AuthorTopic: GR#222 - Beatemup Sprites - Anatomy, Animation  (Read 30195 times)

Offline HarveyDentMustDie

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Re: [C+C][WIP] Sprites for a beat'em up

Reply #10 on: June 08, 2014, 08:35:42 pm
@wolfenoctis You killed it man. Great edit. :) One thing is catching my eye, her boobs are too soggy (like grandma's  :crazy:), probably because they are to low or the belt is too high and distorts perception.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2014, 08:37:48 pm by HarveyDentMustDie »

Offline Phlakes

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Re: [C+C][WIP] Sprites for a beat'em up

Reply #11 on: June 11, 2014, 05:08:04 am
For the animations, one thing you should really focus on is punchiness. You're almost there with the speed of the actual attacks (i.e. the gap between the windup and strike), but they still feel kind of slow and muddy.

As a general principle, the animations should have a smooth gradient from anticipation -> attack -> follow through.

Come to think of it, all of them but the knife attack are missing the follow through entirely. It makes a huge difference in showing momentum, a punch that take a couple frames to come to a stop feels way more powerful than one that stops immediately on impact.

Something as simple as deleting a couple frames to speed them up and adding some follow through would probably really improve them.

Also, when you're animating things like these, most of time less is more. Look at this for example-



The slashes are just one frame each, so the sword jumps from being all the way back to all the way out, but the arc implies that it moved super quickly that entire way, and the combination of the arc fading and the arm slowing down gives that movement a little accent that makes it more fluid and believable.

Think about pixel art in general- you use a small amount of resources to give the impression of something greater than you're actually making. So instead of padding the animations to make them smoother, try making it feel as good as possible with as few frames as possible before you worry about how it looks. In fact it would probably be better to just sketch it out with a stick figure until the movement is right. Like wolf brought up consider dramatic poses.

Offline Hagane

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Re: [C+C][WIP] Sprites for a beat'em up

Reply #12 on: July 03, 2014, 08:56:40 pm
Wolfenoctis: The body is eight heads tall, a basic unit of proportion from traditional art. Making the head bigger would either make her childish or stocky, so I went with eight heads.

I like some of your edits, but I can't use most of them. The pants look nice, but I want to go for something tighter so I won't put that many folds, and the style is too realistic and I'm going for something a bit more anime-ish. I really like the knife, but it has to be a double edged dagger (because some of the slashing attacks I made would look strange otherwise as she would be trying to cut with the back of the knife) and having the knife on the other hand would force me to redraw a lot of stuff.

I took the colours you used for it and tried to make a dagger with them. Also changed the pose a palette a bit.



Couldn't do much more on the pixel front since my monitor broke so I'm stuck with the pencil and paper side of things for a while.

Offline Mr. Fahrenheit

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Re: [C+C][WIP] Sprites for a beat'em up

Reply #13 on: July 03, 2014, 09:36:23 pm
I just checked in gg and your character is 8 heads tall when crouched. If you corrected it for when she is standing up straight and tall then it would probably be more like 10 heads tall. So her head is really a little small.

Offline FrostPumpkin

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Re: [C+C][WIP] Sprites for a beat'em up

Reply #14 on: July 03, 2014, 11:04:52 pm
My main concern here is the tights being way too long. I think that's what makes proportions weird and the impression that the head is too small (it might be tho)

Offline Hagane

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Re: [C+C][WIP] Sprites for a beat'em up

Reply #15 on: July 17, 2014, 09:27:47 pm
Yeah the problem is the thighs not the heads. The torso is 4 heads tall as it should be, but the legs look longer than they should be. Is this better?

Offline Gil

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Re: [C+C][WIP] Sprites for a beat'em up

Reply #16 on: July 17, 2014, 09:57:11 pm
Yeah the problem is the thighs not the heads. The torso is 4 heads tall as it should be, but the legs look longer than they should be. Is this better?


Just a reminder that there's King of Fighter sprites that have the same measurements as yours. If it looks right, it's a valid stylistic choice I feel. If people genuinely feel like it feels off, you'll need to fix it though. I personally don't though.

Offline rikfuzz

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Re: [C+C][WIP] Sprites for a beat'em up

Reply #17 on: July 18, 2014, 09:12:39 am
Yeah..  9 heads tall, totally fine.  This is what all fashion illustrations are drawn like, idealised maybe but certainly not absurd. 

Offline Gil

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Re: [C+C][WIP] Sprites for a beat'em up

Reply #18 on: July 18, 2014, 11:38:15 am
The new one IS better though, the thigh to lower leg ratio was off. I really like the new version in terms of proportions. One problem I see right now is her hair, it has no volume. It seems like brown paper glued to her skull. The haircut seems fine, so it's just a question of puffing it a little, so it doesn't stick so closely to the skull.

Offline PypeBros

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Re: [C+C][WIP] Sprites for a beat'em up

Reply #19 on: July 23, 2014, 08:12:27 pm
confirming the knee-position issue: lower legs are too short compared to tights. You have impressive technique and ambitious animations, btw.

One thing bother me with the run animation. speed should be maximum when the elbows cross the spine, and slow down/be ammortized at the extreme of the pendulum.