[C+C] Very first animation

[Salvakiya]

hello all. its been a long time since I have posted here. This is however my first real attempt at an animation. I am trying to learn to do pixel art as I have never really done it before.

here is my animation.



I personally like the motion of his arm and the gun. However his lower body looks silly to me. and the smoke trail is a little silly too XD

I just want to know how I can improve myself.

[MysteryMeat]

for your first time, this is stellar work!
I'd say eschew the smoke trail entirely, and just animate a tumbling bullet casing instead.
Another idea might be to have him rattle off two or three shots in a burst instead of a single-shot!

His belt also seems to jump around a lot, try to stabilize that some. Makes it look like his lower torso's leapin' about, ay

[Roach]

foot shouldn't move with recoil.

[rologfos]

I tried to stabilize it a bit in this edit.

Not as stylized but maybe a bit more readable?
Lower torso is still janky

[MysteryMeat]

I'd say keep the shell around a couple more frames, maybe have it bounce on the floor out of frame.
Definitely looks more stable now, if you're worried about stylization try having him get pushed off-balance a bit when he fires to empathise the force of the shot, like so:

Obviously you'd want to use more frames than that, though, haha

[Salvakiya]

well I did rework his entire stance. What are your thoughts on this?



havent animated it. partly because in the game the weapon will swivel to wherever the player is aiming.

I would also like some feedback on how to make him less depentant on more directions(if that makes sense)

My game has similar controls to Nuclear Throne. The character however should only have two running animations... one where his back is towards the player and the other where he is facing the player. The player will move in all 360 directions and I need to figure out a way to get it to look like he is not magically moving in a direction he is not walking. Nuclear throne could do this easily because it was 16x16 characters and each leg was pretty much 3 pixels each. I want a bit more detail because my game will be cover based so the player should be able to distinguish when the characters are ducking behind cover. I need to alter the style to fit this goal.

Any input would be great!

[eishiya]

I don't think you're going to get that looking good at this scale without adding animations for running to the side, or even better, 8-directional animations (with mirroring, that's 5 different animations). Why should the character only have two running animations?

[Salvakiya]

I don't think you're going to get that looking good at this scale without adding animations for running to the side, or even better, 8-directional animations (with mirroring, that's 5 different animations). Why should the character only have two running animations?

well I could do 3 animations up down and right. Or I could do 2 at somewhere around 45 degrees. like the top right or bottom right. I am just trying to reduce the amount of work required to add content.

[Decroded]

Not sure on the details but i think ur going to want a sprite for the waist down and another for above the waist so he can strafe.

When back pedalling, u could try playing the normal run cycles in reverse in engine and see how it looks.
If it looks too weird like that and u need a back pedal cycle for each direction, at least it might be less work to adjust that animation then starting from scratch.

[Roach]

I made this in the past, but it might help you.