Metal on Metal sparks

[jahasaja]

Hi all,

I try to do an impact animation when a sword strikes a sword or a sword strikes armour.

This is what I got now, It does the job but does not really pop out. I should also add that the animation goes a bit quicker in the game.



any advice much appreciated.

[Farage]

Im no expert, but as far as im concerned, just adding more frames would make it look a lot better.
Really, single high contrasted pixels with a lot of frames creates a good impression of "sparks"

To prove my point:
http://37.media.tumblr.com/6650c141f8b4247867a9b4b91b37829b/tumblr_n4nfnyQWJs1smtro9o1_1280.gif
This is from a kickstarter project called witchmarsch

[jahasaja]

Thanks that was a nice example.

I ended up coding it into the game with single sparks that turns transparent to make it more random. But the effect is quite similar to your example 

[Alex Sinigaglia]

I added five more frames for the spark 

Slow:


Fast:

[EvilEye]

Explosions ( this is technically a kind of explosion ) start out fast and then slow down. So it should be fast in the beginning and slow down at the end. What you have right now looks a bit like some kind of magic effect.

I wouldn't over do it with frames though. Just a couple more frames then what you first had would probably be adequate.

*EDIT* Oh yeah I would make the starting sparks very bright but the later ones darker. You do this a little but not as much as is needed IMO.

[rikfuzz]

Sparks are little bits of metal, so they should be subject to gravity - fall, bounce etc.  Prime candidate for particle effects rather than a compiled graphic.

I prefer lines rather than individual dots, as that's how you generally perceive them.  You can do that by interpolating the current and previous position and drawing a line, or just having a few rotations and working out which is appropriate. 

[Science: Because their surface area is large but their mass is small, they oxidise very quickly which produces the heat that makes them glow. Or something like that.]

[jahasaja]

Thanks for all the good suggestions.

Yeah I ended up coding it into the game. I Did not use lines but just pixels that gets more and more transparent.

I tried to capture a video of it to show but the frame-rate became to bad (used camstudio), If anybody know a good video program for you own screen I can give it another try.. But I guess it is not pixelart any more?

[PixelPiledriver]

FFSplit

[jahasaja]

Thanks (again) PixelPiledriver!

okay so here is my try from ingame (the game is WIP!!!!!)

[Gil]

In this case, you might be better off with particle effects for even more dynamic sparks, but it already looks fine now.