[WIP] Arcade Academy

[robotacon]

I think you should still have the jump to the wall.
I don't like the feel of him stopping at the bottom and then climbing it.

I know what you mean but I was hoping (is that how it's spelled because it's not a pun) to use the jump animation that I've already got. The climb/heave animation starts when you grab on to the ledge and ends when you're standing up. I put in a token jump frame at the end but it looks like crap. My bad. I'll update the animation I've got posted to accommodate for the jump.

Edit 1:
This is (almost) what I expect it to look when you do a 8 block jump + ledge climb.
The actual jump looks better in-game with proper physics, I had to wing it making the gif-animation.


Edit 2:
The troublesome part is stringing together different animations as seamless as possible. I've got the running animation stopping on the frames where both feet are in the air which makes for a really nice jump animation. This means that the player changes which foot is forward for every jump which looks great. For this to string together with the ledge climb animation I added some frames where he's reaching for it like you suggested Arachne.

Edit 3:
Looking at these last animations I feel that it's a little stupid that you'd climb 3 blocks when you can jump 5 without climbing.

Edit 4:
I added block heights to the ledge climbing animation. while doing that I realized that the animation is inaccuratly displayed because the platform is not moving at a constant pace, nor is the space-man fixed in position which would be another way to do it. Now things kind of move at irregular speeds as a result of me winging this gif by hand.

[Silver]

It's been a while since I've seen a graphics of a serious project. I really like the style of those animations and the environment of the level however I think most of the planets "not earth of course" miss the elements of plants which I define the green thing in between the tiles as. Anyways this is just my opinion.
Good luck with the project and keep us updated, I really want to try this game. 

[ndchristie]

when he pulls himself up with his arms, I would have him bend his knees so that his feet are behind him, I personally find that i do this subconsciously when climbing and that it's also the most natural thing in such a case.  Currently he's taking very difficult and unnecessary steps against the wall that seem like they should be a good idea but i'm not convinced by them.

[robotacon]

I've tried to improve on the ledge crawl.


I tried to have him pull him self up with the knees bent so that the feet would be behind him but his short arms and big head made it really hard to do that.
Instead I made him pull in the knee and tried to make the leg movement more distinct.


Also..... introducing grandpa:

[robotacon]

Hi everyone, long time no see!

Haven't had much spare time lately taking care of my 5 month old daughter and moving from one place to another.

Just wanted to tell you that my space-man game is taking a new turn  and I'm now going for a Harry Potter inspired Arcade Academy storyline.

Arcade Academy is going to be a game where you play as young students of a videogame hero school. All the teachers are former videogame characters and classes you attend are in the form of arcade style mini games. The main part of the game however takes place in flatform mode as seen by the sprites below. The students parents all are highly respected game protagonists from all kinds of different games which also serve as harder to reach levels. There's also a rival schools that you interact with.

I've also started to (blasphemy alert!) experiment with shaders and bump mapping. I haven't gotten that good results yet but I'm hoping to have full real time rendered lights as some time.



Bumpmapping sprites sounds like a stupid idea but I think it's possible to pull it off in a nice way.

EDIT: Resized screenshot to 1x1 so it scales better when right-clicked.

[Souly]

It looks like the character has become a jpeg. 
And it hurts my soul the simple pixel ones were beauty.

[Camdog]

Awsome work, Robot. The animations are really looking excellent. What are you planning to make for enemies? Sentient slimes, space bugs, haywire robots, perhaps some foot soldiers from a paramilitary organization bent on universal conquest?


Hold up.

Am I the only one seeing this message box as a strange golden color instead of the regular grayish color? What on earth is going on?

[Souly]

Am I the only one seeing this message box as a strange golden color instead of the regular grayish color? What on earth is going on?

It happens when you click the link of that post.

[robotacon]

Camdog: Bang on target! Something like that. Love your foot soldiers. Since the enemies won't have as many different types of animations I'll definitely spend a couple of frames on death sequences.

Souly: It's not a jpeg. I know it looks a little strange right now but I was hoping that you would like the concept. I think it's going to look better animated when the light changes dynamically and a lot of the time it will be so subtle that it will look just like normal pixelart. I don't want to hurt someones pixel soul. I feel the same way about the AA in Circ the Machine. Modesty is the my middlename.

I think this board is great. I can't pixel half as good as most of you guys and without your C&C this game would have been going nowhere. Perhaps it doesn't sound like I'm listening to what you're saying sometimes but I do.

I've been trying to draw backgrounds for the school which the main character attends but it's freakishly hard. I'm no mock-up wizard like so many of you guys. I'm going to try and use references from real schools for inspiration and work from there. Hopefully that will help some.

[robotacon]

I'm far from finished on the dynamic light routine but this is what I've currently got.



This version of the code will only draw 16 color sprites to reduce some of that soul sucking jpeg look.
Also the prior code was making areas in shadow darker when the highlights was turned on which is against the laws of physics.

on a side note: Drawing depth maps is a real drag! 

Edit: I've borrowed some code from an XNA tutorial. the lighsource is supposed to go in a circle around the sprite.