AuthorTopic: Plug Character + 8 Directional Run & Idle (Read 15923 times)

Kellawgs · **on:** September 21, 2015, 07:33:46 am

His 8 idle poses right here:

I've started making run animations for him, here's the easiest one for me at his profile view, I'll post the others as I get them made though they'll take more time.

The top of his head will be a separate sprite that always has this sort of radiating effect:

__

Just wanted to start a topic here for me to get some feedback/advice, and so I have a place to continue posting art from this project as I get it all made.

Cyangmou · **Reply #1 on:** September 21, 2015, 11:47:06 am

it's not top down.
the w-e walk looks like in a sideview projection.
It would perfectly work in a sideview game, which won't be the case for topdown sprites, because they are seen from above.

In the idle you also keep the browline horizontal, as if the horizon line

A topdown projection of any angle always has a consistent form to it.
The sidwards walk is foreshortened, this means the head is overlapping the ribcage to some extend and the ribcage is seen from above
the feet are place in deeps space, because the plane they are walking on has depth.

Of course you can stylize it to a certain degree to have a good mixture out of 3d correctness and a depiction of what's going on, but your stylization currently is to harsh for the viewing angle of the world and therefore the sprite would feel disconnected

consider this shot from a "topdown" frontview:

look at how the forms overlap.

Kellawgs · **Reply #2 on:** September 22, 2015, 01:49:13 am

I appreciate the feedback, though I should mention that by "top-down", what I really am referring to is the 3/4 perspective- and even then, I'm aware it isn't completely accurate to that perspective either. It's sort of a mix between artistic choice (for example, Nuclear Throne's player characters would work fine in a sideview game as well, but it's not) and then of course my general inability to properly design the character from the 'real' angle.

If you could help by providing your own version, that would be really appreciated. It does mean a lot that you'd take the time to help me out even by commenting.

Kellawgs · **Reply #3 on:** September 24, 2015, 08:21:12 am

bumpin with the rest of his animations now:

Seiseki · **Reply #4 on:** September 24, 2015, 10:23:28 am

Nuclear throne is pretty stylized and the weapon attached to the sprite sorta helps sell the perspective..
The shadows at their feet help a lot too.

But the more realistic you're trying to make it, the more jarring the perspective difference between the sprite and terrain is going to be..
The animation so far looks really good, the sprite is very readable too!

Try putting this into context, draw some simple tiles and see how it looks.
At worst it might look like the character is lying on the ground. But a thin shadow at his feet might help remedy that.

Quick edit:

Perspective doesn't look bad actually.. The shadow does help sell it..

Gil · **Reply #5 on:** September 25, 2015, 07:48:20 am

I don't have an issue with sprites this size doing the flat sideview thing. I'm not entirely sure if I like that the head grows and shrinks vertically in some of the animations, but otherwise, it looks top notch, great job.

Kellawgs · **Reply #6 on:** September 25, 2015, 09:01:47 am

Quote from: Gil on September 25, 2015, 07:48:20 am

I don't have an issue with sprites this size doing the flat sideview thing. I'm not entirely sure if I like that the head grows and shrinks vertically in some of the animations, but otherwise, it looks top notch, great job.

Once the top of his head is put on, that grow-shrink effect won't persist. I'm glad to see that everyone is mostly content with the perspective, because for the most part I am too. Thanks for the comments- right now I think the design of this small project is that you play as this little guy going around inside procedurally generated levels fixing 'dead pixels', while your view of the playing area is limited to your 'line of sight', and there are endless enemy spawns with both passive and aggressive personalities- passive enemies seek out and convert live pixels into more dead ones, and aggressive enemies just seek to kill you. During the run, care packages will drop onto random tiles and have game-altering effects in the favor of either the enemy or the player- determined by who gets to them first. Inbetween levels, you can spend your collected dead pixels for permanent, personal upgrades.

So in other words I'm probably about to make some real boring, generic shit. I'll keep you guys updated.

Kellawgs · **Reply #7 on:** September 28, 2015, 04:56:00 am

Improvements to the palette, and a character redesign. His head is an electric plug now, let me know if it's readable enough! Would appreciate seeing anyone's own take on it, because I'm not completely satisfied with the plug.

E- made a quick change again:

will update the rest of the angles tomorrow

Kellawgs · **Reply #8 on:** October 12, 2015, 04:55:55 am

Decided to put more effort into this particular project, so here's a redesign. I think I need some help cleaning it up, and just the character design in general. Would appreciate any advice.

Will post the angles, and then some animation soon.

Kellawgs · **Reply #9 on:** October 21, 2015, 04:37:13 am

updated with some angles, would appreciate some advice on the design, and some help possibly cleaning it up a bit

Kellawgs · **Reply #10 on:** October 24, 2015, 09:33:49 pm

added the gun and shit

Kellawgs · **Reply #11 on:** October 25, 2015, 01:11:44 am

Also, I'm planning on doing the whole project using this palette, so I'd appreciate some critique on the colors. I did not make this palette, this is just a simplified version of Arne's "Japanese Machine" palette.

