[WIP][C&C] General pixel-art

[Gil]

Just a quick pointer. Nearly all movement we do starts from the hips, the more the hips push the movement, the better animation looks. Your hips you animated are very rigid.

I could go into a lot more detail (I'm a movement coach) if you want.

[AshCrimson]

Just a quick pointer. Nearly all movement we do starts from the hips, the more the hips push the movement, the better animation looks. Your hips you animated are very rigid.

I could go into a lot more detail (I'm a movement coach) if you want.

Sure, I'd appreciate it! I'll also work on trying to animate the hips more, apologies for the stiffness of them.

Edit: Another quick update apologies! I added hip movement, not sure if thats what you meant by that Gil. Also changed various things as well as the speed of certain frames as well as adding extra frames for more movement:



Here's the previous two, just because i find it easier to compare them when they're all in the same post (if it's annoying, just tell me and i will stop doing it sorry):

[Gil]

Okay, so this is technical, I hope any of it makes sense. The kind of over the top swing you are going for is a very well known movement where you store potential energy in your transversal power line. This is basically one big group of muscles that go from your right foot to your left arm. As I said the hips are the most important part of any movement. Basically, to form one single transversal power line, your hip needs to open up to make space. Once the potential energy is at its limit, it's the hips that will start the rapid movement, so the hips will be slightly in front of the other body parts to start moving. The muscle group from the hips to the wrist form a whip that lashes, which creates the insane kinetic energy you seem to be going for.

Several sports have a technique similar to this action, three that come to mind are the volleyball spike, the tennis serve and the basketball alley oop. You can also see it in a basketball alley oop, but the movement is strange there, because they try to use this power line to bring two arms up. The one closest to what you're going for is the volleyball spike, though you should study the tennis one too, it's a different way to do it, so you could use it for another animation to get variation.

Examples:

Alley oop:


Tennis serve:


Volleyball spike:



So, how do we translate this to a maximal sword swing? Well, for one, you wouldn't, in the way you're trying. A swing like the one you're going for leaves a lot of defensive holes. It looks super cool though, so let's just go with it . To maximize the swing, we're going to bring the hips out, make the elbow pull the arm out (this opens up that diagonal power line we want) and you will see the legs compensate for all this. When swinging, the hips push forward a bit and I removed a frame to get more speed going. To compensate for the removed frame, I combined two frames, creating a multiframe.

The result:


Honestly, I should make a video of myself explaining this to properly explain :/. I hope some of it comes across

[AshCrimson]

Thanks for the post Gil. I'm going to study more movement and examples of it, so i can apply it to what i've done. I appreciate the effort you made, im not big on theory but it makes sense to me. Also, i realise now that the feet shouldn't be as static as they are and should at turn to compensate for the movement. I know this is basic stuff, but alot of the time im working without references or just looking at myself in the mirror trying said activities, without a frame by frame analysis or video of it, so i tend to miss out the more subtle details needed.

I've been trying to make a two-handed version of the swing, but im having a few problems. Here it is so far :



I suspect the arm movement is pretty bad, but that's just my intuition, i could be wrong.

I wanted to make it look like he was returning the sword back to it's original position but im worried it looks like hes' attacking again.

I know for it to look in anyway convincing it need's a blur trail during the swing, but even at this stage i think the arc is travels in looks wrong.

It could probably do with some more frames just as the blade is traveling downwards in an arc from the shoulder, during the attack, after it rests on the other should and during recovery, but i wanted to get the basic movement down before i started on polishing it.

[AshCrimson]

Apologies for the double post, but i just wanted to ask a few things about proportion and style;

I'm in the process of reviewing my current sprites something i do every so often, just incase there's something that needs changing and im of the opinion that the knees are in the wrong position, that they're too low, or at least appear that way. This also applies to the crotch, even in my new version im still sure it's not proportionally correct. I've tried to keep it based on the 8-head proportion guide, after reviewing it again i realised that sections of the body were out of proportion, according to the guide.

