Run Animation (Turned View) C+C

[Sharper333]

Looking to get some critique on this bit of work I'm doing. I'm just trying to set a base for future animations of the same style. I feel as though the shape of the legs on a few frames lose volume, but I'm having a difficult time adding anything back and keep the same visual.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Ashedragon]

I'm still pretty new to animation myself, so while I can't offer a lot of critique, I can say that the pacing, the framerate, makes it seem more like an eccentric walk or a jog than a run. It's very slow and deliberate. You might want to play around with removing some frames and exaggerating the poses. Maybe find a good reference to latch onto?

[Achrileg]

While I'm rather new to the forum, I think I'm decent at animation and I'd like to be helpful.

So, from what I see, you should exaggerate the movement of the character more - build up anticipation then ease out of movements. Motion isn't uniform, and the speed of any movement is rarely equally quick through out.

Here's how I'd go about improving your animation, step by step.

But first thing's first, I personally think that animating both run cycle sides is tedious and might look janky. Don't draw out the front and back already, draw the for, the silhouette of the character, it's a lot easier to keep track of the characters motions and inconsistencies.


So, I colored it all one color, and removed 6 out of 11 frames, so it's now a 5 frame loop, without a distinguishable front/ back side of the character. The little pip under the foot just helps me understand the motion a lot better and judge the best way to loop.


Next, I added motion to the character as a whole. The body doesn't stay at the same height when moving, it oscillates up and down, as well as diagonally. Think of running as jumps in succession, which, in a way, it is. I also started to fiddle with the arms, as now it's apparent that the are stiff - staying at the same spot for too long and keeping the same pose unnaturally.


Added flow to the limbs - I guess you could say that the farther something is out on a limb, the more they are affected by inertia. Hands are flexible things, for an example, your palm doesn't start moving the moment your biceps raise your hand, unless you're tensing up your whole hand.


Only now do should you think about sides - orange being in front. I didn't really do a lot here, just edited a little bit around so there'd be frames where the hand transitions smoothly throughout the swings. Also, edit, I doubled the frame count before coloring the orange.

Hopefully this was at least slightly helpful, and maybe this can help you as a reference. Also, I really suggest watching https://vimeo.com/93206523, which is really helpful and outlines basic principles of animation and motion.

[Sharper333]

I'm still pretty new to animation myself, so while I can't offer a lot of critique, I can say that the pacing, the framerate, makes it seem more like an eccentric walk or a jog than a run. It's very slow and deliberate. You might want to play around with removing some frames and exaggerating the poses. Maybe find a good reference to latch onto?

Real silly of me. I definitely slowed the frame rate down to get a better look at the limbs sway. Though in the end it's pretty clear that lone isn't the only fix. I agree its a distraction and makes it hard to differentiate between a jog/walk/or slow run here.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Sharper333]

Achrileg,

Woo howdy thank you for the feedback.

I was so focused on keeping the actual size of the animation under 64pixels that I didn't leave much room for vertical movement. I definitely see the impact further movement can have. I still don't know how important size is when designing work for a game, but thats for another topic.

I actually did start with the for than copy and pasted limbs back and edited down. The coloring was initiated to help me identify the field of vision (purely personal use).

Your limb movement (really whole body) is just better. Arms are really difficult for me for whatever reason so I'm very thankful to have a nice base.

I think the biggest concern I have with your final compared to what I was attempting to do is that your drawing is the typical side view and I wanted a slightly turned towards the viewer look so you'd see the face the majority of time rather than having it roll side to side. Now that it the way I thought I wouldn't want it, it definitely doesn't matter in the end. You'd see plenty of the face in your view.

I'll check that video shortly. Thanks for all the feedback!

[Achrileg]

Ah, fair enough, missed that a bit. Fixing that is easy, just show the chest more, move the shoulder that's closest to the camera farther to the back of the character.


Also, I really suggest always leaving areas free just in case on the canvas size when animating. I myself, for my game, use 100x100px for a sprite, although the characters range from 30px to 50px high. Gives me freedom. Just start doing this from the start of a project, just to save any headaches.

[Sharper333]

Ahhh awesome I was just looking over this. Looks like one of those frames got missed but I can definitely see what you mean by just tilting it forward.

So, you mean just go with what you feel like from the start?

[Achrileg]

So, you mean just go with what you feel like from the start?

Yeah, if you are refering to the sprite sizes. I mean, if you don't have any sort of technical limitations. I'm going with 100x100 personally cause I've worked with someone who used that as a standard, and it's really easy to compile everything into sprite sheets if everything is in 100s, so I stole the idea of it. =]

[Ozego]

Yeah, if you are refering to the sprite sizes. I mean, if you don't have any sort of technical limitations. I'm going with 100x100 personally cause I've worked with someone who used that as a standard, and it's really easy to compile everything into sprite sheets if everything is in 100s, so I stole the idea of it. =]

A sprite size that is not a power of two!? Blasphemy. Hehe.
Sticking to powers of two: 16, 32, 64, 128 and so forth have been the norm for sprites since pacman, however it is dictated by the hardware.
Modern game systems are quite flexible and sprites get compiled into a spritesheets anyway so yeah, any size can be used. However the spritesheet will most likely be compiled to a power of two, so using a size like 96 (32+64) might save a lot of space compared to 100.
If you want to built it to multiple devices it is still a good idea to stick to this norm since each gpu does things a bit different.
For learning though, go crazy. Focus on the goal you want to achieve ie. the animation rather than technical accuracy.