AuthorTopic: [WIP] Walking Animation  (Read 6194 times)

Offline Bag Man

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 30
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

[WIP] Walking Animation

on: October 24, 2010, 04:23:16 am
Hi, I'm working on a walking animation for my characters, of a shoot em' up game I'm developing. I don't think if they are already finished. One arm isn't moving, because he would be holding a gun, so that arm is not going to be visible.



C&C Please.

[Current]


« Last Edit: November 15, 2010, 05:03:51 pm by Bag Man »

Offline MegaLeon

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 67
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [WIP] Walking Animation

Reply #1 on: October 24, 2010, 12:25:15 pm
The first one looks good, but is way too static. Move the right arm as well, and make it more dynamic:

See? The head isn't always at the same level. The whole boy "shift" up and down.

The second one might work, but it would be better to see it in movement.

Offline jackal27

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 18
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [WIP] Walking Animation

Reply #2 on: October 24, 2010, 02:50:12 pm
Yeah, I agree with everything mentioned above. Just moving the head down and then up again by one pixel would make a great deal of difference. The movement of his legs seems a bit off as well. There should be a midway point (the contact point) when his legs are very far apart, but both are touching the ground.

I like the zombie one though. he could us some head movement as well and maybe some head animation too.

Offline Bag Man

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 30
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [WIP] Walking Animation

Reply #3 on: October 25, 2010, 04:12:57 am
Is the legs topic done?
Ignore the weird arms movement, it was because i was combining frames :D, still working on it. 

Offline Larwick

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 738
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • Larwick
    • http://www.pixeljoint.com/p/3794.htm
    • View Profile
    • Artstation

Re: [WIP] Walking Animation

Reply #4 on: October 25, 2010, 06:51:44 pm
Hey Bag Man, when your guy straightens his legs out they should lift his body up. Look at the reference MegaLeon posted and notice the entire body movement! It won't look like a walking animation until all the parts are synchronized. His arms need to swing backwards from his body, not just forwards/upwards. Good luck.

Offline Platypotter

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 42
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • I'm all revved up!
    • View Profile

Re: [WIP] Walking Animation

Reply #5 on: October 26, 2010, 03:49:18 pm
Also, make sure that the arms stay in motion. It looks unnatural if your sprite's arms only jerk forward every step.

Offline Bag Man

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 30
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [WIP] Walking Animation

Reply #6 on: November 15, 2010, 05:02:55 pm
I didn't work on it for a long time. I think it's only missing, is the body lift up.

Taking that apart, how does it look?

Offline yaomon17

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 660
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • YaomonKS
    • taiya.sun
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/28472.htm
    • yaomon17
    • valedev
    • playvale
    • View Profile
    • portfolio

Re: [WIP] Walking Animation

Reply #7 on: November 15, 2010, 10:24:17 pm
Have him bob up and down.

Offline Cicadas

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 8
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [WIP] Walking Animation

Reply #8 on: November 15, 2010, 11:38:38 pm
If you turn your head sideways, it looks like he's throwing a temper tantrum! :D

But in all seriousness, it doesn't really convey movement to me. For one thing, all of his limbs are moving, but his body and head remain entirely stationary. Your torso twists and bends with your arms when you move and, like others have said, your body bobs up and down naturally with your stride.

Secondly, his arms and legs are moving about, yes, but they all seem to be doing different things from each other.
His right arm (our left) looks sort of like he's gently brushing or wiping something off of his jacket.
His left arm (our right) looks like its operating an invisible butter churn.

As for his legs, they're sort of twitching back and forth a bunch but not accomplishing a whole lot.
You've got some up and down motion in his left leg, but his right is just sort of sliding back and forth across the floor like he has frictionless feet and is struggling to stay upright.

The separation of all of these bodily elements just kills the synergy of movement that you're trying to achieve, and makes it look more like he's aimlessly flailing than moving across the screen. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that you made the sprite, and then simply moved the parts around to create the different frames. This is a very common mistake, and one that just about everyone has made at one point in their life, but it is a very, very bad habit to get into. If you do this, then all of your animations will look choppy and stiff, and I'm sure that's not what you want.

Instead of just moving parts around, you need to take the plunge and start drawing a new sprite for each frame,in succession. You can probably salvage the head (which doesn't move quite as much as the rest of the body) so you don't have to redraw it every frame, but the body (torso, arms, legs) should be redrawn from scratch. Every time. It's a bit more work, but its worth it. This way, even if its not perfect, it will more accurately simulate human locomotion because by going frame by frame you can see the progression of the movement, and all of the elements of the sprite are going to end up moving together to the same beat.
 
Give it a shot, I'm sure you can do it, and I think it'll help out a ton.