/tintin.jpg)
 ;D
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: robotacon on February 03, 2009, 02:27:26 pm
What I'm saying is that if you don't have the feet moving at a constant speed you will have to move the frames at a dynamic speed and why you would like to do that I can't fathom.
What do you win by handing the problem over to the programmer who will have to use something similar to kerning on every frame?
You mask the problem by drawing the head static along the x-axis and only moving it in the y-axis when in fact the head will be jerking back and forth as soon as you synchronize the feet to the ground.

With that said..... I agree with you that it's not the real world but how it looks that should dictate an animation loop. If you think no one cares about the difference go with your way of doing things.
I have the out most respect for that approach. I'm just trying to give pointers that will help people in their animation.
Beginners tend to draw fuzzy extreme frames and skip contact frames and have inbetweens that are out of synch with the frame rate. When I see something like that I try to help.
I feel I'm getting across like a rather unpleasant individual stepping on everyones toes so I don't know if I should give any more feedback, perhaps it's counter productive?

On a related note Richard Williams have released a DVD version of his book the Animators Survival Guide which looks awesome if it wasn't for the fact that it is crazy expensive.
I'm considering buying it but from the previews it doesn't look like there's a lot of new information that is not already covered by the book version.
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: Ignacio on February 03, 2009, 02:56:00 pm
Oh, Robotacon, I was not trying to start an argument, I was just asking because I didn't  really understand what you meant.  :)
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: ptoing on February 03, 2009, 04:27:41 pm
What I'm saying is that if you don't have the feet moving at a constant speed you will have to move the frames at a dynamic speed and why you would like to do that I can't fathom.
Because it looks more dynamic.

Quote
What do you win by handing the problem over to the programmer who will have to use something similar to kerning on every frame?
It's not like you have to hand that much work over to the coder. He codes a little thing to space frames by custom amounts of pixels, the artists gives him those values, he copy pastes them into his shit and it works.

Quote
You mask the problem by drawing the head static along the x-axis and only moving it in the y-axis when in fact the head will be jerking back and forth as soon as you synchronize the feet to the ground.
Not the case. At least not in the one I made. Tho I do agree that it has some fudgyness to it. The passing positions and the frames right after should push forward a tad more. Still works fine tho.

Quote
I feel I'm getting across like a rather unpleasant individual stepping on everyones toes so I don't know if I should give any more feedback, perhaps it's counter productive?
Interesting discussion as far as I am concerned :)
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: Ben2theEdge on February 03, 2009, 04:39:06 pm
The only time you'd want a character moving at a *not* constant speed would be for an adventure game or flashback-style game where the camera doesn't move much if at all. For gameplay reasons your average platformer is going to be better off with constant speed and precise character placement. Having your character stuttering across the screen will make the player feel like he has less control, and personally I think it looks pretty wonky when you throw scrolling into the equation. Imagine how unplayable Mario or Megaman would be if it had a walk like the guy from Flashback or Prince of Persia. Unless there's a good reason for it like a sneaking or drunk animation where every step is exaggerated/intentionally inconsistant, constant speed is going to yield more aesthetically pleasing results and it throws all these complications out the window.
Title: Re: Simple animation
Post by: ptoing on February 03, 2009, 06:36:54 pm
OK, I am a fucking retard. Actually all my mistake here. When people walk (unless they walk really funny, or you want something super cartoony, or a sneak or whatnot) walk at an even speed and this means that the head is spaced equally, the feet are NOT.

I made a new gif, which should please robotacon and Ben. :) This is made properly, the first one I made was done REALLY quick and without much thinking, thus I fucked up.

(http://ptoing.net/edit/12framerunproper.gif)

Only thing you need to keep in mind is that before you animate you HAVE TO know how many pixels per frame your sprite will move. Then you are set.

"All" you need to do then is make the contacts first, space them out as far as they would in one full move. So say you have a 12 frame run and you go 5 pixels a frame you place the first frame twice on the sheet 60 pixels (12x5) apart and put the other contact in the middle and so on.

I found if I put the heads first with equal spacing and not on a "treadmill" but actually moving at what the sprite would move in game, and then do the body and legs, I got the best result. So yeh, robotacon and Ben are right. At the end once you did this spacing stuff you could even go over it and move shit around (as long as the feet on the ground stay at the same places) like drag the head or jut it forwards at the highpoint and stuff like that.