AuthorTopic: Isometric Walk Animations  (Read 2089 times)

Offline SolarStrings

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Isometric Walk Animations

on: June 05, 2018, 02:45:16 pm
Hi.

I'm more of a programmer than I am a pixel artist. Since I'm covering animation in the next programming tutorial for my SDL 2 Isometric Tutorial series on youtube, I decided to create my own animated character. So I sat down and started to pixel away :D

I'm looking for pointers to how to improve the animations and get them in to a "fluid" state for a template which I then can use for creating new characters.
Looking forward to some excellent C & C from you guys!

Walk animations:


And the sprite sheet

Offline astraldata

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Re: Isometric Walk Animations

Reply #1 on: June 12, 2018, 12:01:16 am
These are really good for being "programmer art" lol, so great job, especially with anatomy.

Regarding the animation side of things, I just wanted to offer the "less is more" advice on regards to the mirrorable poses and shadows/shading on those poses.

To explain a bit better, the shadows are very jumpy. Now, while this may seem "more accurate" to the lighting to light each side individually in reference to the form and light source, in the end, it only creates more work and more "noise" for the viewer to have to process.

Keep in mind that the player sees more than this specific asset. There's a whole environment with other enemies, obstacles, etc, plus the layout of the terrain and the terrain details, not to mention the fact that he's on the lookout for danger and opportunities. That player is looking everywhere BUT at your carefully-shaded light source. In fact, as long as the form consists of the correct volumes and materials, you can forget about lighting direction almost entirely.

This is the reason why such detailed fighting game sprites get away with mirroring. Frankly, the player just doesn't notice! When you're so focused on dodging attacks and finding an opportunity to strike back, you rarely have time to notice the light shouldn't fall on a particular part of your character's thigh and biceps.

The key word here is "clarity" -- this is part of the KISS principle too. That is why you'd want to mirror the poses you can, and keep the volumes consistent for these poses, even if they're mirrored. In pixel animation, volume == lighting, and as such, the purpose of lighting pixels is to convey a sense of material and a sense of volume, simultaneously. To do this properly, the pixels you place and the colors you use must "feel" consistently used, and therefore must not move unless there's a change in volume or the location of a particular part of the material. Many sprites are "lit" from the front and above to make the mirroring process more consistent looking.

Hopefully this gives some useful insight on the hows and why's of some decisions made on the majority of professional sprites.
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Offline SolarStrings

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Re: Isometric Walk Animations

Reply #2 on: June 13, 2018, 03:16:08 am
Thank you very much for the C & C astraldata  :y:.

I'll take some time to "simplify" the graphics by removing exta shadowing according to the lightsource :)