Running Animation and Standing Sprite of a Metal-skinned Character

[JustinGameDesign]

I'm kinda at the limit of my ability on these two sprites:



If you can, offer feedback on:

1.) How better to express light and shadow on a character with chrome skin--I need work on this.

2.) Any problems you see in the animation--I've been staring at it so long I can't spot them myself anymore.

3.) Any other problems with proportion you might spot--I did my best to try to render a character that was muscular without being a cartoon gorilla.

Thanks.

[Ambivorous]

Hi Justin.

To make surfaces appear metally you need to increase the contrast (and darken the base colours heavily) and only apply speculars where the light bounces off the surface and into your eye.
I made the skin seem even more shiny by removing some of the contrast from the pants (they were really shiny).



Used Arne's art tutorial for reference, specifically this image:


...and various Pixelation edit's that I have in my memory somewhere, most recently one by Wolfenoctis that was about a shiny gold knight's armour.


As far as the animation is concerned, his forearms seem too long on the most forward frame, and his chest isn't rotating as his shoulders do.
His legs also convey no sense of urgency; he kind of just looks like he's going for a jog. Not sure if that's intentional though.

[JustinGameDesign]

I've been working on this sprite, but it's slow going. In the mean time I wanted to ask what the little charts in the tutorial image, specifically the last chart, refer to. What's the little jump up and down in the middle mean?

[Probo]

i think theyre meant to show the rate at which the values change on the different kinds of surfaces. on the clay it meanders from dark to light gradually. the plastic has quite a sharp jump from the medium shades to the highlight (it gets light fast where the light is concentrated), but a more gradual descent into the dark tones. The metal has the darkest tones and lightest tones right next to one another sometimes with very little transition, and can jump back and forth in dark and light areas, eg stripes of light, dark, light, hence the squiggly line in the transition graph.

[wolfenoctis]

Some thoughts on chrome:


Chrome reflects the environment around it, so in my edit I assumed a blue sky and a brownish ground, also be conservative with your highlights too many make the sprite look noisy.

Hope it helps 

[JustinGameDesign]

Some thoughts on chrome:


Chrome reflects the environment around it, so in my edit I assumed a blue sky and a brownish ground, also be conservative with your highlights too many make the sprite look noisy.

Hope it helps 

Looks great. I may not be able to manage anything so great myself but I'll try to take a hint from your edit in future revisions.

i think theyre meant to show the rate at which the values change on the different kinds of surfaces. on the clay it meanders from dark to light gradually. the plastic has quite a sharp jump from the medium shades to the highlight (it gets light fast where the light is concentrated), but a more gradual descent into the dark tones. The metal has the darkest tones and lightest tones right next to one another sometimes with very little transition, and can jump back and forth in dark and light areas, eg stripes of light, dark, light, hence the squiggly line in the transition graph.

That makes sense. I do see stripes or lines often drawn to symbolize chrome.

[Probo]

surfaces facing down reflecting the ground, vertical surfaces reflect the horizon and surfaces facing up reflect the sky would be a general rule to start with i guess

if you had more resolution to work with you could work in some subtle self-reflection too. you can see that in the tutorial picture's elbow and inner leg

wolfenoctis' edit shows it can look great at that resolution though!

mm chrome lamborghini