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Messages - Scarab
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1
Archived Activities / Re: Secret Santa 2012 - Sign Up Thread
« on: November 23, 2012, 10:01:23 am »
I'll join in as well please.  :)

What I love to see in pixel art:
  • Mockups (I love RPG towns in particular)
  • NES/GBC/SNES/GBA style
  • Animation! :D
  • Steampunk and Victorian aesthetics
  • Limited/creative colour palettes

What I am less partial to:
  • Micro-pixel art (with large objects or characters represented by less than 8x8)
  • Orcs and goblins
  • Cyberpunk

All in all I'd be happy with anything you'd enjoy making though.
Can't wait until Xmas :)

2
Pixel Art / Re: Mummy
« on: October 15, 2012, 06:37:41 am »
The problem I see with the animation you have thus far is that it doesn't have any rhythm or weight.

Start off with the steps where the front foot is just barely contacting the ground, and then the passing position, where the legs pass each other. This will give you a framework for the rhythm, so you can then add in the motion between those two extremes. It makes it much easier to place the limbs when you can see exactly where they came from and exactly where they're going.

With regards to the weight, I imagine a mummy moving very slowly and clumsily, with heavy steps; lifting itself up slowly and falling fast.

Here's my take on how the mummy would move: Notice how much longer it takes to lift itself up than to fall.

I added a zombie-like limp, so it loops with only one step, but a walk like this could be easily adapted to one with even paces.

To make the body feel stiff, I made the head and arms move in synch with the torso, rather than lag behind, but you may want to lag the motion of the loose bandages by a few frames so they feel nice and floppy as they move.

I hope this helps. :)
Regards.

3
Pixel Art / Re: Whip Animation C&C
« on: October 04, 2012, 09:33:23 am »
A thing to think about is what kind of chain is this? Is it a light, ninja-like chain that will CRACK on impact? Or is it a heavy street-brawler chain that is really more of a blunt weapon than whip. Right now it feels like the animation is fighting both these ideas. The final frame has a crack and the frame right before feels heavy (like he's swinging a thick rope).

If you want the whip like feel, remember, you don't need the movement frame. Just a lead up and reaction shot. Check out the Castlevania sprites:



Four frames to wind up, one for the arm to shoot out with the chain lagging, and two final reaction frames.

However, if you want a heavy feel. Make it *heavy*. End it with a THUD. Have the character get thrown around a little by the weight.

Keep us posted on progress! I like it.

Ah, yes. I hadn't thought of that.

Initially I was planning for a heavy whip, as the game centres around street gangs, but I think I'll lean more towards a lighter whip to differentiate this weapon from others.

Current progress:

I've started animating the rest of the body and cleaned up and coloured the first few frames.
I'd love to hear people's thoughts.
I'm hoping to get some critique on the overall motion of the body. Does the energy transfer feel natural?
I still think the last frame is the weakest, I may have to add another couple of frames in there.  :/

Any comments are appreciated.  :)
Regards, Scarab.

4
Pixel Art / Re: Whip Animation C&C
« on: September 26, 2012, 01:28:48 pm »
Thanks for the response guys :)

....did you try looking at Castlevania? Those whip animations always looked pretty great...
http://www.castlevaniacrypt.com/games/dx/sprites.htm

Yes, that was one of my first thoughts. Unfortunately the character design has a small but important difference; in Castlevania, the player sprite doesn't hold his whip in his idle pose, so they never have to animate retracting the whip.

I considered changing my design to mimic that, (it would certainly cut down on frames,) but as the weapons are equip-able, it has to be clear at a glance what a given foe is armed with, and what the player will be attacking with.

Try having him turn his body as he whips. Also, his legs look very stiff. You don't have to move them so much, but suggest his legs are at least turning. One trick I always do is to do the animation myself in front of a mirror. The animation is also similar to throwing a baseball, maybe looking at some of those references can help you.

The body below the shoulders hasn't been animated yet, as that will all be secondary motion and will follow the head and shoulders, so I agree that it looks stiff at the moment, but I can't change it until I've finalised the motion of the shoulders, arms, and head.

This is also is probably why it isn't clear that the upper body is rotating (or rather, will be). As the left shoulder comes up, the texture on the torso in the final animation will be shifting to the left, and the knees and ankles will show the rotation as well. :)


The thing I'm most concerned about is the motion of the whip itself, and how it behaves after an impact. I'm wondering if there is a solution other than having it pulled back over the head like this.

5
Pixel Art / Whip Animation C&C
« on: September 25, 2012, 06:26:31 am »
Hello there!

I am working on sprites for a small NES-inspired beat-em-up, and I'm having trouble animating an enemy who uses a chain whip. I am hoping to have the important parts of the animation working well before I clean it up.



Here it is with  a pause between cycles, as is closer to how it would be seen in-game:


Specifically, I don't know what to do with the whip after the impact frame.


References I've looked at have the whip follow through and slap on the ground (not aggressive), or flicked above the head before falling alongside the character, (which I worry would make the attack animation seem dragged out and overly long).

Any critique or advice is appreciated.  ;D
Regards,
Scarab.

6
Pixel Art / Re: really quick NES sprite
« on: April 07, 2011, 09:22:38 am »
Hey there!

As far as I know, the most noticeable NES restrictions are 3 colours per 8x8 sprite tile, plus transparency.
(There are more that dictate how many palettes you can have and how many tiles you can display at once, but unless you're actually going to put the game on an NES, you don't really need to worry about them).

It's hard to tell how it animates from the stills, would you mind posting it as an animated gif?
One thing I can suggest is adding some upper body movement.

Keep in mind that the term '8-bit sprite' is technically ambiguous, as each 8-bit system had different restrictions, but keeping with the 'vibe' of your friend's sprite and the NES I did a quick paintover of my interpretation of the sprite:



The top one was my first attempt, then I tried it in a couple of other styles that fitted NES colour restrictions, but were further away from the reference image.

Animated:(It's a bit fast, and could use some fine tuning, but hopefully it illustrates a few of the points I made above.)

Anyway, hopefully this can give you some ideas on making it more 'blocky'  :)


Regards, Scarab ;D

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