AuthorTopic: GR#203 - Hyper Light Drifter Inspired Sprites  (Read 69457 times)

Offline Asphidel

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Re: Hyper Light Drifter Inspired Sprites

Reply #30 on: May 04, 2014, 09:55:57 am
I actually kinda like the lit up boots. It's a small thing, but I feel like it adds a bit of character to the animation without being too distracting.
While I like this, and think it's fairly solid, I think you could definitely make the upper body more expressive while he's charging up. He does a really quick motion with his left arm, but then he just sticks it down by his side and it becomes dead weight, which seems kind of odd to me. I would think if he were gathering energy, he would show it in more ways than just a bright blue ball, maybe by drawing himself in, or shifting a little to the side.
Although, I don't really understand the personality of this character, so that non-telegraphed sort of motion might be appropriate?
Also, I have mixed feelings on the palette change. I feel like the blue on his coat is a bit too saturated, although I like that the purple is pulled out a little bit more. And I'm not sure if it's because of the palette change or if you actually changed the frames, but the blur feels toned down, and the impact looks weaker because of it.

Anyways. I'm pretty new to spriting and animation myself, so take everything I say with a couple grains of salt, but I hope at least some of what I said was helpful!

Offline Rosier

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Re: Hyper Light Drifter Inspired Sprites

Reply #31 on: May 04, 2014, 07:59:52 pm
I actually kinda like the lit up boots. It's a small thing, but I feel like it adds a bit of character to the animation without being too distracting.
While I like this, and think it's fairly solid, I think you could definitely make the upper body more expressive while he's charging up. He does a really quick motion with his left arm, but then he just sticks it down by his side and it becomes dead weight, which seems kind of odd to me. I would think if he were gathering energy, he would show it in more ways than just a bright blue ball, maybe by drawing himself in, or shifting a little to the side.
Although, I don't really understand the personality of this character, so that non-telegraphed sort of motion might be appropriate?
Also, I have mixed feelings on the palette change. I feel like the blue on his coat is a bit too saturated, although I like that the purple is pulled out a little bit more. And I'm not sure if it's because of the palette change or if you actually changed the frames, but the blur feels toned down, and the impact looks weaker because of it.

Anyways. I'm pretty new to spriting and animation myself, so take everything I say with a couple grains of salt, but I hope at least some of what I said was helpful!

Well at least I have both of them hanging around.

It might not come super clearly in the animation, but his arm doesn't become dead weight.  He kind of flicks it down in order to fix his sleeve, which was rolled up.  Otherwise, his lack of motion was intentional.  Excessive motion doesn't fit his character much.  If and when I make another animation in this style, it's going to be a different character with a more pronounced personality.

Personally, I like washed out colors like in the original animation.  Everyone else seems to be a huge fan of the bright colorations, so I try to go with that.

If anything, I made the motion blur more pronounced.


The original just has a couple of streaks, the new one has a huge collection of energy more in line with coffee's animation.

Offline HarveyDentMustDie

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Re: Hyper Light Drifter Inspired Sprites

Reply #32 on: May 04, 2014, 09:05:51 pm
For me he somehow it looks like he's uninterested and bored, "let's get over with this already" posture, or like he is some spoiled noble "now I will kill you and you should like it". coffees animation speaks "you made me do this...".

All this is due to his body position during animation. He is to stiff. Through all this edits you are trying to improve it by adding small details, but you can't make it perfect until you improve base. Every good artist should be capable to destroy his work in order to create something better from it. I know that sometimes that can be hard (very hard) to do, but by doing this you are making big step forward.
You can make excuse that he is supposed to be that way and do nothing about it (which will nurture your ego), or you can try to make him even better. Stiffness can not be represented as elegant and reduced.

I don't have intention to offend you, I just want to motivate you to go extra mile and don't be afraid to make big changes. 

Offline cels

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Re: Hyper Light Drifter Inspired Sprites

Reply #33 on: May 04, 2014, 09:14:49 pm
I agree 100% with what HDMD said.

To be honest, I've been skimming through this thread a few times and only today did I notice coffee's edit. I was very surprised that you didn't try to copy some of the awesome stuff he did, because he really gave this sprite what it needs. If you want to make it a powerful attack, study what he did. If you want to make the attack look completely effortless, then you still need to make major changes. Right now, unfortunately, the movement just looks unnatural.

Go the extra mile, bro.

Offline Rosier

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Re: Hyper Light Drifter Inspired Sprites

Reply #34 on: May 04, 2014, 10:11:41 pm
Quote from: HarveyDentMustDie
All this is due to his body position during animation. He is to stiff. Through all this edits you are trying to improve it by adding small details, but you can't make it perfect until you improve base. Every good artist should be capable to destroy his work in order to create something better from it. I know that sometimes that can be hard (very hard) to do, but by doing this you are making big step forward.

I have deleted things I've spent hours upon in the past.  That was because they didn't turn out anything near what I wanted.  This one did, and so I didn't delete it.
Quote from: HarveyDentMustDie
For me he somehow it looks like he's uninterested and bored, "let's get over with this already" posture.
Because he's supposed to.  His character is emotionless and bored.



