Platformer Sprites (WIP)

[ericbloom]

Just because I like filling this thread with updates:





Still missing a lot of the details and effects, but I like the slow wind-up fast movement idea. Not sure if what I did with the raising of his arms is gimicky or actually makes it smoother, but it feels smoother than simply doing the frames in sequence. The blurs are not quite there yet, but might be adequate once the smoke and dust is added to obscure it a bit.

[PypeBros]

I'm a bit perplexed by the framerate you picked (5 second for the last giant both attack and recover, at least)... as if it was voluntarily slowed down.
Imho, it makes judging of the animation smoothness impossible, but that could just be me ...

[ericbloom]

Can you explain what you mean by that? I'm just doing these by the seat of my pants.

[TheMonsterAtlas]

He's saying the animation seems very slow, like each frame takes a while before it goes into the next. I think it's alright when we are viewing the frames and making sure each animation flows into the next with accuracy.

[ericbloom]

Ah thanks. Yeah, I'm putting these together in Photoshop and kinda arbitrarily made the frames speed in the timeline what it is. To implement them I use a sprite sheet and import them to Stencyl.

[ericbloom]

And here the Smasher is in his current state.

[PypeBros]

It works much better at this speed. The only part where it seems that some more intermediate frame could help is when he recovers his arms before standing up.

A second item that looks curious is the smoke during the "walk" cycle. There's a first puff (greyish - dust? ) when landing and a second one (blue-ish -- steam ?) when lifting. My concern is that the two puffs seem to come from the same place and behave the same, as if produced by the same cause, while the cause obviously can't be the same.



I note these frame have 170ms delay (opposed to 30ms for other part of the animation that are equally dynamic).
(Btw, it looks like you could easily opt for vector animation of that bot's arms with no loss of detail).

[ericbloom]

It works much better at this speed. The only part where it seems that some more intermediate frame could help is when he recovers his arms before standing up.

A second item that looks curious is the smoke during the "walk" cycle. There's a first puff (greyish - dust? ) when landing and a second one (blue-ish -- steam ?) when lifting. My concern is that the two puffs seem to come from the same place and behave the same, as if produced by the same cause, while the cause obviously can't be the same.



I note these frame have 170ms delay (opposed to 30ms for other part of the animation that are equally dynamic).
(Btw, it looks like you could easily opt for vector animation of that bot's arms with no loss of detail).

Thanks for the input. The first puff is meant to be dust, the second steam. Maybe a more extreme color shift could keep these separate.

How would I go about adding vector animation?

[PypeBros]

Thanks for the input. The first puff is meant to be dust, the second steam. Maybe a more extreme color shift could keep these separate.

I think the color shift is sufficient the way it is. I'd rather work on the steam's source point and whirls.

How would I go about adding vector animation?

That's something to sort out with your programmer/game engine, I'm afraid. "Another World" and "Prince of Persia" (Apple II) illustrate what I had in mind. On a NDS, I'd simply turn on 3D layer and instruct one polygon to be drawn where the robot's arm should be, and update the coordinates of the corners accordingly. (Maybe some rotated sprite overlaid could do the trick too).

[ericbloom]

You're right, the shapes of the dust  / steam would help differentiate them.

Here's an update to the runner. These animations are just stringed together in Photoshop, so the timing and spacing might look a little funky.





We also opened up a website, so check it out if you'd like some overall progress on the game! http://www.saturdaygames.net/