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Pixel Art / Re: tree [WIP]
« on: October 04, 2019, 06:31:08 pm »
Big improvement looks pretty nice

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The way you're thinking about it currently-yes. Sinusoidal deformations occur in 3D rather than 2D, and the resulting effects on reflections do not resemble sine waves (due to their shapes being determined by the angles of incidence and therefore being only indirectly influenced by the wave motion), so it doesn't make much sense to draw them as such.
If you want to understand water in a mathematical way, then you'd need to work in 3D, as 2D necessarily obscures some important information. If you want to learn how to draw good-looking 2D water, then you shouldn't worry too much about the mathematics and focus on observing the effects, spend time looking at water (ideally, in real life so you can change your viewing angle, mess with the water surface, etc, but videos can be helpful too). Try animating some non-looping water from reference, at various angles and with various kinds of waves. You can always make it loop later once you have a better feel for how it works. Just as with walk cycles, billowing clothing, etc, IRL there aren't perfect loops for most natural things, but we animators always find a way to make it work by judging the details :]
In that image, it's not reflections but shadows, which would only change a little bit as the water moved. The reflections in that image are very faint, and notice how you can see through the (murky!) water a little near the sides due to the angle.In addition, due to the Fresnel effect, water appears less reflective the higher your viewing angle is. This means that if your tiles are from-above or typical 3/4 RPG view, there should probably not be reflections at all, or only minimal reflections, and instead we'd see through the surface of the water and into the depths.
This is not 3/4 perspective but it still have reflection from trees from top down view... So If there is more stuff near by the pond.. Should it reflect other stuff like Tree etc?
https://i.imgur.com/iAYFRQU.png
In addition, due to the Fresnel effect, water appears less reflective the higher your viewing angle is. This means that if your tiles are from-above or typical 3/4 RPG view, there should probably not be reflections at all, or only minimal reflections, and instead we'd see through the surface of the water and into the depths.
This is good progress, the water has some more personality now.
I get what you're saying in reference to matching tiles to each other's 8 frame animation sequence. My advice with that is try and work in sub-divisions that can equally divide into the main tile. Eg; if you're scrolling something on a 16x16 tile, and the anim is 8 frames, then it'd make sense to scroll it in 2 pixel increments. That is the most basic way to think about it, but the logic can be applied in various ways to make life easier and the animations more controlled.
Of course a big part of animating tiles is going to be finessing the work: it's one thing to get a standalone anim to look good, but to get an animation to cooperate with other animations in varying scenarios is going to require some amount of work for each possible scenario. You can break the tasks down into smaller goals if that makes things feel more manageable.
One relevant question is the ratio of your tiles, are they 1:1 or is there any foreshortening on the y axis due to the view (4:3, 2:1)? If so, I think you latter version is better because the side waves are shorter than width of the top waves. Even if the tiles are 1:1 the vertical shortening would be a good stylistic choice I think.
Also, are you going to put any classic watery texture on the surface, or going for plain color blue like Zelda with ocasional breaks? I wonder how a jrpg watery texture would interact with animated wavy borders like yours.
It is a departure from what you have now, but in your examples I see that there are discrete globules of shadow separating periodically from the larger shadow/reflection. I wonder if you could integrate that element
I think you have the right ideas. Usually the sine-wave type movement of water happens on more axis than just one. In your latest example you've captured that movement on one plane of an axis, but there are two more axes to consider. By applying that same math to the other axes you can better recreate the undulating motions of water. In general all things animate along arcs in a cyclical fashion, so understanding that principal will illuminate its uses as a tool in many different scenarios of animation.
I think it's very smart to research what you're trying to understand, and your attitude and approach are great! Looking forward to more progress, I think there could be a wealth of information for people to reference if you keep this thread active. Good luck!