atempt at a platform character

[Terley]

I made these a few weeks ago, and couldn't get the motions to look right, this was supposed to be something to help me get used to platformer characters for if I was ever to be apart of making a game.. but at this point I think I need some help..



these are the individual frames, please refrain from ripping into the quality of the character too much, my experience for such a small canvas is still pretty limited, I would most likely move off the actual animation side for a period to improve on the graphics, by practicing a lot and looking at other pixel work of the sort..



If anyone could give me some pointers to help improve the general animation, I would be very greatful..

thanks for your time 

[Tremulant]

I really quite like this little guy. The animations are nice, too, very smooth and fluid.

I'd maybe make his chest expand a bit in the breathing animation, just to give it a little more life.  In the walk, the arms don't swing enough, and, now that I look at it, they move backwards, too. When the right leg is foreward, the right arm is, too, when it should be the left arm that is foreward with the right leg (if that makes any sense). Also, A head bob would add to the animation greatly, and right now the upper body looks pretty stiff. legs look fantastic though. Nice stuff.
Jump looks good, but maybe he should bend his knees a bit pre-leap? Otherwise, no crits here...

Finally, his head juts a bit too far foreward, methinks. Makes him look like he's slouching uncomfortably. Maybe move it back a couple pixels, and see how it goes.

Quite a few crits, I know, but these are honestly looking great. I really dig the palette for it's boldness, if nothing else (orange seems pretty under-represented nowadays...), and as I said, the smoothness and fluidity (especially in the legs) is sweet. Keep it up!

[Shifty McSly]

In addition to what tremulant said, I would say that the jumping animation just looks plain wierd. Generally people would push themselves off the ground with only one leg when jumping forward, and for a platform game I assume this would be the case most of the time. If he is jumping straight up, he needs to bend down a lot before the jump, bring his arms back and then possibly reach upwards with them. For the animation where he looks upwards slightly, his arms move, which I dont think is necessary. My only other crit would be that his head might be a bit too far forwards, but maybe that's just me. Other than that, very nice work.

[Terley]

thx a lot for the comments, I never realised how hard it is animate smoothly in such a small scale.. I'll mess around with the head position and try make it look as fluid as I can.. I don't think the arms swing enough, yea I know what ya mean Trem hopefully that'd make it better..

I think the trick is to exagerate the movements slightly..

thx shifty, i'll try that out.

[Rerg1]

Hey Ter! Your idle stance is a little slow might wanan maybe speed it up !.

[Ryumaru]

i can tell that you already know about sub pixel movement, which is my favorite part of these animations here.
dont really have any crits, therese people more suitable to animation critique.

[entivore]

His height should shift up and down during the walk.  When the legs are straight below him, perpendicular to the ground, he would be at his tallest.  Likewise, when one leg is most forward, and the other most backwards, he should be at his shortest.  By having him stay the same height, you are actually making his legs stretch and compress unrealisticly.

For the jump, he should definitely bend his knees prejump.  To simply fly off into the air like that is impossible.  The exception to this is if you want instant reactivity, like in super mario brothers.  In which case you would need to use a good jumping sound to give it life.  Of course since this is just a "if I ever make a game" stage, yeah, knee-bend

[Terley]

thanks for the tips, im trying out another character atm.. something a lil more cartoony so I can work on the making the movements lookin really nice. 

Thinking of doing what I see a few people doin, and make a character for a certain console.. gameboy or something.. 

I'll get researching platform characters, hopefully you'll see an improvement.