Bang/boing

[robotacon]

I'm not certain what problems you have with the current run animation, looks pretty ok for a standard cartoon-ish run cycle. But if you want it too be more realistic you shouldn't really lift the legs up so high, more than just being unrealistic it also means the difference between frames is too much and leads to a choppier animation.

take a look at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Muybridge_runner.jpg

Rototyping looks bad alot of the times because the camera won't select proper contact frames.

[balls01]

hello.

i have a problem with the tail on the roopter (hope i got spelling right). me, im a jurassic park fan, i watched the raptor. thier tail's, static. not ad dangling. sice its for balance, and as an australian. i see a kangaroo almost every day, and they use thier tail for the exact same purpose.

so yeah the crit: its unbalanced

[blumunkee]

Agreed. Seems like the tail should be springy, not floppy.

[Mathias]

Come and watch the kangaroos near where I live, I see about 20 on the way home from work at night standing at the curb and hopping around 

I would like to watch the kangeroos.




Compiled raw's animation sheet, blew it up 2x and of course colored it hypnotically. Too bad it's frames are incomplete.

[Scribblette]

Nice, Mathias - that looks almost complete. It's only the tail movement which throws off the animation stitching at the very beginning imho.

The tail on the current animation definitely seems floppy and in there for being pretty, rather than being vital to movement. Might be better slowing the animation slightly?

[mozzy]

Thanks guys!
Yeah, this isn't the most realistic thing ever (but then again, a rooptile isn't real either d: )But it gets the job done I suppose.
Much thanks to Kinnas' edit.

[32]

Rototyping looks bad alot of the times because the camera won't select proper contact frames.

I assume you mean rotoscoping, I wasn't suggesting that he copied that run, just a visual representation of what I meant by lifting the legs too high.

Slightly off topic as your a bit far into animating to change it. I just think that for any movement animations in games you should turn the character to a straight side view, I always find it harder to animate on an angle, and it just doesn't look quite right in motion. I think it ads a lot of awkwardness to your animations, its kinda like you have to choose between anatomical correctness and proper direction in the movement, I mean yours look great as are, and would look fine in movement, they just wouldn't be right, like keeping your torso at an angle to the direction your moving is just gonna throw you off balance, and it affects the animation in that it makes it look like he's running slightly towards us. Obviously there's a lot of other problems that come with putting him full side view in a game environment, as in its somewhat inconsistent, but you could just keep the head facing us.

But its not like its game or animation breaking, just something that you may want to think about if you keep having trouble with the run animation.

[mozzy]

Well, actually, I did it at this angle because all my other sprites are side view and I got bored with them. Really, I just wanted to challenge myself. I'm not even sure this is really gonna be a game.

[Scribblette]

Side view doess seem to be easier to get anatomically correct for movement, animation and can look less awkward, but I keep seeing in RPGs and the like it seems characters are done from a slight angle regardless. I don't know why - is it so you can give them a little more character, because side-views are boring?

[.TakaM]

Angling sprites for platformers has it's benefits.

Changing direction from left to right is a much lesser shift than a pure side view sprite, is much smoother and usually doesn't require turning frames.
Much easier to avoid the repeating silhouette effect that plagues a lot of side view sprites.
The view can accommodate more character.


I'm really liking your sprites, only thing I think you need to be careful with is your rooptile's "run anim".
It can be pretty tricky when dealing with a run anim that is essentially a series of small jumps, I assume he'll still control as if running, just with the appearance of hopping?
I'd suggest making his legs a little out of sync and alternating (left- right, then right- left) so he shifts his weight to his side accordingly (edit- skipping basically ), or maybe go for a raptor like run cycle.