The goals are:
-black background
-4 colors per sprite, including the black
-complimentary color scheme in each sprite
-no real shading

So aside from the red and the green, I don't feel like I have the color combinations I need. I am totally unskilled at following decent color theory, but I like the vibe the palette has so if I could just get some help finding some new colors that would seamlessly coexist with the red and green, that'd be a good thing. I think I need a good purple and orange specifically, probably to replace the grey and the pink.

Am open to any and all input regarding that though.

E-

Did some thinking, and I went back to utilize more of the original palette's color choices, while also replacing a few of them with my own. I think this project will best fit a now 14-color palette.

Friend · **Reply #12 on:** October 25, 2015, 05:05:20 pm

i think the new sprite is killer!!! and i like your proposed palettes. i think the colors will inspire creative backgrounds

BatElite · **Reply #13 on:** October 25, 2015, 06:52:45 pm

Dool dude, does the gaint plug serve any purpose?

I don't have anything for the dude himself, but as far as your palette is concerned, the near-black purple is pretty much indistinguishable from black to me.
The dark red and dark purple look similar enough that you could turn them into one colour if you ever needed more space. You might want to create a bit more contrast between them.
I also feel that the light blue is slightly too purple. The palette is quite purple as is.

Kellawgs · **Reply #14 on:** October 25, 2015, 09:20:11 pm

Quote from: BatElite on October 25, 2015, 06:52:45 pm

Dool dude, does the gaint plug serve any purpose?

He'll pull tiles out of the floor and plug himself into them.

Quote from: BatElite on October 25, 2015, 06:52:45 pm

I don't have anything for the dude himself, but as far as your palette is concerned, the near-black purple is pretty much indistinguishable from black to me.
The dark red and dark purple look similar enough that you could turn them into one colour if you ever needed more space. You might want to create a bit more contrast between them.
I also feel that the light blue is slightly too purple. The palette is quite purple as is.

The near-black purple is to be used exclusively for minor details in the background. The game will have mostly just a black background though, sort of in the same sense that some NES games had black backgrounds. Also I don't know what I'm doing.

Quote from: Friend on October 25, 2015, 05:05:20 pm

i think the new sprite is killer!!! and i like your proposed palettes. i think the colors will inspire creative backgrounds

Thanks man, I appreciate the comment.

Kellawgs · **Reply #15 on:** October 26, 2015, 07:11:25 am

When shooting, he'll simply point the gun. Here's the deal, I don't know proper gun handling, and this is my best shot at getting the pose right.

Would appreciate some input on how I can make it look a little more natural.

Glak · **Reply #16 on:** October 30, 2015, 05:57:38 pm

In the real world, guns are lined up with the dominant eye. So if you want to make it realistic you're going to have to move the gun up about 10 or so pixels, and move his head down 1-2 pixels. Given the deformed nature of the character, I don't know if you'll be able to pull it off.

Kellawgs · **Reply #17 on:** October 31, 2015, 03:33:36 am

Quote from: Glak on October 30, 2015, 05:57:38 pm

In the real world, guns are lined up with the dominant eye. So if you want to make it realistic you're going to have to move the gun up about 10 or so pixels, and move his head down 1-2 pixels. Given the deformed nature of the character, I don't know if you'll be able to pull it off.

This is good knowledge and I'll probably see if I can make that look right, though given the fact that it's more of a robot than a person I kind of liked the more careless aim as if all that mattered was that it was pointed in the general direction.

Glak · **Reply #18 on:** October 31, 2015, 02:45:15 pm

If you google image search for "gun stance" you'll get some good pictures.

Here are some that will be useful:

http://www.christiangunowner.com/images/s-standfront.jpg

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/PDefBifuEGE/maxresdefault.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f1/35/0a/f1350a01a8f1e4b05246eaaf95c5a051.jpg

http://s428.photobucket.com/user/tacticalyellowvisor/media/20120121%20Defoor%20Carbine/DSCN0031.jpg.html

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/54/36/59/5436596cdea70a7a3e68ab0158382b83.jpg

http://f.tqn.com/y/hunting/1/W/t/W/shotgun_aimed_at_camera_BA0948-001.jpg

Kellawgs · **Reply #19 on:** November 01, 2015, 11:59:04 pm

I've cleaned this one up some, but immediately became stumped on the next pose. Here's my current best effort:

As you can tell it looks like trash, it's safe to say we can all expect to see me coming back for assistance as I approach every single frame of every sprite. Thanks!

E- I think it may help to put more thought into how the hypothetical skeleton of this guy would look and move.

Kellawgs · **Reply #20 on:** November 03, 2015, 01:52:40 am

still not completely sold on it yet

Atnas · **Reply #21 on:** November 03, 2015, 04:20:17 am

Quote from: Kellawgs on September 28, 2015, 04:56:00 am

Improvements to the palette, and a character redesign. His head is an electric plug now, let me know if it's readable enough! Would appreciate seeing anyone's own take on it, because I'm not completely satisfied with the plug.

