[C+C] Girl Running

[Gamut]

Longtime lurker here. Got stuck on a sprite, so thought I might post here.

I've been working on a side-scrolling platformer for about half a year now, and for most of that time I adhered to a Cave Story-esque style with tiny characters. But just a week ago, I decided to make a shift in style towards much taller characters.

Here is the main character of my game, a teenaged girl named Lily. I had an idle animation for this sprite, but scrapped it to redo later.


Now, my problem lies with animating a runcycle. I think that I have the major points down, but I'm really bothered by how jaunty the hair looks. Can anyone help me with making the hair flow more like, well, hair?

Here is the animation and spritesheet, respectively.



Thanks for taking the time to read this!

[Seiseki]

I really like your sprite! 

For the animation there is work to do.
- The left arm disappears completely between the first and last frame which makes it seem jittery.
- In frame 1 4 and 5 it's really hard to tell what is going on with the arms, the shapes turn into something unrecognizable.
The arms seem dislocated from the shoulder. It's like the shoulder is attached in the middle of the chest?  There is also some inconsistent arm thickness.
- In the 1st frame the line on her stomach almost looks like an additional arm with a hand. I think this line also messes up frame 4 and 5,
You have a lot of work to do when it comes to making clean and readable arm shapes. Start by maybe making the entire arm up to the shoulder a completely different color, like Purple. Then work on getting that shape looking fluid. When it looks fluid, then you draw the clothing.
- The shoes look a bit messy.

You could make the left arm significantly darker to make it easier to tell the arms apart when they go back and forth.

The legs aren't really fluid but I don't have any good insight here. It's easy to tell their shape and tell them apart though! 

I think the hair is ok, maybe the hair on here head could shift slightly, but that might also make it look like jelly. 
The skirt could have more fluid movement though, which I think would help the overall impression.

I did an edit for the sprite.
You have a lot of similar colors and the hair/face blends together a bit.
Tried reducing color count and increasing the contrast. Removed a bit of banding.



Anyways, it's easy to point out flaws, but it's much harder to actually make something from scratch! So keep up the good work.

[Gamut]

Thanks for the detailed response, Seiseki. I've been struggling to identify problems, and you've provided me with quite a bit to work on.

Not going to make any excuses about the arms. I actually used the method you mentioned to do the legs but not the arms, which is probably why there's such a gap in rendering quality. And about the little hair tufts--I definitely want to make them jump around, if just to make the animation feel a little more dynamic.

And finally, thanks for the edit. I've been trying to shave off colors, but Asesprite is a fickle beast when it comes to actually "removing" colors from an image.

Will be back with an edit, at some point.

EDIT 8-2-15: Fiddled around with some purple blobs and shrunk down the size of the arms. Should be more clear now. Going to address the other concerns tomorrow, after some sleep.

[IrresponsibleFreelancer]

It looks awesome especially for you like you said being a bit out of your comfort zone.  The one problem im seeing is that on the full extension forward step (frames 2 & 6) the feet arent going far enough forward, they arent extending out fully as legs would in a run where you would land on your heels. 

also it wouldnt hurt to add in a frame or two more if you have the time and energy, i find 8 frames works best to make it look fluid and fun.  The reason i think this is because at parts the legs get jumbled up into mass of flesh where with 6 frames its hard to tell what is going on.  (the last part is completely unnecessary but its worth a thought)
*Sorry that my edits really bad i just wanted to let you know what the problems were even though they were mostly covered by seiseki

[Gamut]

IrresponsibleFreelancer, thanks for the feedback!

I took a look at your edit, and I think that I'm going to incorporate it into my latest revision. Making the leg touch the ground on frame 2 helps avoid the "floating" look it had before.

I totally wish I had thought to do 8 frames when I started--you're right, it looks a lot smoother with the 2 extra frames. I'll see what I can do at the moment, though.

EDIT 8-3-15:

Made some changes to the legs. Also experimented with an 8 frame run cycle. Which one "looks better" to you guys?


6 frames.


8 frames.

[IrresponsibleFreelancer]

Can i just say holy crap.  It almost brought a tear to my eye the second one with 8 frames is a thousand times better it looks much smoother and is easier to look at.  The extra two frames made it much better.  One final thing though is to watch the pixelling on the second frame, although its tough and takes a bit of brain power there is a better way to arrange the pixels so you dont get those sharp angles on the pixels.

[Gamut]

Did some more work on the hair and legs. I might go back to 8 frames, but right now it's proving to be too much work for my poor soul.

[Jim16]

Landing on your heel (back of your foot) is bad for you, generally most people run mid to forefoot, which is why when people actually run on their heels, it looks odd. Also, landing too far ahead of your center of gravity and on your heel will create a braking force (of course this does not apply to games). Just something to keep in mind if the run animation doesn't look right.

[hobbler_toppler]

The arms look really weird to me. It gives the illusion that the front arm is repeatedly disappearing. Yes, the back arm is a darker shade, but that's not enough to differentiate it from the front arm which occupies the exact same space when extended. The girl's torso is pointed 3/4ths towards the screen, yet both of her arms extend in front of her the same length on keyframes. I don't think her front arm should go outwards to the right as far as the back arm.

[Gamut]

Tried to address both hobbler_toppler and Jim16's suggestions. I'm really liking how it's turning out--thanks, guys.

[Seiseki]

Awesome progress! 
8 Frames looks so much better.

I still get confused by the line on her stomach, it's too similar to the shape of the arm.

[LisandraTD]

I don't know..
Wasn't she supposed to be looking in front as she runs? But I like it this way too. My brain can't decide!1 
And gratz on the arms and legs animation, I really like it /o/

[Gamut]

More cleanup work. At some point, I think I might expand this animation from 6 to 12 frames--but right now, doing that many tween frames is out of my reach. As much as I'd like to do 8 frames, trying to fit in 2 tween frames ends up making the animation look very snappy rather than smooth.



If anyone has any tips on the hair, please let me know. For now, though, I'll be working on the idle animation. Thanks!

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Here's my not very polished edit.

Problem you need to fix in mu opinion is avoiding body parts showing in exactly the same place in "parallel frames" like 1-4, 2-5 and 3-6 cause it gives some stiffness to animation. Also with small amount of frames you need to try to give joints like ankle some at least small movement in different positions. Hope that this is helpful.

[Gamut]

Thanks a bunch for the edit, HarveyDentMustDie!

I'd prefer for the animation to not be too jaunty since it'll be used in a casually paced platformer. With that said, I went ahead and integrated the head turning into my latest revision. This way, the perspective stays consistent and the sprite looks a lot smoother.



Still working on that idle animation, but I'm having trouble making the arms not look like noodles. Any tips? Here's a rough draft.