AuthorTopic: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.  (Read 10956 times)

Offline Conzeit

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1448
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Camus
    • conzeit
    • View Profile
    • CONZEIT

Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

on: February 12, 2014, 01:56:33 am
Okay, so I'm working with a friend of Madgarden (some oldies know him).
He just assigned me some animation work (yay!), with the instructions to make it have "impact" like samurai Gunn.

The way I'm going about this is making strong key poses and limited animation.You'd never guess what's my...

inspiraton

Star Ocean Blue Sphere :p 

Also, although I'm not doing stuff quite that smooth yet because I'm just making sure my keys work (and I can always smooth it up later), but I'd love to reach the level of Sean Leslie Ward's work. Also not sure I actually can :p

But for now just strong limited animation, a la SOBS

WIP animations for C&C
Here's the hero's model sheet (not made by me)

EDIT: a few days have passed, and this is a job so I cant just stop working on things until pixelation critiques me, so the run has changed:
---->

This is an enemy, I wanted to make him a bit insane and surreal in his motion...hence the weird arc and humping action :p
(model also not made by me)


These have already gone trough some iteration, bascially because in my stretching I tend to do impossible things and I dont usually do that in several angles, so I've had to make clay models and readjust some things to make 3d movements that make sense.

I've got rough versions of these movements in other directions (I'm thinking I should've started with front motions now =/) and walking anims in progress, but these are the ones that have progressed enough to show where I want to go, so these are the ones you get to see for now :p

I usually try to draw strong poses and I like to exagerate proportions in some instances, but I know I can hurt the clarity when I overdo it, and I can be blind to that which is why I post here. Also because I know P-driva is really good at smooth arcs =)
« Last Edit: February 14, 2014, 02:19:07 pm by Conceit »

Offline HarveyDentMustDie

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 469
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • I dream too much.
    • View Profile
    • Deviant Art

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #1 on: February 15, 2014, 11:56:11 pm
First of all when I saw that fight animation, I was amazed, thank you for that.  ;)

I never played Star Ocean Blue Sphere, and I don't know what the main inspiration was, so my modest comments are based on visual impression.

I like your improvement of running animation. :y:
During the animation space between his eyes changes, or those pixels in 4,5 and 6 frames are attempt to give him a nose silhouette. Ether way, this pixels are problematic.

In first frame when his left leg goes forward, you should add shadow on a lower part if his leg because light source is above him. Also why in 4 frame highlight disappears from his right leg, while on his left is still there.

After 5-th frame you are missing one frame when his right leg touches the ground.

I like the hair movement but maybe you could try to make it more dynamic, this will add more "impact" .;)

About enemy, sword movement is illogical for me. If he already holding a sword like that, his attack should go from his left to the right. This way you will also explain why is his head turned right in the last frame.

Hips movement is interesting and funny. His right leg changes the thicknes, but I suppose it's because this is still WIP.

Overall, this looks very interesting, I'm eager to see more characters.

I didn't have the time to make edit but I hope that this was helpful.  ;D

Offline Conzeit

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1448
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Camus
    • conzeit
    • View Profile
    • CONZEIT

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #2 on: February 19, 2014, 11:49:40 pm
that anim of the roman guy is from sean leslie ward. he works on hyper light drifter and he has a blog, you should find him pretty easily with that info if you really liked his stuff =)

harverykiller that is the first time anyone has complained to me about shortening the space between the eyes as shorthand to imply the head has turned. I must say I'm confubbled :p it's really quite standard specially in runcycles, is there anything I did specially badly that makes you think that's problematic?

on the leg shadow...wow, I wasnt thinking about this in terms of real lighting, mostly just using light to bring things forward and you know, standards like that to push one leg forward and the other backwards for runcycles....I'll see if I can squeeze that in

