Household lady

[hapiel]

Hi guys

I am having some kind of fighter sprite moves in my mind but before I start animating I'd love to hear your opinions about what I have so far!



Oh and




Okay I have a question for the experienced animators here:
How do you keep all the stuff together that you animate? I mean I now already have a static file, an idle animation and an attack animation. I just changed the face a little in the idle one, now I have to update all the files! Probably by the time I have the 3rd animation done I see some flaws in the static file and want to change the clothes or whatever and then have to edit everything! And how do I keep the colors consistent?
I have once talked to some guy who just created one big loop with all the animations after each other ( http://alexhw.com/art/anim10.gif ) but I can not imagine I can then see if the loop connects well (when walking, idling etc).

I am working in graphicsgale, I prefer Grafx2 but it can not really animate.. So I am also not very familiar with the software that I am using..

Any ideas and solutions and experiences worth sharing?



Daniel

[Grimsane]

I'd just work purely in Gif, and then use a program to create a png strip automatically there are a few programs around that do that, you can also connect gifs together with some programs, sorry I don't have a link handy, I'm sure a quick google search will yield some results (if you don't say so I'll track down a program and link, I don't have any batch programs on this PC atm)

 there are alot of batch programs that come in handy and are far more time effective than doing it manually

and regarding the pieces themselves the beady eyed one doesn't seem to match the chunky clustered style of the rest of the character, the mouth and nose might work but the eyes iris/pupils, and the feet in the idle seem rather static and rigid at the moment do you plan on adding in some more leg/feet motion? because the knees and calves are moving but the shins and feet are static and it's quite jarring, forums making it difficult to gauge volumes on the clothing, in the throw animation particularly, rolling pin looks a bit stumpy too after staring awhile and doesn't seem to quite line up with her grasped hand, and I think the timing of the throw is a bit odd, maybe a bit more hold on the anticipatory back action, and a tween frame with sweeping mid motion(blurred) arm

interested to see other characters from the game

[PixelPiledriver]

And how do I keep the colors consistent?

I assume you are asking how to keep colors consistent across files?
You can save a palette to a pal file and load it into another gal file.

Duplicate your file and change some of the colors in a Indexed Color Mode (gifs are indexed by default)


Save your palette to a pal file from the palette window.




Now open a file that you would like to apply the new palette too.
Load the pal file from the palette window.






You will see the New and Old palettes compared.
Uncheck the Match Pixels with Colors option.
This will ensure that all indexes are the same, thus having a direct palette swap.
Then click All and the New palette will be pasted over the Old.


Now all frames in the animation will use the new palette.

I have once talked to some guy who just created one big loop

There are plenty of different process styles.
Process is highly dependent on the individual and how they like to work and what they find productive.
While this is a possible way of doing things I don't really recommend it.
One reason is that you will be unable to easily branch each individual animation into multiple versions.
For me comparison is the key to process and nearly all forms of art.
I do a single animation 3-5 times (or more) applying different theories.
Then I compare them and choose one, combine a few, or use anything exceptional as a completely different animation.

I use the following very simple file naming convention to sort a folder of sprites:


It looks like this with multiple files in a folder:

I'd just work purely in Gif

Watch out for this.
It will flatten your layers.
I prefer to work in gal format and save out gifs for final stuff only.
Always make sure you've saved a gal file before you close down Graphics Gale if you are using layers.
Or you will be sad. 

you can also connect gifs together with some programs

Yup.
If you really want to see them all in the same file, just patch them together when you are done or ready to.
It's fairly easy to do this in GraphicsGale.
I'm out of time so I will come back later and explain this as well.

I am working in graphicsgale, I prefer Grafx2 but it can not really animate.. So I am also not very familiar with the software that I am using..

I'm slowly putting together a GraphicsGale/Animation tutorial blog.
http://ppdaniatlas.blogspot.com/
Feel free to drop by and learn what you can.
But it will be some time before it is really all that useful and near any sort of completion.
I'll add the above stuff to the blog shortly.

Cool character. 

[hapiel]

wow, what a post! That must have taken some time to take screenshots of!