I am going to make another animation with one of the other characters I made up above.  To be specific, number 3, who is the complete opposite of 7, and has an animated personality.  It's fitting for her to fit into the descriptions you guys are giving me.  We'll see how un/animated her animation turns out.

Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: Hyper Light Drifter Inspired Sprites

Reply #35 on: May 05, 2014, 06:13:01 pm
I quite like the personality.
I like fighting characters that have form over function.

Of course there's always things that can be improved.
Even if you've reached something you like it's always good to start from scratch one more time.

A couple frames seem off in placement and speed.
They are working against the motion.
Sorry no time for edits or explaining.
Consider looking over the frame times and positions again.

I'd say definitely sketch in a dummy to take the hit and react.
It will help tell you more about what the attack can do.
Is it a knock down?
A stun?
A combo starter?
A combo linker?
A combo ender?
A one off power move?
Can it be used in more than one context?
etc.

If you told me this was some sort of mid power attack that stuns enemies with a shock for 3-5 seconds, I'd believe it.
If you told me this was his heavy attack... I would probably want something more out of it.
Surely a guy this cool has another trick/knife/sword/thing that is more flashy and powerful.
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline Rosier

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Re: Hyper Light Drifter Inspired Sprites

Reply #36 on: May 06, 2014, 03:03:13 am
Quote from: PixelPiledriver
A couple frames seem off in placement and speed.
They are working against the motion.
Sorry no time for edits or explaining.
Consider looking over the frame times and positions again.

An elaboration on this would be appreciated.  Timing I can see, but placement?


Quote from: PixelPiledriver
A stun?
A combo starter?
A combo linker?
A combo ender?
A one off power move?
Can it be used in more than one context?

If you told me this was some sort of mid power attack that stuns enemies with a shock for 3-5 seconds, I'd believe it.
If you told me this was his heavy attack... I would probably want something more out of it.
Surely a guy this cool has another trick/knife/sword/thing that is more flashy and powerful.


I get the impression a major factor might have been lost in the low res translation.
He has cyborg arms, so that's why I count it a bit higher in terms of damage compared to his sword which can marginally be seen in the animations at the top.  It's an electrically empowered gore.

In terms of it being a final attack, the animations are what I envision it being like depending on the desired outcome.  The animation is better suited to the first one (Slowing/damaging/cool delayed damage), where he quickly tears through his side as he turns.  The second use (Meant for pure lethality/brutality) typically wouldn't involve such a dramatic turn, but you get the point. 

Either way, it's designed to be a finishing move, if not just a strong one.

Offline astraldata

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Re: Hyper Light Drifter Inspired Sprites

Reply #37 on: May 06, 2014, 11:39:38 pm
If he's zipping across an enemy during the blur, I can go with that being the first attack. The issue is, with the added time to draw in the energy visually, it seems to zap some energy from the attack itself -- nobody's gonna take that long to execute an attack, and if they did, that wind-up better be epic after the energy is drawn in visually, or it loses power (as you should be able to see now).

The arm/windup anticipation was done well, but the drawing in of energy, as stated above, ends too quickly before the attack is executed (due to the frame-timing, in part, most likely, but also there's just not enough difficulty in him pulling his fist back and moving his arm forward with all that energy stored in it to be believable.) Maybe that will give you a bit more direction on this. Otherwise, your animation is shaping up nicely. :)
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Offline JoeCreates

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Re: Hyper Light Drifter Inspired Sprites

Reply #38 on: May 07, 2014, 03:36:20 am
One thing that stands out to me as rather odd is the limpness of the left arm. It might help if he used it for counterbalance, bending at the elbow, for example.

Offline Rosier

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Re: Hyper Light Drifter Inspired Sprites

Reply #39 on: May 14, 2014, 02:55:02 am
The issue is, with the added time to draw in the energy visually, it seems to zap some energy from the attack itself -- nobody's gonna take that long to execute an attack, and if they did, that wind-up better be epic after the energy is drawn in visually, or it loses power (as you should be able to see now).

You clearly haven't watched enough anime.
That's probably a product of me changing the draw in effect from a few sparks to a grander absorption.  I can probably add/slow down some stuff and make it feel heavier, but that'll be later.

One thing that stands out to me as rather odd is the limpness of the left arm. It might help if he used it for counterbalance, bending at the elbow, for example.

You raise a good point.  It didn't occur to me that his arm just hangs there...  I'll fix it if I ever go back.




And now, time to critique a new animation. 

Definitely tried for more unique frames, even if I did have a handy time with minor edits to improve fluidity.  In order of what's happening, it's slide in, crouch, jump, float while prepping armor, connecting armor, landing while throwing out blades, then a cheery pop back into idle.



Sorry for double posting, but I thought I'd mess with the speed a little bit.  This one looks a bit better IMO.


Also, playing with so more vibrant colors for her standard clothes.

« Last Edit: May 18, 2014, 10:49:02 am by PixelPiledriver »