Waterfall flow problem

[Beetleking22]

Hello guys long time no see! I have been making platformer game with my Bro and I started to create Waterfall animation for the scene.. but problem is that Im not good at animating things.. So I have problem with my waterfall that I created..... Problem is that Flow of the waterfall does not look smooth. It does not look like it flowings.... How Do I get flow more smoother? It has only 4 frame..  Does it need more frame? What  I doing  wrong?

[CelioHogane]

The problem is, in some frames it looks like the water is going up, just make it going straight down.

[Ichigo Jam]

The main problem is that when your animation goes from the 4th frame back to the first frame, the waterfall appears to go back up a bit.
You should be able to see this if you step slowly through the animation.

For looping animations, remember that the difference between the last frame and the first frame should be similar to the difference between the first and second frames.

Your water pattern repeats approximately every 24 pixels downwards, so you want it to move 24 pixels in one loop
For four frames, you should have:
frame 1: start position
frame 2: +6 pixels down from start
frame 3: +12 pixels down from start
frame 4: +18 pixels down from start
If you were to than add a frame 5, it would be 24 pixels down from the start. But that would make it look just like frame 1, so we're good to loop back to frame 1 instead of adding a fifth frame.

Quite & dirty edit (I've just copy-pasted part of the first frame over the other 3 frames to show the spacing)

[Beetleking22]

Thats very nice and helpful Ichigo Jam.. Thank u very much... Edit! This how it turned.. and I like it very much! Im going polish it later.

[Decroded]

Its off to a great start dude 
This is especially interesting as animating the waterfalls in my game is on my todo list too.

Here's some ideas for when you get to polishing...
Add some more variation in the bottom of the white bit at the top so it drops down then snaps back as each wave breaks off.
I wonder if its possible to add another tile or 2 where the water accelerates a bit more as it falls.


I'm also curious about the rest of this project.
Has there been much other work done on it?

[Beetleking22]

Its off to a great start dude 
This is especially interesting as animating the waterfalls in my game is on my todo list too.

Here's some ideas for when you get to polishing...
Add some more variation in the bottom of the white bit at the top so it drops down then snaps back as each wave breaks off.
I wonder if its possible to add another tile or 2 where the water accelerates a bit more as it falls.


I'm also curious about the rest of this project.
Has there been much other work done on it?

Thank u for very very Good tips! We are making this game with unity but game is really at an early stage..So I dont have much to show.. xD. We want make mario + Donkey kong country like a platform game with our own original ideas.. I want create stylized and simple graphic because we want make something done instead of making very high detailed art that takes 1000 years to make..

Here is early mockup forest scene..  I hope u like it xD

[Friend]

very minor observation- in the mockup, the green blocks dont contrast enough from the green poles.  The green poles might have too high contrast anyway for a non interact-able.  But the blocks could also be a different hue like yellow, but it seems you want green and blue to dominate the enviro.

btw, it looks jaw dropping 

[Decroded]

agree with comment on block contrast though I suspect ur aware of that and these assets were just slapped together.

can I just say I love ur colours and clusters beetleking and I'm looking forward to seeing more and hopefully playing one day.
I'm also really curious to see how u go developing 2D in unity.
I'm in the same boat wanting to smash out a similar game I've been working in game maker and considering unity as it was far superior when I experimented with it but I'm afraid of how well it will handle 2D and clean pixel scaling without artifacts.
Anyway perhaps a discussion we can take offline ;-)

[Pix3M]

How about some stretch and squash?

(One time, I stared at some waterfalls for a long time... this is what I learned, but never animated what I observed)

[Decroded]

How about some stretch and squash?

(One time, I stared at some waterfalls for a long time... this is what I learned, but never animated what I observed)

I don't know some waterfalls expand I think it probably depends on the water pressure.
Maybe ones with less water do this shape.
The stretch is good but I don't think the angle suits the rest of the art plus it makes it kinda hard to manage if u want to extend it downwards.

[Pix3M]

Well, smaller waterfalls make this general shape, decroded, and it's partially due to water's cohesion property. If you have a good faucet, turn on your faucet and watch. I also observed that general shape when I was around much bigger waterfalls that are probably ~4x my height when I sat down around waterfalls. The shape probably disappears if we're dealing with massive, massive sizes, but at this scale, I thought yeah, you should see the waterfall narrow down at the bottom.

(oh, just thought I'd mention that I also omitted the effect that the water "pieces" start to separate so you get literal waves of water continuously pounding on the bottom of the fall.)

I can see this is an obvious problem if we want huge waterfalls, but, who knows if we can accept a maximum waterfall size just for a smoother look?

[PypeBros]

How about some stretch and squash?

(One time, I stared at some waterfalls for a long time... this is what I learned, but never animated what I observed)

Movement of flow feels nice, non-vertical borders make sense, given how water loves to stick close to water ...
but with non-vertical edges, I think you need to bring movement to the edges too. Possibly with some sub-pixel animation.

