Ninja Side Scroller Animation (Ninja Gaiden Inspiration)

[fingas10]

Tips? Critiques?

[yrizoud]

The leg movement is smooth and reads very well. Seeing both the still pose and the run, I think you could change the running body so that he is more leaning forward, during the run. Don't overdo it a la "Naruto run", but I think one or two pixels would make the pose more dynamic. The shoulders & head would then be moved down one or two pixels as well (otherwise it will lengthen the torso, which is already quite long)

[fingas10]

The leg movement is smooth and reads very well. Seeing both the still pose and the run, I think you could change the running body so that he is more leaning forward, during the run. Don't overdo it a la "Naruto run", but I think one or two pixels would make the pose more dynamic. The shoulders & head would then be moved down one or two pixels as well (otherwise it will lengthen the torso, which is already quite long)

Thanks for the tips! I moved the upper body forward and thinned out the midsection a bit to give it more of a forward lean. Also cleaned up a bit of the shading and outlines that I missed.

old:


new:

[fingas10]

I added a sword strike animation.

[Zanorin]

It's not bad but it feels just a bit limp, maybe try removing or accelerating the 4th frame, the first one with his arm straight. It might help dynamizing it more

[pistachio]

As far as mechanics go I think that shifting the torso by a pixel on impact might sell the force more. Exaggeration is key, but can't be overdone... so I could be wrong on that one, it looks balanced/martial enough.

A smear or motion blur effect on the blade could work too if that's something that fits in the game's style.

Otherwise there's also some jumpiness in the anim that you could iron out, or make the implied transitions between frames smoother, by tweaking subpixels to make it flow better. (I.E. legs.)

I know these concepts are hard to explain in the span of a short post or by text alone so I'll probably be making a small edit soon and putting it here.

(BTW apologies for the stub posts recently, life has been busy in general.)