-NowvaB's Animation Thread-

[NowvaB]

Hi forum,

After seeing this generation of indie games' massively improved standard and demand
for animation, beauty, and gameplay I can't help but to be inspired.

I have been working on animating a lot of my art, b/c most of my art is game art, and I thought
why not show you guys and gals here. And of course I want your crits and comments to help improve and motivate me.

                             

[Gil]

Overall this is pretty solid, but all of them lack a bit of OOMPH. I'll try to do some edits later

EDIT: Didn't have much time, but here's some squash and stretch, anticipation and follow-through:

Yours on top:



The effects are a bit weak too, but I ran out of time. I love the multiframe in this one btw, pretty cool.

[NowvaB]

Took a stab at it.


I think it turned out well.

I was only thinking squash on these, gotta remember all 4. I also have to think how they would play out in a game.
so I'm trying to balance good animation with responsiveness. Might have to dust off Ol' GameMaker for this one.

Thanks for the feedback Gil!

[NowvaB]

Challenged myself by animating with a limit of only 4 frames. Hardest was the run cycle of course.
I tried to make every frame different to make it look fluid but when some parts are moved away too far it got rid of some of the effect.

I wish there was some engine I could just pop them into to see how they would look in game... anyone?

    last three together -->   

Game: v
Spoiler

play as a character with bionic arm.
The game would be a platformer focusing on fighting and maneuvering through stages. 'stage-stage-boss' format

The main mechanic is a charge punch. with it you will be able to fight enemy and launch yourself across the stage.
the charge punch will play a large roll as it is your life line, and the bane of your character. (think little Mac SSB Wii-U & 3DS)

[Rosier]

The running one looks like his legs are twirling around rather than returning back to their original position.


The others look really fluid for only being 4 frames, though.

[Gil]

The running one looks like his legs are twirling around rather than returning back to their original position.

When you try to cheat a run like that, there's always optical illusions. Should look fine in motion.

I see people on Pixelation focus way too hard on getting a good treadmill animation, only to notice the flaws when putting it in-game. Or they obsess over details you wouldn't see in-game. Treadmill animation is weird.

I think they look pretty cool NowvaB. Putting them in an engine is indeed essential right now, to get the sense of motion down. You obviously want something really easy. I'm working on an animation previewer, but it's not there yet. Maybe Game Maker?

[NowvaB]

ehh... I need a little help with this one. game maker has changed a lot since I last used it. I'm very rusty too.

I got some really simple code setup using hspeed and vspeed. The problem though I am having is that it looks really blurry is there something better to use, or
am i just being paranoid.

also, to change sprites I use sprite_index = (sprite name); when his v and h speed change. Is there a better way or should I continue with this.

[grue]

I don't see much blur, does this gif show the problem? As for Game Maker, that's the way I did it back when I used it (which, admittedly, was a long time ago). It seemed to work fine.

His legs look like they're doing something odd at the apex of the jump, though - is this intentional or a bug? If intentional, it doesn't work too well.

[Probo]

you have to turn off interpolation if you dont want it to blur when its scaled. the gif was recorded at native res so it isnt blurred.

assuming youre using Windows and GM:Studio,
at the top go to Resources>
Change Global Game Settings>
the Windows tab>
the Graphics tab on the left>
untick "interpolate colours between pixels"

[Gil]

Can we see a gif where he runs for a longer distance, so we can judge the run cycle a bit better? Want to make sure that the treadmill illusion doesn't carry over.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Here's the edit of your power punch. Because of a lot of frames during the punch it looks very slow and powerless. Best reference and learning material for this kind of animations are PixelPiledriver posts here on this forum http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=9280

[NowvaB]

Fixing the corner collisions brought out the worst in me, but I finally got it somewhere acceptable
(I almost scrapped v&h speed and wrote my own from scratch!)

Thanks for all the feed back everyone.

The blur I was referring to was on the left and right movement. It looks like there is too images on the screen, one of his current location and the other a blurred version a pixel further away.
This might be natural but I haven't played a game with a fixed camera in a while.

grue: Not intentional at all! It was made to go to frame 4 as soon as there is downward movement so the 3rd frame gets cut off. I did that because for some reason GameMaker refuses to check...
if(image_index == value). So I cant let the animation follow through and then stop.

HarveyDentMustDie: Thanks, Harvey. I think mine looked weird because I simulated his movement through a low, unmeasured frame rate, I think when I add it into the 'game' it will look a lot more pleasing to the eye.

and gifs for Rosier / gil:    I think it looks alright... kinda hard to tell. I think all it needs is a different move speed, but I do have other run sprites in mind.


*added a crouch and a 'camera toggle'


and lastly before I overload the server with data . GameMaker is having a problem with the sprites. when not moving there are stretching errors and when moving sprite deforms... help me...

[Probo]

is the sprite moving between pixels? like are its coordinates going to a decimal place? that can deform the sprite like that. try adding something like

x = round(x);
y = round(y);

at the end of the step event to see if that fixes it.

if thats the problem though, the final fix should probably be rounding the speed before its applied to the coordinates rather than rounding the coordinates themselves.

and that blur sprite thing sounds like plain old lcd ghosting

[NowvaB]

  worked beautifully! thanks!

I added the lines into an End Step event and the sprites fixed. It also fixed a nit-picky platforming issue.

[Gil]

The run animation is a bit sluggish, but otherwise looks fine. The optical illusion carries over just a bit, but I don't mind it