AuthorTopic: GR#100 - Character Animation  (Read 21233 times)

Offline numlock

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GR#100 - Character Animation

on: March 17, 2012, 11:30:42 am
So I made this character for a sidescroller/beatemup game like river city ransom (I'm going to try to animate exactly if I can) so far the nose is kinda bugging me also idk about if antialiasing would look quite good, this is kinda my first pixel character so I know I probably made a lot of mistakes, please do remind me of those
also the game is going to be in 384x224 size so I think height of the character is enough but if you think its big or small please tell.

Offline numlock

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Re: [WIP] need help with pixel character

Reply #1 on: March 17, 2012, 11:34:21 am
ah also I forgot to mention that idk if I should leave it with flat feeling or try to add a little bit more depth, in this one I tried to add boxing gloves and made lines brownish as well as changing colors on face, still unhappy with the nose.

Offline numlock

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Re: [WIP] need help with pixel character

Reply #2 on: March 17, 2012, 12:54:03 pm
Made a little animation with graphicsgale, I was using mspaint but seeing GG made me rethink about it, its kinda wobbly but I'm trying to make it simple so game would be responsive, I don't have much experience with making games so if you think I should make more frames I'll try, because walking kinda bugs me too, also I could try making his nose more reddish but idk.

Offline Kain Nobel

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Re: [WIP] need help with pixel character

Reply #3 on: March 17, 2012, 03:24:58 pm
The colors applied on the pants could use some work, to the unfocused eye it all looks like one solid color of black. The feet just appear to scoot across the floor, they legs appear to just slap together. It looks like there is a double pixel issue at the bottom of the animation's fists.

Offline numlock

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Re: [WIP] need help with pixel character

Reply #4 on: March 17, 2012, 09:33:03 pm
sı I tried changing animation colors and giving it one more frame, also tried to fix double pixel issue, still don't know about nose also don't know how to save as bigger gifs in graphicsgale so I guess I'll have work on this much more than I think, thanks for critique though i didn't understand about unfocused eye thing

Offline skeme_IN5

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Re: [WIP] need help with pixel character

Reply #5 on: March 17, 2012, 09:44:38 pm
Agreed about the pants colour. They are too dark and look black.
I did a quick edit(Just click the image a few times to enlarge it) -



I thought the nose was unreadable so I changed it to stand out more. The mouth was also quite hard for me to read(at first I though he was smiling!) so I took away detail there.
I tried to give a lightsource from the top-left but this is something Im new to myself, so it probably sucks.
Also, you used too many colours for his eyes so I just used black and white. The light grey was OK I suppose, but the dark grey/black was unneeded because it looks just the same as black. Same goes for the eyebrows.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2012, 09:52:14 pm by skeme_IN5 »
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Offline numlock

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Re: [WIP] need help with pixel character

Reply #6 on: March 17, 2012, 11:45:27 pm
ty for your comment it helped very much with the nose, yours looks much better I think, I kinda combined both and I needed mouth since I can't really give funny/cartoonish emotions without lips so I kinda cut the nose a bit(I might use little icons over his head but it'll probably be harder to make than I think), I think I'm going to use less colors from now on so I used pants colors for eyebrows and light eye color, I liked the grey area so I'm probably going to leave it, color is not an issue I guess but I know if I use similar colors on game it'll look much better so again I'm going to have to make some color palette or something for the game, I might change looks of boxing gloves since I don't think they represent boxing gloves as it is, again ty for your comment, do correct me if you see any problem with character.

edit: I forgot to mention that I'm still not sure about the outline color, both looks fine so I'll see how it goes with enviorments and other characters I guess.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2012, 11:47:24 pm by numlock »

Offline skeme_IN5

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Re: [WIP] need help with pixel character

Reply #7 on: March 18, 2012, 01:15:46 am
Glad I could help :)
I think you can still show cartoon emotions without adding lips and cutting the bottom part of the nose off though.
Heres an example(normal, surprised, sad...and very surprised at the bottom) -



And this is the same example again but with a pixel taken away from moustache(dont know if this was really needed but thought Id show it anyway) -


I dont see the point of using the pants colour for the eyebrows and bottom of the eyes because it really does look the same as black...especially when placed next to black. Unless your character is going to be really zoomed in and enlarged in your game, its not going to be a visible colour change from the black.
If you really want to use a different colour for eyebrows, I would suggest using the dark brown from his hair like in my example.
I dont think using the lip colour to shade the bruised nose really works either. Maybe try a different colour?
Well these are just my thoughts and hope it could help some.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2012, 01:17:36 am by skeme_IN5 »
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Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: [WIP] need help with pixel character

Reply #8 on: March 18, 2012, 02:22:52 am


I'm a huge fan of River City Ransom.
It's a great game and the Technos style characters have a lot of charm.
But by following their design so closely you are also picking up a lot of the weaker elements.

RiverCity characters are very crunched, to the point they appear to be hugging themselves.
Try adding a bit of volume and perspective by separating the different parts of his body.

An easy way to test the compactness of your sprite is to overlay each major piece with a box.
This will allow you to measure and adjust the amount of overlap:


However it's also cool to match the style verbatim if your intention is to be as retro as possible.
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline numlock

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Re: [WIP] need help with pixel character

Reply #9 on: March 18, 2012, 03:32:09 am
seeing this exaggerated emotion I made eyes 2 more pixels so now nose and lips doesn't cut eachother and looks somehow more balanced, it helped me a lot actually, obviously its still not finished but I think its in much better shape than I started, so again thank you very much
also to pixelpiledriver, that pixel art of yours amazing:) youre right about crunched thing I'll try to fix that though making those yours kind of pixel art for all game is kinda impossible for me at this level,considering this is my second pixel character and first one isn't better than this one, still I'm determinated to make something I like, also youre right about making it look retro, at least I want to see lines around characters, also I think less frame animation would be easier for me and it actually looks ok in my book like in river city ransom, still we'll see where it goes, ty all for your help, must sleep now, will try to update when I progress more.