[WIP] Robot Janitor Game!

[hopoo]

Walk cycle for a janitor robot (hence the hat!)



As it is, it looks a bit.. chunky/pixelly. I can't really AA because there will be different colored backgrounds. C&C would be appreciated  

[RedKnight91]

pretty good in my opinion, maybe you should lighten up his right leg a bit and darken the left a bit : )

[pistachio]

The torso should turn more, what with the apparently "strong" movement of the legs/arms. (Whoops, one-liner.)

[hopoo]

Alright, I tried to rotate his torso, but the method that I drew him in previously (individually drawing legs and arms then frankensteining it to a floating body) made it pretty much impossible, so I restarted from scratch quick so I could draw each frame whole. It resulted in much more natural look (the fact that hes a robot can be made evident through other animations because this one seems awfully organic)

Excuse the high animation speed, I'm not quite sure how to fix that in the browser.

[Viscis]

Add duplicate frames to slow down the speed. I.e. include two of each frame.

[Argyle]

I would not recommend what Viscis suggests. Sure, it would end up halving the speed, but it would also double your file size when all you should have to do is change the timing in your frame delay in whatever program you are using.  What did you use to create the animated GIF?

[hopoo]

I draw the frames in paint, preview it in gamemaker, then export it and import/export again in photoshop (because gamemaker gifs dont loop)

 

[hopoo]

! Cleaned up the walk cycle a bit, along with making the rest of the animations. I would post them but its a huge POS to get them from spritesheet to gif..


This is the main antagonist of the game. He chases you and is invincible (think of metroid fusion)




In-game:

[Lackey]

That TV robot monster looks awesome and from the mock-up I already want to try playing this. The screen flipping out when he attacks looks great.

The antagonist's hip wobble seems a bit crazy relative to the amount of motion in his legs, though.

[Grundy]

Ok, I love these robot guy´s appearance.
Do you have a weblog somewhere? i want to follow this superdope game more closely.

I think the design in the first post was better than the latter ones because of the added orange on his lower arms seems to distract from the nice focus you had on its helmet. It also breaks its tallness. But maybe this was all intentional. If it has some kind of relevant Sheppard/predator console in its arm then consider my comment irrelevant. But as a whole i like the first one best.

The bad guy. I like the idea of his powersmash. Lifting its arms way up and smacking down.
Clever how the red flashing signals an upcoming threat (damage) to the player.
I thought he was frustratingly holding his head at first. Probably because of the way his lower arms disappear behind him.

I suspect i'm probably nitpicking. And probably do so against some holy animation laws but:
In the antagonist's idle, Why does it appear as if it is processing oxygen (breathing?). It´s a robot, right?
Could be that he uses some vapor as fuel and i know the adding human traits to objects gives it more sympathy but when i think of a robot, Especially an evil one, I consider being inanimate as more appropriate.

If you think that´s nonsense and you like to keep the breathing then consider giving it a slower breathing pace. It looks like it´s aroused-scared because his chest is pumping up tempo. But from what i see he´s the one causing the trouble, the bad guy. Not the one being afraid.  There are probably some alternatives to make stuff moving on his idle. Like a distorted flicker pattern on his screen.

I think the Wally movie tackles the problem of vivifying things with inanimate nature  very well.

But please correct me if i am making no sense at all.

[rikfuzz]

Looking GREAT!  Just a couple of tweaks on this particular animation:



1) Added some kind of smear to the largest movement.  Can be done in a bunch of different styles, but it just seemed slightly too large a distance to just snap. 

2) Brought his anticipation move out a couple of pixels so there was a bit more leaning away before the strike. 

[JonasO]

Walk cycle for a janitor robot (hence the hat!)



As it is, it looks a bit.. chunky/pixelly. I can't really AA because there will be different colored backgrounds. C&C would be appreciated  

I have few comments on the art, it is quite good. He seemed a little bit to wiggly for me (like he'd be made from jelly), but you have hanged that. The cap still seems to move too much (both the cap itself which seems to grow and shrink and the thing above his eyes which is really wiggly).

However, I'm wondering why he's a janitor and why that thing chases him. Judging from the mockup he wasn't a very good janitor.
Mario the plumber at least had those pipes that he could go through, but in general there was no reason for mario to be a plumber (except for his clothing which was a consequence of the pixel & color restrictions).
You do not have such restrictions so you better have a good reason for him to be a janitor, for a janitor to be chased by such a terrific monster, and for a janitor to run through such shabby corridors.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

I like the style you adopted for this game. Iji and Knytt sorta. Love both of those games.

[Lackey]

suggestion: maybe go a bit more Flashback on the backgrounds?

[Grimsane]

agree with lackey, especially since you have to some degree alluded to that with the object he is hiding behind. and the floor doesn't work to well at the moment, Lackey has offered a solution for that too in his edit even if you keep the strict side on perspective.

really like the character design, especially that violent TV bot 

and that walk animation while having alot of character has a few things his hip wobble and a few moments of leg length change, also the problem of differentiating foreground and background limbs only the feet/legs really,
here's a suggestion

just using colour tones you're already using to separate them, of course I can see he has what seems like pronged feet in the idle, so doing a similar effect that you have with the hands would work. also attempted to see what was making it read strange, and it was the leg width you have thin background leg in some frames and thick in others so that messes with perception a bit too hope this game project keeps powering ahead it looks really cool 

[hopoo]

Thank you everyone for the help! Update:


I realize that the floor is quite 'clean' right now, but I will add more destroyed tiles once I have the base tile set.