You are absolutely right about the contact pose being weird, this runcycle as a whole doesnt really read clearly enough. That said I'm trying to go for limited animation and I'm resisting the idea of fixing things by throwing frames at the animation, I want strong poses to communicate everything. it has worked for the front and back animation but not for this one, I'll add a frame there I guess if I cant fix it otherwise =/

yeah the hair, heh...I actually held back a lot on this one, dont want to commit myself to animating the hell out of the hair in every action by making the walkcycle look like a fucking metalhead banging...(I tend to do that if I dont hold back :p) but yeah I love secondary animation like that, I might add more in this one or if not in the other actions :p

the enemy, yeah...honestly I felt like the typical reverse hold slash was too cool for this guy (+I had just watched this dude berating the idea as a whole ) so I had him be a little irrational and have a little fit before he attacked, then stab psycho-shower-style while thrusting his hips :p. I feel like monsters fight a bit too much like humans sometimes, I wanted him to be like an animal with blodlust :p. I just got the timing we're gonna use in the game and I have A LOT more time for the buildup so I'm improving this cycle (the way he goes from full thrust to full squat is kinda BS anyway :P) I made a walk anim for this guy that kinda imitates vulture movements so maybe I could do that reverse handle slash and try to make it look like he's flapping a wing at you? dunno, I'll try and leave it if it looks cool.

thanks for your coments on the hip stuff...I'm always looking for a way to add character :p thickness thing. Honestly I'm subconsciously always trying to get away with shit like that, but I dont want to make stuff that just looks plain bad, I try to sorta support it with exagerated foreshorting, I try to take advantage of the fact we have a fixed viewpoint in 2d animation and cheat as if there were forced perspective, even though there's clearly none in a topdown game XD.

if you or anybody thinks there's no upside when I deform something like that please tell me :p

thank you for the comment, sorry for being so rambling and verbose, this is usually how my comments come out and I dont want to spend the time redacting myself right now :p although I know this decereases the chance of someone else replying like by 2000%

I'll post corrections and maybe some other actions....I'd never posted for C&C something from a paid job before so I feel awkward about what to post, what not to post..etc :p

Offline HarveyDentMustDie

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 469
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • I dream too much.
    • View Profile
    • Deviant Art

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #3 on: February 22, 2014, 05:31:02 pm
I'm not an expert and, all things I said are based purely on my visual impression. :)

I think that movement of his left eye and his hair is enough to suggest head turning. If you remove two pixels that represent outline of his right eye it would be much better.

Here is a quick edit of his head, and I add another frame, just to see how it will all look. 

Original               Edit

Offline Conzeit

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1448
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Camus
    • conzeit
    • View Profile
    • CONZEIT

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #4 on: February 22, 2014, 06:37:10 pm
thanks man, sorry for the verbose reply :p

I would have NEVER thought of putting a skin colored pixel there! this is why c&C is always good, I simply read his face to have that typical cavity above the nose that anime characters have...I'm a try this one on, maybe I'll use it =). and look at the extra frame you put there, maybe I'm being too much of a grump about this :p

Offline Manupix

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 317
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile
    • Pixeljoint gallery

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #5 on: March 04, 2014, 09:04:55 pm
There's a problem on the enemy, with the blade-like things growing out of his shoulders.
The front and side views don't look consistent I think, but mostly, in the anim it looks like his right arm suddenly jumps on his left side at some impossible angle.

Offline Conzeit

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1448
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Camus
    • conzeit
    • View Profile
    • CONZEIT

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #6 on: March 26, 2014, 09:06:21 pm
you're right about the right arm manupix that is some serious popout, I was going for "quirky" movement back then but really that's no excuse, I'll revisit this when I get back to this project

I wanted to create some impact with the blade like things growing...actually I used that in a front walk too (that I cant post because it REFUSES to loop O_o)


here's some more anims I've made since

Offline Pizza Tom

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 224
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • @pizzadramon
    • pizzatom
    • View Profile
    • Blag

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #7 on: March 27, 2014, 05:47:03 pm
Oh man, I am loving that crazy spike guy's walk! Very intimidating/crazy. Though, the sword looks a bit floppy during the part where his sword arm goes down a bit. And maybe it's just me, but the shield seems a bit out of sync with the rest of him.
pizzatom.tumblr.com
@pizzadramon

Formerly Regulus Awesome

Offline Conzeit

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1448
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Camus
    • conzeit
    • View Profile
    • CONZEIT

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #8 on: March 28, 2014, 04:41:18 pm
thanks Regulus! I was going for crazy weird but someone told me it looked like a cartoony sneaky walk and I almost buried my head in the dirt :p

the sword is sorta jumping all over the place, yeah...I imagined it would be constantly bouncing on the floor, as it scraped over it because he just doesnt bother to hold it up :p honestly, I had a more complicated loop for that arm but I felt it detracted from the crazy neck motion so I just let it drag and scrape the floor.

