AuthorTopic: Sword character's run animation [Updated 5/10]  (Read 3704 times)

Offline Aniki

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Sword character's run animation [Updated 5/10]

on: April 23, 2017, 07:46:55 pm
I've been working on this character for a few days now, I started with this Idle animation that I'm pretty happy with:



I've spent quite awhile on this running animation and I think I've managed to make it look okay- but not great.



I couldn't find a reference that matched exactly what I was trying to do, and though I definitely tried I can't really run like this in real life- at least within the safety of my own home- so I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out exactly how everything should move.
It might also be cool to have some exaggeration in the movement, I don't think the animation has a lot of weight to it.

Any advice greatly appreciated.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2017, 06:08:02 am by Aniki »

Offline Skaz

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Re: Sword character's "ninja run" animation

Reply #1 on: April 23, 2017, 10:17:10 pm
The sprite is quite nice, but lacks volume. You might want to add a darker shade for each colour, so you can open the door to sub pixel animation, which means animating the frontier between the shades inside the shape of the sprite, without having to move the outline. It allows a lot of subtlety.

As far as the running goes, running will throw your chest from left to right, so having a fixed chest while running is really unsettling. The shoulder should translate the rotation of the chest. I'll ad that the hand holding the sword being totally still make thing really hard to believe, specially when the sword does move. The legs aren't bad, but the motion lacks acceleration and deceleration, it's too linear. Ease the motion when the leg get to the full front and back position, to sell the weight and inertia.

Hope it helps!

Keep up!

- Skaz

Offline Aniki

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Re: Sword character's "ninja run" animation

Reply #2 on: April 24, 2017, 09:14:13 am
I was gonna do this with out shading for the sake of speed, but I tried it anyway and man it really looks so much better, hah.



I messed with the animation all day and added a bunch of shading- now I'm having trouble with shading the boots. I tried on one of the images in the sprite sheet, but would anyone mind showing me how they would do it?



I'm not loving the shading on the legs but it's not terrible.
The sword is still very much a WIP

Offline Storyteller

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Re: Sword character's "ninja run" animation

Reply #3 on: April 26, 2017, 04:53:38 am
those are really good! I hope to see more, your skills are very sharp. I like the art style a lot, the flow, the pace of the latest, it has a rhythm of running across tall rocks over a stream, or from one giant bamboo stalk to the next, like in the movies.

Offline Aniki

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Re: Sword character's "ninja run" animation

Reply #4 on: April 27, 2017, 06:35:56 am
Thanks for the encouragement guys.

Here's what I have now:



I don't love the hair, and I'm not sure if I'm happy with her pants.
I can't find a good reference for hair (somehow), does anyone have any advice for making it look more natural (even though I realize that in real life her hair would probably just bounce around and not really lift like this)

Offline Aniki

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Re: Sword character's "ninja run" animation

Reply #5 on: May 11, 2017, 06:07:36 am
I have the character running in 4 directions, but I'm just not happy with the up and down animations. I've done many iterations but they just don't look as good as the idle and left/right animation.





I feel like her legs are too thin, but if I add another pixel they look way too big.

Any thoughts?

Offline 32

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Re: Sword character's run animation [Updated 5/10]

Reply #6 on: May 11, 2017, 08:06:01 am
These are looking really nice ;D

If you want to make the running animation a little more punchy try pushing the timing so the feet stay on the ground for fewer frames. Think a standard pendulum animation where most of the frames are grouped at each end. Looks good as is though but that's generally how you get that really quick "ninja run" kind of effect.