running sprite animation. CC badly needed

[mattib]

It's still part of the project that I'm doing, but I am opening a new thread because the old one seems dead.
This is my main character



and I am working on his running animation. Please help me to make it better!

[ABC]

Make one leg significally lighter and see what happens.

[mattib]

I made a quick edit with a darker leg, just to see how it looks because I am going to sleep now (well, I have to finish to trace another sprite actually)


the nice thing is that i found out that somehow I had switched two frames! Now that are in the right order it's a little smoother.
I think there's also a prospective problem. Maybe he faces too much the viewer at a certain point...he should be more 3/4

[Mathias]

You're going about it all wrong. You should be starting with a rough sketch keyframed out depicting only solidly colored body parts. Don't worry about shading/lighting until the animation is correct.

[mattib]

that's what i did... it looked quite good.
then i started the shading and stuff and while some parts improved some flaws emerged. anyway i'll break it apart e redo the shapes where needed. maybe ill redraw the legs.
now im going to sleep, my brain is frying.

[mattib]

while I'm redrawing the frames I am also reviewing the way I am shading the character.
I tried to make the shading simpler, with less colours, in order to be faster in the animation process and to have a better style (i think).



(this was the older one)

what do you think?

[mattib]

ok, I tried to redraw the running animation. I think that the shoulder movement is a little bit more natural.


I have worked also on this


and this


i still need some CC!

[dtek]

Hi,
this post is from last week, if you still would like some C&C, if I can add anything it'd be to work with super simple shapes to nail down the movement first, here's an example



when it's just rough shapes you can adjust the animation to exactly what you want quickly and easily, for example, if part of the animation pops frame to frame for the shoe position, you can just move the shoe slightly, but since you moved the shoe, you'd have to re-draw the whole leg, so redrawing the shoe and leg is easy if it's just rough shapes, like a leg could be a cylinder with a ball on the end for the shoe

and for your latest run cycle, I think that the part where the character's left leg first touches the ground after travelling through the air in the stride is missing a frame compared to the timing when the same motion happens but to the right leg, it that makes any sense

[mattib]

thanks for the reply. actually yeah, I first sketch my animation with simple shapes and then add the details. the problem is that sometimes the problems arise only in the advanced phase
I have probably to review my cycles..i don't know, look at how the other one evolved too.

I think the movement is fine but he looks always a little lame. Both are 8 frames loops, i thought that an even number would have runned smootly but...

uh, some other stuff

[mattib]

ok, here's another one, a new one. this is just the rough lineart.