My First Walking Animation, please help! [C+C]

[TheMonsterAtlas]

So this is totally my first walking (and animation) in general! Normally I bother Atnas with these things because whenever I post a topic no one responds to it :'[ But he's afk so I'm posting it here!

So this is the base I've created and plan on using for a top down RPG.


Now the problem is that I've never done animation before..so I'm going to need a lot of help as well as a lot of dumbed down terminology. As you can see I only did the thighs up because I don't understand exactly how to animate the legs at this point (I was walking in my bathroom to try to figure it out and figured out the frames.) So what I did instead of doing the legs I worked on the torso turn and wanted to know what you guys thought and could help me on. I know there should be a slight head turn but I don't know how to make it slight :/

[Psiweapon]

Hi there guy.

This tutorial http://www.manningkrull.com/pixel-art/walking.php (Which is sadly broken-linked on the "resources and linkage" thread) should cover all or most of your theorical walking cycle questions.

Basically, you're going to need at least four positions for each leg:

1 - Leg going forward

2 - Leg stretched downwards with the foot touching the ground (providing traction)

3 - Leg trailing behind the character

4 - Leg flexed with the knee somewhat forward, storing energy to release it in the first frame.

1 opposes to 3 and 2 to 4.


Still, I'm no animation expert, so if anyone who comes around can correct me, please do so.

[TheMonsterAtlas]

From that tutorial it says I would need 8 walking states at the very least since the base is 64x64 :0 is that realistic or can I get away with 4?

[Psiweapon]

You probably won't be able to get away with 4 frames.

Recently I made a 32x32 side-view sprite, and had to go with 8 frames, it looked too choppy with only 4.

You could try making four leg poses, mirroring and opposing them, and then doing the in-between frames by hand. Am I making sense? I'm not very sure.

[TheMonsterAtlas]

Hmm, I suppose so, I thought it worked for a relatively fast paced walk by having only 4 frames. I feel like if I add more frames it will feel like your character is moving slower than what the base speed is. (Of course I can always change the rate in which the character moves per tick but the game is suppose to be fast paced.) Walking that fast is generally just to get a head start in running, which is going to be a split second before you actually do start running. (probably 2 cycles of the walking state before you start into a run.)



:'[[[[[[[[

Brb Anhero

[PypeBros]

Your 4-frame walk definitely requires 4 distinct frames to work. "idle - left leg - idle - right leg" won't work and just looks like an odd dance.

Use the shading to suggest whether knees are bent or legs are straight. You can also use it to depict forward/backward angling of the leg.

<-- left foot still trailing behind, left knee already moving forward, right leg stretched ahead... or so should it look like
 HTH.

edit: doh. it looks like I haven't saved back as an animation >_<
edit++: oh, btw, 6-frame walks works so much better. Do you *really* want to stick to 4 that hard ?

[TheMonsterAtlas]

I guess not I will go with 6 frames instead, I should have a progress picture tonight.