fairly out-dated warrior animation needs some help

[calle_]

Hi, I'm quite new to these boards and I guess this will be my official introduction as well.   
 
Usually I just paint and draw (concept design, illustration, fine art, etc) but sometimes I also do pixel graphics since me and my friend makes games (www.nancy-6.com) for
fun and learning. it usually comes down to me making the graphics.. esp when our dear crew members suddenly resigns.

This is an older sprite with animation I did some time ago. I know alot of the color,light,form,design mistakes  but I would really like to get some animation tips because
its something I rarely come around doing and wish to learn more about it.

Walk

Map

The character is for a game we called 'hero' for NDS, I did all the graphics and my friend aron did all the code. It was a castlevania looking action adventure. My first real project and it pretty much shows in the outcome. However the graphics still represent kinda where I stand when it comes to pixel skills. Usually nowdays I just resize painted work and do some final adjustments to them before we put them in a game.

Im reading a book about 2d animation but I havent really picked up anything of true value when it comes to describing motion. Mosly all that is revised and told are tools, budget plans , design notes etc. so It would be super neat if some of you had any magic tips to make animations smoother and more attractive.
Thanks!

c_.

[MoD]

Please don't save your pixel art as a .jpg. It messes up the look and makes it a pain to edit if that happens to be your only copy.

I think this piece could benefit from the removal of (at least inner) outlines, particularly.

Also, you might want to address the form and design mistakes before you move on to tuning-up the animation, as it could just get messed up again when you fix those things.

[calle_]

Sorry for that. Apparently photobucket made it into jpg instead of bmp. dno why..  Heres the real map



I dont know, seems like that would just take me back to square one as far as everything goes, But even tho the design is quite poor and lighting and colour not really that exciting either, the form works as far as 4 limbs a body and a head goes. I thought that perhaps it would be alot easier for people to possibly edit the work and give me tips on animation itself if the complexity of the sprite was lower.

[MoD]

What I'm saying is that everything at or below the form level is necessary for animation. In the lower set of frames, his right arm bends like it has no joints but is some sort of floppy tube. If you defined the elbow in other frames and worked to keep a consistent form, the animation would be much easier. By applying that sort of thing to other areas of the sprite, you can provide a better base for our constructive criticisms to work on.

[st3ady]

hey calle

I have seen your nancy-6 website before, i myself am into the NDS homebrew scene 

What you have so far is pretty nice, but if you are doing a castlevania type game, why not simply start with some sprites from the latest game and use it as a bottom layer, and draw on top, in order to get fluid animation? do a simple google search for castlevania sprites and i'm sure you can find a ton.

also, looking for additional artists to help with the game? keep it up !

[Jad]

hey calle

I have seen your nancy-6 website before, i myself am into the NDS homebrew scene 

What you have so far is pretty nice, but if you are doing a castlevania type game, why not simply start with some sprites from the latest game and use it as a bottom layer, and draw on top, in order to get fluid animation? do a simple google search for castlevania sprites and i'm sure you can find a ton.

also, looking for additional artists to help with the game? keep it up !

NO!

Don't do that. Download them and use them as REFERENCE. Try to actually, with only your own effort make the animation like the one you're using as reference. To just trace over kind of defeats the purpose as you don't experience the whole deal from forming your character's movement to making it look good.

A good tip for animation is to just scrap all detail and getting your ass down with making everything look smooth. Do you have a program made for animation? It makes the whole deal so much easier it's ridiculous. But still, I'd say if I were to make that walk animation look non-choppy and smooth, I'd just erase the limbs and redraw them with one colour for each limb so I recognize them completely, plus, if they are solid shapes of colour, I don't have to remove any detail that might be within them.

The cape kind of bounces too much, since he's walking at a leisurely pace, I suggest you just make it wiggle a little. :0

And that's it. Good luck mans.

Ändring: Haha, du är svensk också, förresten, eller hur? Skojigt skojigt. Vi är säkert en del svenskar här, heh.

[baccaman21]

Im reading a book about 2d animation but I havent really picked up anything of true value when it comes to describing motion. Mosly all that is revised and told are tools, budget plans , design notes etc. so It would be super neat if some of you had any magic tips to make animations smoother and more attractive.
Thanks!

c_.

what's the book dood?

[calle_]

Oh, thanks for all the replies. 

MoD- Oh ok, thanks. Il try to polish up some parts and make a ground for my animation i I can find the time today ^^

steady- Way =)  Nice that someone saw it. Yeah we have our fair amount of projects hehe. And anyone who has some desired skill (gfx, code, music) is most welcome
to join.

JaD -  Ah, yeah i'l try it. I usually use photoshop for everything.. and Image ready for putting it together. Photoshop is perfect for making the actual art in, but there are propably some smoother ways to make it all flow nicley... since I have to basically save each change as a separate file and import it to the other program.
Yepp svensk =)  vart hänger du då? kul o se lite "lokala" folk hoho

Bacca- "Producing Independent 2d Character Animation, Making and selling a short film" by mark simon. Wasnt all that I hoped for but Im not finished with it yet so perhaps the good stuff is around the corner?

just thoughts:
Regarding 'reference' or 'tracing'. Something ive learnd from teaching myself 'art' is that you should never copy something and try to make that into the final design. However doing studys and similar excercise will improve the quality of the piece as long as you do them on a seperate page, Otherwise you wont process the real life information and some of the challange disappears from the work, And humans want a challange or we will stop learning.  However, I think I could do tons of more pixel animation studies, and real life studies for that matter. Usually I do studies when playing games. wich is kinda of a bad way to go about it I guess, since it will mostly lead to confusion. Anyone has a nice archive of 'walk' animations and maps online? =)

Il try to rework the animation today. Thanks for all the comments

[baccaman21]

hmmm.... seems to be a bit of a heavy tome that one...

I seen a great deal of animator bibles in the past... and the one in my sig is by far and away the most easy, immediate, fun to read and incredibly useful tome i've had the pleasure of owning... (having said that it's gone walkies...) - so I recommend that one for all things animating...

Dick williams is the guy who did roger rabbit - if you were wondering... I'm not a fan of the film but as far as animation tips and guidance is concerned he's second to none...

failin that - anything by preston blair is also pretty good bet..