How's that? Character template with walking cycle

[xenkli]

Hello everybody

This is a template I've been working on recently. It's meant to wander through a 640x480 environment. The character itself has 9 colors, one still frame and four frames for the animation.
I know the anatomy isn't correct (at least better than half head half body =D) but for the characters to show emotion I prefer bigger heads and eyes and I think it looks quite allright.



While I kinda like the down-animation, sideview seems off to me. Haven't found out why so far (too few frames? weird arms? doesn't correspond the other?).

What's wrong with it? Where can I improve?



[stages]

(4 frames) -->    (4 frames, bended knees) -->    (6 frames)
--> (8 frames, slight overall modification)  --> (rotation added)

(4 frames) -->    (8 frames, after having gone through the side's stages)

[AdamAtomic]

bend the knees!!  walk back and forth in front of a mirror and watch what your legs do.  Start with a simple stick figure and get the basic motions right before continuing with simple block shading.  I'd also recommend 6 frames if the game/programmer is flexible enough, instead of 4, you'll get much smoother motion.

[madartiststan]

There aren't enough frames in the side walk animation and yes...bend the knees!

[xenkli]

Thanks for the replies.

I'd prefer to keep it at 4 frames, if only because I can't think of anything to add to the up/down-cycle. Make them have more than four frames should be doable, technically, but I'd rather have it as simple as possible.

Bending the knees improved the cycle quite a lot. But when I try to add the other leg it looks odd.


Almost sure this is because the frames are too similar (but well, it IS the same movement). I'll try to find a couple of frames which work, any suggestions welcome.

Also I'm not too happy with the hands and feet. They look clumsy, especially the hands. But whenever I try to add finger-like shapes they just end up looking darker than before. 

[robalan]

I think the reason the animation looks strange is the foot is moved too much in the frame where the knee is bent.  Try rotating the leg at the hip as a whole unit on that frame so that the calf crosses the other leg rather than being lifted up in front of it.  Also, if you darken the back leg a bit, it will get pushed into the background, thus clearing up the confusion between it and the front leg.  If that made sense, cool.  Otherwise, I can try to provide an edit.  Good luck with this; it's definitely improved.

[AdamAtomic]

I can think of something to add.  MORE MOTION.   The reason it doesn't work well when you add the rear leg is because you ONLY HAVE FOUR FRAMES.  3-4 frame walk cycles are only advisable on sprites shorter than 24 px, because the limbs are so small you can sometimes fake it to look decent.  This character should probably have 8-10 frames, but I think you could probably cut it with 6.  There is just too much distance to cover.

[Rox]

Actually, there are two reasons why it looks odd. First of all, because the back and front legs cover the exact same pixels, and because the legs are the exact same color. Making the back leg darker and offsetting it by a pixel or two will do a lot.

The second reason is because the frame with the foot off the ground is really... wrong. With conventional timing, the foot that's lifted should be just slightly behind the other leg with the knee sticking out in front of it (the leg should look like this: < ). The foot should also be tilted back more. Other than that is looks pretty good.

[robalan]

Yeah, Rox said what I said, but worded it better.  Listen to him.  Once you've got those keyframes down, tweening them like Adam mentioned could also be helpful.

Another question: Is this for a platformer or what?  If the perspective is side-on, the back foot should be on the same level as the front foot. It's not at the moment.

[xenkli]

After trying around some more I decided to go for more frames as suggested. The note concerning its size was it, before I kept asking myself why three frames used to be enough for my previous characters. It's pretty obvious, though. D'Oh?

I was aiming at eight frames so I could just loop the four-framed down-animation but ended up with six. Bahwell, I'll have to find two more steps for the other one. The side isn't done yet, anyways.


Do you see major errors or flaws? The arms still look a bit weird but in all I'm quite happy with how this is evolving. Thanks. =D

[AdamAtomic]

a vast improvement.  I think if you are shooting for perfection you need to reexamine your image's palette and pay a little more attention to how his feet bend and move, but you are on the right track!

[Helm]

The knee is roughly a knee to high, though. And the arm on a natural walkcycle doesn't really jump up at the frontal stress frame, it rather remains on it's natural pendulum-like trajectory.

[xenkli]

Here's a new one (has it really been two weeks?).



The palette has changed a bit, more reddish now. I'm not too good with colors, though, so if anyone has a better idea go ahead. Also added two frames, tweaked the feet, lowered the knees and redid the arms. Anything more to do?

[Serena]

I think you can probably cut down your colours... I think the second-lightest color could probably go.  Since you have such a narrow color scheme you can afford to cut down on colors, and it will save you some work when you're redoing the other angles.

And for the down walk cycle, I would put the feet more one in front of the other.  Not like he's walking a tightrope, but people don't usually walk with their feet apart like that.

[Turbo]

Great evolution, it's looking really smooth and "right", good work. I suggest adding some rotation to the torso, making the shoulders move forward 2 or 3 pixels as the arm swings forward, and the same backwards, reversed. Although that depends a bit on the personality of the character (stiffer, looser, etc.).

[xenkli]

I finally found time to do something today. While I saw neither possibliity nor need to reduce the colors I tried to add some rotation, resulting in the first below. The head seemed overdone, though, so it went on to the second.
   

Allthough they still look unfinished to me I decided to use the short moment of time and inspiration to start with a decent south-animation. Almost finished I noticed it could use some rotation, too, but I'm unsure about the result. Therefor, two versions again.