In response to Pixelator 3

[Sharm]

I came here to push myself, to do things I don't normally do so I could learn.  So I thought I'd try the challenge for Pixelator 3.  Here's the result so far.



It isn't what I was planning at all.  I have no clue how to do magical effects, and it really shows.  For the motion, I wanted to do something more like this:



 I was going to add body movement and some dust at the very bottom of the movement, but the dust wasn't working (more effects problems) and I didn't see the point of getting the animation right when I couldn't get the wind ball to look like a wind ball.  I was hoping to make it more stylized to match the look of the girl.  Like this:



But the further I got in animating the swirls, the worse it got, and I didn't know how to smooth it out without going overboard on the frames.  I would like some help with this one, but more than that, I'd like to learn how to make effects look right on my own, without needing help for every new thing.  Do you guys know some good tutorials?  I've never seen one that dealt with effects as their own thing.

[Opacus]

The hair motion on the up and down should be opposite, it goed up when she goes down, and down when she goes up.

[Sharm]

Of course it does.  She's not defying gravity, just sitting on a ball of wind.  Newtons law at work, though not as elegant as it should be yet.

[Rynen10K]

Hmm... I tried making the movement a little smoother, and I think Opacus is kinda right in that her hair should stretch down a bit when she's going up. Even if she's riding a ball of wind, it still looks off for some reason.

I didn't edit the sprites just yet (just repeated the 2nd frame a bunch), but I tried to smooth out the movement of the bouncing a little...

Hope this helps a bit



I'll see if I can dig up (or make up) something about ease-in/ease-out if you still want help on smoothing out the motion of the ball

[Sharm]

It does.  I should have fixed the down hair before, I knew it needed to be there a frame longer on the upswing.  The motion looks a lot better now.  When I did it, I didn't know how many frames I wanted or anything, so it all got placed haphazardly.  I should have done what you did and stuck with one and moved it up and down until I had it figured out.  Thanks.

[Fool]

I would suggest to reshape the hair volume a bit  between changing motion direction.



Cut down one frame also, this time for the right reason. I hope=))
Also adjusted a spacing  of overall image a little bit to make bounce smoother.

Just very quick edit of Rynen'10k's, still coud take some work on hair - it could handle more dynamic motion, on body bouncing  and a ball as well.=)

What kind of motion you had in mind for a wind ball ? Rotation with dynamically developing swirls?

Good work, Sharm=)

[Sharm]

Fool, you're my hero.     That edit looks awesome.  I didn't put a squash into the sphere for a reason.  Let's see if I can explain this.  The closer the wind ball gets to the ground, the more it resists, so it hovers then pushes off.  There's no actual contact with the ground.  Though I suppose it might squash anyway.  That's why I wanted the dust effect, to show that it never actually hit the ground.

As for the wind ball, yes, that's it exactly.  Rotating from left to right with the actual swirls changing size and shape with the motion.

[Fool]

I guess 5 frames would be your minimum for more or less decent loop here.=)
 You're doing it right so far, just take one swirl at a time, middle line first since it's a main spot of action - take in account that anything in a center of a ball will move faster then on  it's visual edges where swirls will more like "folds". Same for the top and bottom swirl lines - they should rotate slower then in a middle. Well, it just takes some time and planing. Maintain the spacing  between centers of swirls  - for the ball it would be comething like this : | |   |    | |. 

I hope you understood what i was tring to say... My english becomes esperanto when i'm late for work.=))