I did put the shield in a completely different loop, see the loop for each step is 4 frames and everything is synced to that, except for the shield which moves in a loop of 8 frames. Looking at it now the movement seems kinda jerky, I'll see if I can smooth that up when I get back to this

Offline Coltrane

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 38
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #9 on: March 29, 2014, 12:02:07 am
Here's a really rough edit. Just some repositioning to make it less "sneaky" and more "chickeny", because when i saw the walk cycle my first impression was "oh, a strange modified sneak". Hope it will give you some new ideas.

Offline HarveyDentMustDie

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 469
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • I dream too much.
    • View Profile
    • Deviant Art

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #10 on: March 29, 2014, 12:45:22 am
Maybe he looks sneaky because his toes first touches the ground on each step, like he's tiptoeing. Maybe if you change position of feet so his heel first touches the ground you will loose this sneak effect.  :)

Offline Conzeit

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1448
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Camus
    • conzeit
    • View Profile
    • CONZEIT

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #11 on: March 29, 2014, 08:42:30 pm
K guys first of all this project got pushed back and all of the enemy animations probably wont be used because I probably wont be the one doing them...so I wont work on this anymore but if you want to talk about this for the hell of it be my guest :p
this was the bird walk I had in mind most of the time.

it was supposed to be vulturey, but being that vultures fly I couldnt easily find videos of vultures walking...so I went for that stork that muybridge captured instead (later found some short vulture clips they hop and they balance on their chest but that doesnt matter anymore).
One thing I consciously did different from this walk is that the stork uses his neck stretching as a buildup, to get the impulse he needs before he makes a step, I moved his neck stretching back so that he stretched it at the contact frame...just because I thought that was more impressive...an also I didnt have enough frames to have two frames with feet on the ground :p

As you can see there, on the contact frame they touch the ground with the tip of their feet...like every bird that doesnt hop. it's funny how I got so into that idea of birdlike walking that I couldnt see the sneaking connection :p right now I think maybe if I went back to this what I would do is instead of leading his step with his feet I'd probably lead it with his knees and emphasize that, it's less bird-like but i think the pecking neck takes care of that :p.

but I wont..cause this got pushed back :p

Coltrane: thanks for taking the effort of doing the edit, I know that's a special level of care =) Looking at it without framestepping I dont think it looks less sneaky? I went in and framestepped it and as far as I can tell you lowered the neck when he stretches it out and you also lowered his leg in one of the frames where he streches the neck...I'm not really sure what your point is with that
« Last Edit: March 30, 2014, 03:28:07 am by Conceit »

Offline Coltrane

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 38
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #12 on: March 29, 2014, 10:42:52 pm
I lowered the arm with the shield to make it more birdy (chickeny, vulturey, etc.), birds don't use their wings when they walk. You said you wanted him not to care about his sword, i assumed he didn't care about his shield either...
In the sneak walk (and in you walk here), when both feet touch the ground they are as far as they can from one another and the advancing leg is almost straight from hip to toe. In the edit i tried a slightly different thing : i tried to make the advancing leg less straight and poiny and more concave at the ankle (like birds knees).
In the sneak (and your walk) the head bounces a lot so i tried to minimize just little bit the bounce of your character.
As i said, it was a really rough edit... maybe a little bit too rough (even if i was going for some discrete changes), sorry.

Offline Conzeit

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1448
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Camus
    • conzeit
    • View Profile
    • CONZEIT

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #13 on: March 30, 2014, 03:21:51 am
dude dont be sorry, I am not even working on that guy anymore...you're not failing me in any way :p
I'm only still talking about it because I enjoy talking about this stuff, thanks for clarifying what your point was and for the edit!

Offline Tapsu

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 37
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #14 on: April 16, 2014, 11:25:16 am
Digitigrade walk goes toe first, the bird is digitigrade, but your creature is not.
If that matters, that is, because in my opinion the creature walks ok.

Offline Gil

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1543
  • Karma: +1/-0
  • Too square to be hip
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/475.htm
    • View Profile
    • My Portfolio

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #15 on: April 18, 2014, 08:29:20 pm
Digitigrade walk goes toe first, the bird is digitigrade, but your creature is not.
If that matters, that is, because in my opinion the creature walks ok.
Actually, if you look closely, it does walk digitgrade, though I guess he could accentuate that more.

Offline Rosier

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 477
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Animations for topdown Dungeon game.

Reply #16 on: April 19, 2014, 12:25:28 am
I feel it would be more horror - ish if it were a bit slower, or possibly if the head didn't jerk around so much.