GCOTW: Game Character of the Week

[NomisAnimation]

Hey!
Every week I create and animate a new Game Character, and this weeks is No Kneed Ned.
I wanted to know if you guys think that he's "real" pixel art, as his assets are drawn using a pixel art style,
but he's animated in Spine.


Check him out here:
https://nomisanimation.squarespace.com/blog/2015/2/12/gcotw-ned-with-no-knees

[32]

I think it is a perfectly valid method of animation and as "real" as any other type of pixel art. Though I would definitely be going back in and cleaning up as there are some clear artefacts caused by the rotation, probably wouldn't take all that long, seems like a pretty efficient method of animating actually. Though I would not consider the scaled up version to be pixel art necessarily, the animation should occur at the same resolution as it is drawn to really get that distinction imo. Still an interesting effect however, I can imagine it working fine in a game.

The animation itself is very nice. The walk is brilliant . Has a particular style to it because of the cut outs but I think it works pretty well. Could be fun to add some hand animated elements to his head feather and his wings but it does have a charm to it as is. I might add a bit more follow through on the wings on the walk and the idle to really sell his gangly-ness.

[Conzeit]

Yeah, it looks perfectly good, but if you want to call it *true* pixelart it should be cleaned up at the pixel level.

Not that calling it pixelart is essential at all, I think it's a perfectly coherent and good looking animation and only pixel fetishists like us would care about true pixel artistry :p....and I dont think anyone would blame you for moving away from pixels, even here :p

I even enjoy the hi-res version. zoomed in pixelart that gets animated with bones like Spine being rotated looks great as long as the art you're rotating doesnt have abundant 45º lines or jaggies, it tends to look a lot better when it's as close to a vector image as possible. I'd totally even add some slight mesh deformation and maybe make those legs flail around like noodles if I were you :p

Incidentally, grid based vectors which are naturally quite pixelly like those in Ridiculous Fishing. Would be a pretty cool thing to bone-animate in Spine as well :p

I use Spine and I've been considering using paperdoll animation to rough things out in pixels, care to share what settings you used to export these? I've never tried and I imagine it wouldnt be terribly difficult to find out but since you've already done it I figure I might just ask.