Attack animation

[Druvan]

So i tried to make an attack animation for my game but i really don't know how to do it, is there any good tutorial on how to make attack animations?
Or does maybe any of you guys have any tips on how to do it?

[Rosier]

I guess telling you to look up attack animations probably isn't what you had in mind, but it's good advice, I swear.  The style you're going for, at least for the actual attack and blur and everything, reminds me of the Megaman Zero games with Zero's laser sword.

Otherwise, it could use at least one more frame of build up, maybe where he kind of crouches down or something.  There's a lot of motion for not a ton of leading.  Also, the final frame where he holds the position and the blur fades should be a few pixels further than where the last frame stopped.  It looks like he was frozen in time, and the blur with it.

[kilenc]

to begin with i started my edit using the old animation you posted, this new one you made improves on that for sure



i reduced frame count of the actual swing and upped the count of the in-between frames, and lowered time between frames (200ms > 100ms), which makes the animation much snappier--makes it more energetic, dynamic, action packed, because the action is quick and he has build-up to the action

on the animation itself, i made the movement more exaggerated (forward more) and added recoil, which is what you naturally do--"recover" from a sudden action (punch and watch your hand--it'll come back a bit). honestly, i should add more forward movement and more obvious recoil, but i'm running short on time, so hopefully you get the gist of it

i also noticed the character wasn't really readable, a lot of detail but i can't tell what it is. i took my best guess and made some changes to the character (most notably lengthening what i assume are arms), especially in colors, which were not very unified and often superflous

finally, i agree with the look-at-a-reference thing. i tried to fit my animation to your funky swing, but really i think it'd be hard to do something like that (i did it myself in front of a mirror, i'm no swordsman but i didn't feel like i could not break my arm doing it haha)

my animation isn't perfect, i don't have much time, but i encourage you to study it and see what i did differently than you

[Druvan]

Great response from both of you, thanks 
Gonna keep studying this and see what i can come up with.

And i got the character inspiration from Hyper light drifter where the player doesn't have much details so that's why it may be a little bit hard to distinguish some details but its not a final draft so some changes for the better may happen.

[kilenc]

don't be afraid to deviate from a set style, especially when it comes to improving your sprite work.

you make some steps away from the game--for instance, your character is only half the style, because you attempt some shading, whereas hyper light drifter uses none except on obvious geometric forms (see this golem, but notice the main character does not have shading which you attempt):



there's also more "detail" in your sprite than in these, but it's a lot easier to tell what hyper light drifter's characters are, and they have more personality. this is because a lot of your detail being cluttered (like the patterns on your guy's coat, which are hard to read), or simply nonexistent (the arms really really don't look like arms, they're flat and stubby). maybe these things are intentional, but ultimately they make it hard to understand what your samurai guy is.

i definitely encourage you to change the sprite for the better--decide if you want to commit to hyper light drifter's minimal style or have shading, and then make sure everything on your sprites is able to be understood. don't just say "well, hyper light drifter did ..." because, well, you're not making hyper light drifter!

a more readable sprite will help the animation, too.

hope this wasn't too harsh, i think your character has a lot of potential, especially the backpack. good luck

[Druvan]

Don't know how to respond to this more than, tanks 
Much appreciated critique, it's always nice to get some feedback from someone who doesn't know how it's supposed to look, i guess you can say? (i can see him more clearly in my head since i drew him)

The problem with me is when i see a style i like i tend to copy it alot, so my finished product ends up looking more like a copy of something

I will try to mock something new up and then come back with the results