AuthorTopic: Punching animation  (Read 4960 times)

Offline leveler50

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Punching animation

on: February 03, 2016, 02:43:56 pm
Hey,

I started to animate the characters for our game Summerwind. 



It's six frames, including starting and ending pose, which is the same standing position.
 
« Last Edit: February 03, 2016, 05:13:11 pm by leveler50 »

Offline Shanenopolis

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Re: Punching animation

Reply #1 on: February 04, 2016, 02:11:04 pm
He doesn't have much reach. Looks like he would do more damage with a headbutt. Maybe draw a little shockwave impact effect in front of his fist?

Offline MAVW

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Re: Punching animation

Reply #2 on: February 05, 2016, 09:13:33 pm
yeah, a headbutt might look better with this kind of char anatomy.
the animation is...ok, the main problem here is the lack of body movement. When you punch, you turn your torso sideways and then project your body forward with the arm, that's where the punch strength comes from.
But of course, it'll be difficult to make it visible with this chibi style, I'd suggest you to consider the headbutt, it'll look a lot more interesting.

Offline leveler50

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Re: Punching animation

Reply #3 on: February 07, 2016, 08:45:50 am
Good points. Yeah, I'll be trying the headbutt as well as the shockwave. Many characters in our game are this same "chibi"-style, so we need to come up with solutions which works for every character. :) I'll post the updated animations here soon.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2016, 11:22:45 am by leveler50 »

Offline leveler50

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Re: Punching animation

Reply #4 on: February 07, 2016, 11:27:18 am
Here is the punch animation v2 with the shockwave (plus I made the fist a bit bigger to add impact):


and here is the headbutt (I'm not sure whether it needs a shockwave?):

 

Both shockwaves are spread for three frames.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2016, 01:34:09 pm by leveler50 »

Offline leveler50

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Re: Punching animation

Reply #5 on: February 08, 2016, 10:38:50 am
Here's another character and another angle:

« Last Edit: February 08, 2016, 01:59:36 pm by leveler50 »

Offline MAVW

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Re: Punching animation

Reply #6 on: February 09, 2016, 06:05:53 am
nice! the waves do help but now and we can see that the headbutt does look like it'd do more damage  :P
I'd say it's OK now, it works.

If you want to take it to the next level I'd suggest looking into animation timing and motion blur because right now the headbutt doesn't have a lot of weight to it.
From what I see it's simply frame back, middle and forward. Think about putting more time into his tilt backwards and a fast motion(motion blur) when he moves forward.

Also, it feels that you're being limited by the image size, if the project enables a bigger room for movements on atlas I'd suggest exploring this a bit more.

Offline leveler50

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Re: Punching animation

Reply #7 on: February 09, 2016, 09:02:34 am
Yeah you are right! You mean the head would possibly stretch a little bit when moving fast and squashes a little bit when the movement stops in the both ends? At least that's how it has been taught by some animation professionals. I was thinking that. I suppose it could be done with motion blur-kind-of-a-thing too. But I decided not to do it YET, because it needs something like six frames more. Or less if we use motion blur. I don't have the capability to do it now. Possibly later.

You are also right that the space is too small at the moment. It is 32*32 pixels but it could be more of course. I hadn't thought about it. A good tip!

Thanks  ;D

Offline Wes

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Re: Punching animation

Reply #8 on: February 10, 2016, 02:09:09 am
You can remove at least one of those frames to make the animation snappier. i'm talking mostly about the transition frame between the wind-up and the punch itself. that slows down the motion and lessens the emphasis of the punch. maybe it can be replaced with a smear or something. less wind-up, more followthrough (especially important in games since you want to minimize input lag)

also push the exaggeration more. give the fist more range and make it grow bigger than you think it needs to.

(very) quick edit just to illustrate what i mean:


I replaced the inbetween frame with a punchy smear. same number of frames and same timing.

i edited the one from your first post instead of the update because for some reason your animations (animated jpg?) are all odd in photoshop or GG

EDIT:

also imo he probably shouldn't be JUMPING when he punches. he'd want to stay grounded in order to put real force into it, and use his legs and body to swing his weight and make the punch the most effective. didn't touch any of that tho in my edit
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 02:30:51 am by Wes »

Offline leveler50

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Re: Punching animation

Reply #9 on: February 10, 2016, 12:28:14 pm
I don't know what has happened to the other animations, they should be regular gif animations done in GIMP.  :)

Yeah, maybe he shouldn't be jumping. The exaggeration (growing fist) looks very good so I have to do that too. The shockwave might still be a nice add on.

I'm going to do the changes for the demo version of our game. We are keeping the prototype now as it is because today was the deadline for the assets. I'll be posting the new version of the animations at some point. Thanks. Keep it up!