E- made a quick change again:

will update the rest of the angles tomorrow

In my opinion the smaller version was a lot more interesting. The forms were solidly packed together and the construction seemed to lend itself better to movement. Not sure if it's a good time to tell you this after you've spent this much time on the larger version...

Anyway, I'll do an edit when I have more free time but the reason the smaller version worked was that each body part was sectioned off with a part of his design. With the larger version you have a sort of "short sleeves" look which is a u turn where the arms come from the torso, and that can be confusing without a line or color value shift to break things up. The tank top of the old version worked better in this regard.

There was also a lot of charm in the squat head that was lost when making it tall and chibi, though I suppose that's up to taste.

Kellawgs · **Reply #22 on:** November 03, 2015, 04:44:50 am

Quote from: Atnas on November 03, 2015, 04:20:17 am

Quote from: Kellawgs on September 28, 2015, 04:56:00 am

Improvements to the palette, and a character redesign. His head is an electric plug now, let me know if it's readable enough! Would appreciate seeing anyone's own take on it, because I'm not completely satisfied with the plug.

E- made a quick change again:

will update the rest of the angles tomorrow

In my opinion the smaller version was a lot more interesting. The forms were solidly packed together and the construction seemed to lend itself better to movement. Not sure if it's a good time to tell you this after you've spent this much time on the larger version...

Anyway, I'll do an edit when I have more free time but the reason the smaller version worked was that each body part was sectioned off with a part of his design. With the larger version you have a sort of "short sleeves" look which is a u turn where the arms come from the torso, and that can be confusing without a line or color value shift to break things up. The tank top of the old version worked better in this regard.

There was also a lot of charm in the squat head that was lost when making it tall and chibi, though I suppose that's up to taste.

For the time being the smaller version may look a bit cleaner, but over time I'm fairly confident the new guy will be superior all across the board. The lower-res version also didn't have a weapon, and it was when I began implementing that when I decided to do a redesign.

It is very true however that the sleeves can be problematic and do not read quite as well as the tank top did for obvious reasons. I'm unsure how many options there are in which to remedy that though.

E-

how's the side views

Kellawgs · **Reply #23 on:** November 05, 2015, 08:46:06 am

probably a pretty rough draft of the shooting angles

Kellawgs · **Reply #24 on:** November 06, 2015, 02:46:27 am

working on a little animation now

Kellawgs · **Reply #25 on:** November 10, 2015, 06:54:43 am

All movement animations, what do you guys think?

YellowLime · **Reply #26 on:** November 10, 2015, 11:38:18 am

Looks good!

The character itself looks very flat in that the side view is noticeably thinner than the front/back view, but that seems to be your intention.

"Back and to the side" view looks a bit odd in that the torso ends at the same height on the closer side and at the farther away side... (also seems intentional, but still looks weird to me)

And the farther away feet end "too late" imo, at least in the running animation, reducing the dimensionality of the character.

I'd like to see a mockup of the character walking in an empty space, so we get to see how the character feels as a whole and transitions from each view

MikePixel · **Reply #27 on:** November 11, 2015, 01:40:18 am

love it!

Kellawgs · **Reply #28 on:** November 12, 2015, 09:36:20 am

i think im gonna start mocking up some potential enemies, here's one idea featuring what could be a camera shooting polaroids

i'd like the breed it with an animal of some kind, what do you guys think of giving it wings or something

coldmage · **Reply #29 on:** November 17, 2015, 12:32:53 am

If you were to breed it with an animal, considering how hard you have worked on the electric/machine feel, I would say you could either give it a metal looking wings, or perhaps add some sort of electric ell type animals too, but hey, that's just my opinion.

umen · **Reply #30 on:** November 19, 2015, 08:33:23 pm

Great stuff you done there !
can you help beginner and tell me how did you know to draw the character directions ? so they look so real ?
see my question here :
http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=19118.0

Thanks!

Kellawgs · **Reply #31 on:** January 26, 2016, 12:26:30 pm

Alright I've taken away the black background in hopes of using the color to incorporate a little more detail in the sprite, would appreciate some advice or an edit because I'm not sure it's quite right.

Kellawgs · **Reply #32 on:** January 28, 2016, 01:14:56 pm

I think I should try to condense the current sprite into a lower resolution, it may fit more into my skill set in terms of detail and could look a bit cuter.

E-

about this size would be good, not sure if i can keep it readable after a cleanup though

Kellawgs · **Reply #33 on:** January 31, 2016, 06:35:02 pm

i am eager to hear some opinions as to whether this sprite would be a better fit

BatElite · **Reply #34 on:** January 31, 2016, 09:03:49 pm

I can't say which would fit better, since there is barely anything else to compare it with?

I think the black contrasts too much. It is really noticable on lighter backgrounds. The simpler edit I made blends in with lighter backgrounds though (especially the green), so you probably want to keep a darker colour.

You should bring the back leg into the small sprite. Currently the sprite looks like it's side-on expect the plug, which makes the plug look slanted compared to the head.

Kellawgs · **Reply #35 on:** January 31, 2016, 10:32:31 pm

some more character into it

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AuthorTopic: Plug Character + 8 Directional Run & Idle (Read 15923 times)