Animating chopper blades.

[Grundy]

Ok people.
I've been working on my game so long the last days that i can't see straight anymore.

Right now i'm at the intro scene.
The player stands on the roof of a building and a chopper picks him up.
Then the building explodes.

http://grundysoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/introanim_chopper.png

Thing i'm stuck at. How can i animate the chopper blades?
I can't seem to figure this out because mation is lost from the side view.
There's gotta be some neat technique or trick. But i cant find it on google.
Heeelp.

[wurfle]

If you use foreshortening, you can get a pretty realistic animation with only three frames. The one you have, one where the blades appear shorter, and one where you cant see them. This will create the illusion of the blades rotating 45 degrees each frame.

[Grundy]

Thanks man. I think this might be it.
Actually most helicopters have 2 blades so in theory it would always have the same length from the side. But we need this stuff to animate!
I'll give it a try.



Close enough, Many thanks Wurfle!

[Dusty]

I think what you need is some motion blur. Helicopter blades move much too fast to perceive, so it's very rare to actually see the blades rotate. In order to properly give the viewer the sensation of blades moving you need to blur them.

Now motion blurring isn't something I'm very good at, nor do I have the time to do so with pixel art so the most I can do is some crappy photoshop blurring stuff, but hopefully it helps:



Also it seems very slow in Firefox so the effect is sort of lost depending on the medium you're viewing it in.

[wurfle]

Yeah they both look a bit slow, I hope its better in game. If not you can always cut the middle frame.

Thanks man. I think this might be it.
Actually most helicopters have 2 blades so in theory it would always have the same length from the side.

This method still works with more blades, only the more blades there are the less they appear truncated. For a four bladed helicopter, for example, the blades would only be shortened by about 25% rather than nearly 100% for two blades.

[Grundy]

Thanks for that bright idea Dusty. Seems like a neat trick.
It's also very hard to pull off so for short term ill have to be content without the blur.

Ill stick to one blade as well. Seems to work.