Game Character, Maid w/Scythe [C+C]

[Daikon]

Hi, I'm an avid fan of this board but this is the first time I've posted as i am quite new it this. I am often in awe of the work posted and would be very grateful for help and opinions.

Me and my friend are trying to create a game, its a sidescroller much like Castlevania. This is one of the playable characters in the game.



A scythe wielding maid! work has been progressing steadily on her, but I have run into trouble. I need to animate her going from the "idle position" to the run cycle.



Here is my attempt at the in-between animation. When I stare at it, it seems fine but something seems off.




Any tips or critiques would be welcomed, thanks for your time.

[Lanarky]

Those look really good! I think it looks off because both the right arm and the right leg pivot at the same time. But the animations themselves look very smooth. Good luck with the game!

[Selassin]

While running, I can't say which leg is back and which is front, maybe you can change this by shading? Otherwise, I think it's cool.

[HezaKey]

Well, I first thing I notice is that the legs are really mis-matched in size, which is what's really giving off that weird effect with the legs switching places in the animation.  Idealy the far leg should appear smaller while the near leg is bigger.  Right now it actually appears to be the opposite.


Then I started messing around with taking out frames of your animation.  Not perfect, but I think you should see what you can do with less frames, and then add in-betweens to smooth everything out.  I also think that the twist in her body might be over-exaggerated.  Maybe it's just me, but the swing between her shoulders and hips almost looks uncomfortable.

I don't have enough animation experience to really help you out much on solutions, but I can see some weird issues happening, especially with your fabric.
In your idle animation, I think you were going for the skirt flowing out as she bounces down... but instead it looks more like the skirt is flowing in due to her bouncing up.  And since that's not true it just looks like it's out of sync.  I'd have the skirt flow in and out with the bounce.

There's a similar problem in the run animation.  It looks more like the skirt is growing, rather than being pushed by her legs.  If the skirt was adhering more to the shape and movement of the legs I think it would improve that animation by folds. (hah, pun)

I dunno what kind  of game your making, but I think a flashier in-between would be more fun.  Like maybe a fast scythe spin.  Something with some more energy and is more fun to watch.

[Daikon]

Thank you everyone for the kind comments and for all the help     , I was amazed how some lighting really brought out features in the animation. I'll post my edits as I finish them, forgive me if I am a bit slow with the updates.

Here is the new idle animation, the new one is on the left and the original on the right

       

I re-shaded and re-sized the legs so its more clear which one is at the back, milokey pointed out that the skirt had some weirdness going on so i changed it so it bounces more in tune with the body.

Here is the new running animation on the left original on the right

       

I tried putting in some shading for the legs so that its easier to tell which is which and redid the skirt bounce. I also removed a few frames following milokey's example. Also lessened the degree of hip rotation.


P.S i apologize for any random out of place pixels you see, I  always seems to miss a few during clean up.

[cels]

Looking good. But unless that Scythe is made from aluminium, I would expect it to bounce up and down a bit more when she runs. I guess she's stronger than she looks, but still... 

[Daikon]

@Cels: Good point  , i think your right about how weightless it feels. Ill edit the run soon.

I might have jumped the gun a bit, but i moved onto attack animations. Its just a weak 2 hit combo and it needs some more cleaning in terms of pixel placement but for now here it is.


What do you guys think of the animation?
What im having the most trouble with is the trail that the scythe leaves behind in the air. I tried breaking up the flow a bit by moving pieces of the trail around to break the silhouette . The Idea was to differentiate it so it looks like a trail rather than being just more of the scythe.

As always any tips or critiques are welcome and thank you for your time.

[API-Beast]

Looks good but the second attack seems a bit ineffective since she isn't using the full range and thus full swing of her weapon.

[NaCl]

There is a lot more you can get out of that run animation.

- You need to think about the weight of her body landing on her leg, bending it. Right now, the bend of the leg is virtually unaffected by her landing. To get the most snap, go from completely straight, just about to touch the ground, to on the ground bent as far as it will go. Play with it.

- The shape of the feet are not convincing, and more than anything make this look like a copy paste animation. The feet should deform to demonstrate the forces being enacted.

- The arms lack pendulum movement. They move at a consistent speed from one extreme to the other.

- I think you did a pretty good job with the movement of the skirt. The only problem is that it prevents any deformation of the silhouette there. The silhouette is where most of the information about the movement is. Without a change in the silhouette it looks strange.

Overall, I'd say be a little more bold with your deformations of the character, and think a little more about the forces and the weight involved. You can always reign it in if you need to. For instance, the leg doesn't just kick out after landing on the ground, it pushes the entire body up and forward. Little tousles of hair don't just jiggle when we run, the entire thing shifts around with each impact.