Walk Animation (WIP)

[dyuaru]

I've been working on a walk animation for a game that I'm making with a friend and I'm looking for some critique and advice on how to make it better. Of course, It's not not  even close to being done yet but I'll post it here just for some help.



I have not made the head move yet so that will probably be the first thing I fix and then there's the matter of the feet which are done quite bad. I'm not very good with animation sprites so if anyone could give some reference sprites or animations on walking it would be very appreciated. The sprite isn't shaded just yet and is not fully detailed yet since I'm working on the base for now until it looks smooth.

Thanks for the help!

[.TakaM]

a few questions first.

are you limited to only 4 frames for the animation?
does the frame where both feet are adjacent have to be used as the idle sprite?

[Gil]

Try adding frames, 4 is by FAR too few. I find 6 to be the sweet spot for low-quality animations, 4 only really works for 16x16 sprites. Try 8 to 12 for a good animation cycle...

Here's some examples:

12 frames:

6 frames:

4 frames:

[dyuaru]

I was indeed going to add more frames but first I wanted to get something that ran relatively smooth so that the next frames would be used for detail. It seems that I have been going at it the wrong way so I'll be adding extra frames to it soon.
Oh and as for the idle sprite, I was trying to make it a bit more like classic games where they include the idle sprite in the animation but if needed, I will take it out and replace it with a sprite that runs much smoother.

Thanks for the help 

[Esker]

The amount of the frames isn't the major problem with this, it's the actual frames used that are the problem.

You have a normal stance sprite with his feet sideways and then a sprite which has one leg forward and one leg backward.

http://www.brianlemay.com/animation/walkcycle1a.html

This shows the four main points of a walk cycle and also has some decent stuff on it too.

This place also has 2 tutorials on it that are fairly decent too.

http://www.idleworm.com/how/index.shtml

Hope that helps.

[sonic_reaper]

Yup I agree with Esker; you don't need more frames to improve the animation.  In fact the first thing you should do before/if you decide to add more frames is perfect the amount of frames you currently have to work with.  The position of the legs and head is what's throwing the animation off; here's an example to illustrate using the walk frame Esker provided;



It's still not perfect but you can see it looks infinitely more natural than the way his legs were previously positioned.

[dyuaru]

Thanks for the help on fixing my sprite, your version looks a whole lot smoother.

Thanks again!