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Pixel Art / Re: Stylized Hero Sprite and Animation Feedback Needed!
« on: August 12, 2017, 09:13:20 am »
For sword animation I guess it just depends on what sort of animation you're planning. If it's a real basic forward swing i.e. Zelda you could probably just animate the character motion and create several swords under a template to fit in his hand, just placing them in the proper spot for each frame of the animation. If you're thinking of more complex animation like a multi-hit combo, or using different weapon types that obviously increases the amount of work you'd need to do exponentially.
You could create layers in Aseprite, one per sword, and just switch them in or out, although that would be very tedious to create separate character art assets for every weapon. In all likelihood there's probably a good programming work-around to just substitute different weapons in and out, maybe you wouldn't even need a weapon sprite sheet? The Castlevania series starting with SotN definitely made use of a few basic animations based on weapon type for many different weapon sprites, but I'm sure they didn't make a new character sprite for every single weapon.
Before you go worrying about all that I'd just work on a base template, make the animation you want the sword swing to have and either leave the weapon out or put it on a separate layer so it can be removed easily and doesn't tamper with the character sprite. If you want to work on a variety of weapons just do them as a line-up so you can explore different designs. Then, once you reach the point of wanting to have different weapons implemented I'm sure there's resources to find out how to swap in and out weapons onto the character's base animation. Worst case scenario you can always go the old "inventory sprite is unique but the character animation always has the same weapon" deal, though that does admittedly feel a bit lazy.
You could create layers in Aseprite, one per sword, and just switch them in or out, although that would be very tedious to create separate character art assets for every weapon. In all likelihood there's probably a good programming work-around to just substitute different weapons in and out, maybe you wouldn't even need a weapon sprite sheet? The Castlevania series starting with SotN definitely made use of a few basic animations based on weapon type for many different weapon sprites, but I'm sure they didn't make a new character sprite for every single weapon.
Before you go worrying about all that I'd just work on a base template, make the animation you want the sword swing to have and either leave the weapon out or put it on a separate layer so it can be removed easily and doesn't tamper with the character sprite. If you want to work on a variety of weapons just do them as a line-up so you can explore different designs. Then, once you reach the point of wanting to have different weapons implemented I'm sure there's resources to find out how to swap in and out weapons onto the character's base animation. Worst case scenario you can always go the old "inventory sprite is unique but the character animation always has the same weapon" deal, though that does admittedly feel a bit lazy.