Below is the current version of what im working on at the moment with the aim of rectifying the issue of the disproportionate body, i am aware the changes are quite small at this size, with the previous version next to it for reference.



I've also got the problem of trying to keep the sprites under or at least at 32x32, which fits tiles i've made, i tried going up to 64X64 tile size but that was frankly too big but without making them look too small or unintentionally dwarf-like or weak. This size limitation has meant that I've had to make the character bases 1-pixel shorter as well, to fit the 32X32 limit, as they were previously too big.

Im interested in hearing people's opinions on whether trying a realistic style at such a size is even possible, let alone practical. I realise that at this level and size i am sacrificing a great deal of realism for the sake of portraying limbs, the body etc, so realism may not even be desirable, but my main goal is to have a medium between a realistic and practical style. I guess the main question i have is, am i concentrating too much on the former, to the detriment of the latter?

I've always liked the sprites in Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Advance and Tactics Advance 2, as well as in Tactics Ogre and the knight of Lodis, although i feel their proportions are odd, resulting in a chibi-like style which i personally find difficult to emulate, thought this is less pronouned in the Final Fantasy tactics, which has more detailed, larger sprites, but seem to be closer to chibi style than my attempts, which may be due to the perspective in the game (isometric, i think?).

Apologies for the rambling, I honestly don't know much about art nor any of it's theory. My main inspiration and reason for ever venturing into pixel-art is the desire to emulate or achieve something akin to above mentioned games, as well as Shining Force 1 & 2, Alundra, Pokemon, etc.

[AshCrimson]

Haven't done much recently, but here's some updates:











Nothing massive or radical unfortunately.

[AshCrimson]

Been practising all the time, haven't made anything that i'd want to submit or has even gotten past the wip stage yet because i feel it's not up to a good enough standard

Sorry that all my stuff is basically the same, I've made stuff that i look at now and am frankly embarrassed with so i want to practice until i can get to a stage where i'm happy enough with it, if that makes sense? I realise it's probably a fool's errand but it's how i feel.

Updates on animations;

One-handed attack:



I've been told that realistically attacks would be done in a quicker fashion, rather than the slower, more flashy version i've previously done. I removed some frames and sped up the attack, but i feel it's now too fast possibly, but might as well include it for the sake of progression.

Spear attack(s):

After watching some videos of people using spears and playing games like Dark Souls 1 and two, i realised some of them actually slid in the hand (but not out of it) during the attack. Here's a one-handed version:



I wasn't sure how i'd go about it in a two-handed version, but i presume it's something like this (obviously with full arm motion but it's just a quick attempt atm):



Also was just wondering if anyone could review the palette im using? I've been using it for a while, but i always like to change it every so often so i can learn more from it:



It's currently 36 colours (34 without black or white)

[AshCrimson]

Just a small update, mostly animation wise:

Tried varying the single-handed attack animation:

Side swing:







I will probably speed the other two up, but i just want to make sure i've gotten the basic movement done right.

Here's an archer's basic attack:



Static unit bases for now (playing around with black outlines, also thinking of putting black outlines around weapons):



Trying to make them all look different is harder then i thought it would be, im trying to avoid making them look samey and bland.

[AshCrimson]

Haven't done much as of late sadly, but here's some of what i've done:

I'm currently experimenting with idle animations and trying to settle on one i could use, here's an example:



I'm trying to make different units for each of (currently)four factions, as of now each faction is denoted by a differing colour, sort of like in Advance Wars, although im also wanting the appearances to be visually different as well, so one can tell immediately (and not just because of said faction's colour).

Some more below (Sorry for the unused space, still trying think of more units to make):



More attempts at improving previous attack animatios below.

One handed: Should probably be faster, but i am worried if i increase the speed it'll look too fast.



Two-handed sword:



Two-handed non-sword attack:



Sorry if there's not much improvement!

[r1k]

On the idle animations, I think the frame where the legs are the most bent is a little too much.  Makes it look more like theyre doing some kind of squat exercise than an idle.