Anyhow, silly that I did not think of saving a palette file, but that will be my solution indeed.

I tried to make the loop, no external programs needed GG can import multiple files at the same time but I could not edit my idle properly. Also I should indeed create more than one version for for example the throwing animation. I find that it looks awesome right now, but then again I created it in 10 minutes so why not redo it?

Yeah, the saving .gal thing, I killed my layers already before... I don't really know how many layers I should keep either, usually more is better but I can't help drawing in the wrong layers in GG all of the time


Here is a more serious attempt on the idle, the other one was a quicky. I think I only need to fix the hands and then it is kinda done unless someone else has some pointers!

[ejay]

It's getting there, but some overlapping action would really help it - currently everything moves (and stops) in sync, giving it a mechanical feel. Try offsetting the motion of the rolling pin in particular.

[Grimsane]

ouch, well I work in other software and double check about the animation setting on the save dialog, did do that once myself though I usually have .xcf source though. (the gimp equivalent to .gal) solid tips from PPD

some constructive crits and observations, that hair looks rather clumpy, like claymation. completely agree with ejay regarding the synchronised motion, and the moment I watched her watching her own rolling pin all I thought of was due to that distracted attention a fist flying into her face 
the grey used in the sub pixel motion of the eyes makes it read at a rather rapid motion, and I think she's looking far higher than if she was looking straight ahead or at her rolling pin, and would only be suitable if her opponents are all quite taller than her and where the rolling pin breaks the outline of the arm just reads as a stray pixel when in motion, also just noticed the shading on the twist motion at the base of the skirt where it stays in place and the shading doesn't change looks odd too, like a static strip of pixels shading change would help, also those jello thighs on the upper background leg, not sure if that looks right, fabric dynamics wouldn't apply there due to the fact the fabric being taut and it's not echoed elsewhere.

[hapiel]

some constructive crits and observations, that hair looks rather clumpy, like claymation. completely agree with ejay regarding the synchronised motion, and the moment I watched her watching her own rolling pin all I thought of was due to that distracted attention a fist flying into her face 

I was unconsiously waiting for someone to say something about the hair! I had been trying to draw like these pink roller things that make your hair go curly, which didn't work out, after which I figured that I could not draw hair at all. Then when I clicked around to create some random white circles on the grey area I had drawn it looked kinda okay (like now). Still I need to see some examples on how to do this better I guess. Hair always seems impossible to me and I like to go out of its way by just giving the whole thing one solid color..
Any explanations, examples or edits?

The eyes are back to normal (except that now they are blue), and I tried to make things less synchronised (shoes, body starts moving after pin & more unique frames). Improvement?


(do you prefer me to post them with grey BG or transparent?)

[Grimsane]

on grey is more suitable with this theme, here is a really rough quick pass at the hair



my advice is not to think about individual strands of hair but the flow and highlights of the hair and try to represent that, adding things like parts and buns helps with easier to represent/abstract forms

i find it funny that when I googled old lady hair this was one of the first results

something like this is good reference because it depicts the hair with very clear highlights

[hapiel]

Lol about that google image, they totally stole my ideas!

What is better, and why? Should I do another try or start modifying these? I dislike it when my first version is better then my second version, I want improvements every single time
EDIT: Oh I love it how programs can ruin your backgrounds.. Luckily the original still looks fine and I know what went wrong, but there is no quickfix to get a grey BG -_-



Hair is coming in a second


Aaaa, I can't get it!

[hapiel]

Sorry, not much of an update, I might post more stuff today but:



Check out these four. They are almost identical, yet for every tiny change I have to go back and edit 13 frames! It takes not only 5 minutes each time that I edit 1 pixel, also it drains my energy. Should I just let go of minor errors and decide that it is not important enough? Of course I could fix the head first and then place it only once in the perfect world, but I keep seeing new things all of the time! Oh and these are the 4 versions I saved, I think there are around 8 different face+hair sets that I have used..
Boring work!

Also, I am going to put all different actions in one animation. Which means that I'll redo the broomstick, she will step with her left leg forward because the right one is still there from the throwing animation

CCCOMBO