[Pix3M]

Movement of flow feels nice, non-vertical borders make sense, given how water loves to stick close to water ...
but with non-vertical edges, I think you need to bring movement to the edges too. Possibly with some sub-pixel animation.

I was hoping nobody would judge me for my lazy edit 

Meh:

[Decroded]

Movement of flow feels nice, non-vertical borders make sense, given how water loves to stick close to water ...
but with non-vertical edges, I think you need to bring movement to the edges too. Possibly with some sub-pixel animation.

I was hoping nobody would judge me for my lazy edit 

Meh:

That's a pretty cool idea its definitely more dramatic.
Maybe sub-pixel could be used on the outline here here (pulse between dark and light) to create a similar, less dramatic effect without actually varying the shape.

[Beetleking22]

Movement of flow feels nice, non-vertical borders make sense, given how water loves to stick close to water ...
but with non-vertical edges, I think you need to bring movement to the edges too. Possibly with some sub-pixel animation.

I was hoping nobody would judge me for my lazy edit 

Meh:

That looks nice Pix! I love particles and  wave like a movement...  I think my waterfall has very thin lines.. I mean the white line in border.. I would like to give them more motion and thicker  lines..

very minor observation- in the mockup, the green blocks dont contrast enough from the green poles.  The green poles might have too high contrast anyway for a non interact-able.  But the blocks could also be a different hue like yellow, but it seems you want green and blue to dominate the enviro.

btw, it looks jaw dropping 

Thank u friend! Yeah I should make some balance with block contrast it was pretty bright after reducing contrast...... I have always those like problem with my work.. I took me a lot of time make small rock fitting in scene because everything need to have same style and same amout of color.. Yeah and im very bad messing with different colors.. Im going try some orange colors with yellow green block...

agree with comment on block contrast though I suspect ur aware of that and these assets were just slapped together.

can I just say I love ur colours and clusters beetleking and I'm looking forward to seeing more and hopefully playing one day.
I'm also really curious to see how u go developing 2D in unity.
I'm in the same boat wanting to smash out a similar game I've been working in game maker and considering unity as it was far superior when I experimented with it but I'm afraid of how well it will handle 2D and clean pixel scaling without artifacts.
Anyway perhaps a discussion we can take offline ;-)

Thank u Decroded      We had same problem with clean pixel and  pixel scaling without artifact but we were to able to fix them with Pixel perfect formula and resolution. Im very happy how it turned out... Very smooth and zero artifact and 60fps.. I would love to talk with u offline..

[Beetleking22]

I dont wanna star new topic for this buut.. Blue forest  was little bit boring.. So I changed whole forest theme to autumn... I tought this color fits much better than the blue .. I have problem with distance..  It does not look like its war away.. Should I create 3 layer for BG forest to Fix the Problem?

[CelioHogane]

Are that 2 trees not from the background? they look like something you can hit.

[DatMuffinMan]

I preferred the blue trees much more, since it makes sense for environment stuff to get shifted towards cooler colors as it disappears into the background.. The green and red just look odd to me as they are now.

[cels]

I prefer the latest version. I didn't notice the amazing cluster on the blue trees in the foreground initially, but when you contrast them with the purple trees, it really brings out their unique design. I absolutely adore the colours in the latest version. This has a lot of potential, I think.

[r1k]

I think both versions are good, and give off different atmospheres. I think the could both be used for different areas.

[Beetleking22]

I preferred the blue trees much more, since it makes sense for environment stuff to get shifted towards cooler colors as it disappears into the background.. The green and red just look odd to me as they are now.

I thought Red and Green would blend to together with autumn setting.. I agree that Blue forest BG feels more distant and it is due to the fact that it has less contrast but as Cel said with higher contrast  tree would be show cluster better.. I would prefer it more but Im going keep them both because its just would add  more variety in our platformer game.

I prefer the latest version. I didn't notice the amazing cluster on the blue trees in the foreground initially, but when you contrast them with the purple trees, it really brings out their unique design. I absolutely adore the colours in the latest version. This has a lot of potential, I think.

Thank u Cel.. I agree that cluster looks better with higher contrast.

I think both versions are good, and give off different atmospheres. I think the could both be used for different areas.

Thank u R1k

Thats what im going to do.. Mario had some palette swamp level too.. It gives more variety 

[Fizzick]

New colors make the trees appear much nearer. I would shift the furthest plane of trees a little more towards the sky color to show distance. I also think both look great  ! Try a blueish green set with red foreground trees?

[Decroded]

pink background is a great variation as mentioned it's good to have both versions for different areas.
The issue is that pink version defies logic.
I cant edit so I'll try to explain.
Front  trees fade to pink mid-ground suggesting sunset type ambience and atmosphere, but then the sky is just bright blue like normal.
seems like decisions need to be made either about the front trees or the sky so the atmospheric perspective makes sense.

also the rear-most tree should be have larger clusters with less colours to reduce the effect of "detail" on visual priority.
Colours of rear most trees also stand out a bit too much against blue sky.