Abobo Sprite for Double Dragon Remake on ZX Spectrum

[redballoon]

Started on the Abobo sprite for the remake of Double Dragon for the ZX Spectrum. This game has been in development hell for 2 years but now steaming on for completion. Just created the Abobo sprite walking animation. Not 100% happy with it. Fell I will probably have to clean up the leg animations including the dithering, but it's a reasonable start, I think. We've got a maximum of 24 pixels wide for all sprites walking.

Here are the 4 frames :


And the animation :

[adamisgr8]

After looking at the animation a bit more closely, the guys legs appear to be twisting. I'm not too sure how to say this... His right leg, appears to cross behind the left leg, and then go forwards. It keeps on repeating this pattern. It seems like a good start but is he running jogging or walking? His head is bobbing up and down a little two much for what seems like a fast walk. However, his arms look like they are not fluid enough, with the arms down for two frames and then up for 2 again. Seems a little two robotic, unless he is a robot
I am still a little bit new to pixel art, but I hope this helps!  

[redballoon]

Hah, I don't know why I actually never did this before, but here is the Abobo sprite walking from the arcade. That has only 4 frames, too, so here's the comparison. Obviously, there is further restrictions for the ZX Spectrum version.



He is doing a fast walk - no running in Double Dragon. Actually, the animation will maybe be slower in the actual game. The most obvious thing is that the torso in my Spectrum version doesn't move as much.

[Helm]

honestly the original arcade cycle is horrible and I don't think you should be using it as animation reference. Why is everything jiggling? What's his hand doing? The original animations don't look keyframed even, parts just got moved on every frame haphazardly. Not an efficient way to make the most out of four frames. I'm no animation expert, but until someone arrives at this thread, here's a more anchored version to get it rolling.

[redballoon]

Yeah, i like where that's going.
It's a toughie, all right. The original version released in 1988 was a travesty therefore we're hoping this version will amend that. There's the chance to remake a lot of people's favourite arcade game and they want it as close to the arcade as possible, something that i'm trying to do, though it's not possible, as well as producing some good Spectrum graphics. The thing is, space is tight even though it will be a Spectrum 128 only game and the 2 frames animation for the upper body actually benefits us as it means we can get more of the fighting moves and other animation in which we've had to cut back on.

[rikfuzz]

2 frame upper body is still doable, but it's just the animation in the original ARCADE version was just terrible (I was pretty young, it was one of my favourite games and I still noticed it was bad). You've done a pretty good job at reproducing it with spectrum limitations, it's just you can probably fix their mistakes too while you're at it, without deviating in style or any of the things that make it double dragon.
If all you do is change the two arm positions to make sense (something like the extremes in Helm's version) then you'll have fixed something that's bugged me for 20 odd years! 

[Helm]

I do not think that people's nostalgia towards Double Dragon should stop you fixing the animation. I don't think people remember Double Dragon fondly *because* of bad animations like that. But I might be wrong.

[HughSpectrum]

If the awkward bounciness is the norm for the Arcade version, then it can be argued that the NES version did better in that regard.

[Helm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCQ-Nbinx78

Technos moved towards River City Ransom on the NES, it's useful to look at this middle evolutionary period for the 8bit brawler, I agree the pixel art and the animation here is smartly compacted and readable. MUCH better than looking at the arcade directly for the port.