I try making a run animation..

[Elrinth]

The character is soooo quickly drawn is scary.. Anyways... something is wrong... I followed this template, but some frame is missing somewhere.. anyone know where?
Someone else posted this picture here... I don't remember who, but thanx in advance.. Anyways..


So, what to do with the run animation?

[Stefano]

The last frame appears to be missing, making your guy look like he is limping. In the missing frame, the darker leg should stop touching the floor and the lighter one, stretch far to the front preparing to land the next step.
Pretty much like the 3rd "RUN" frame in your reference, but mirrored.

The same frame is missing in the picture. Did you just trace over it?

[ndchristie]

yeah, that picture (a great reference) does not begin and end where a cycle would, they are 5-8 frames of 10 frame cycles. you need to put a *little* more thought into an animation than just tracing.

[Elrinth]

oh yeah lol.. now that I look closer one or more frames are missing.. hah I'll have to use my imagination for the missing ones then, thanks for the help wish me luck

ok... Here's a new one.. Still the size of the character on each frame is somewhat different

Next is to  do some more cleanup, and make sure they are the same size on each frame...

Anyone got any more tips?

and here's a character I've made.. The guy to the left is going to become the one on the right, but with the proportions of the one on the left..

[robotacon]

I can help a little.

I think frame 1 and 10 are the weakest right now. That could be remedied by copying frame 5 to 10 and frame 6 to 1 and then perform the appropriate switching of limbs.

Frames 5 and 10 should hit the ground. Animations look best if you take care of the contact points.
Frame 3 and 8 should barely leave the ground, you could even make these frames have contact to the ground, just remember to lower the 4 and 9 frames accordingly.

If you look at your head, it kind of moves in a twitchy circle, however the character is not leading forward in his step (well perhaps a little in frame 1 and 6 but in that case just a pixel) so the head should just move up and down.
It's easier to see if the head has a uniform shape. What I usually do is paint each limb a color of it's own and look at one limb at a time.

Here's a super fast edit:



Next up would be arms, try coloring one arm red and tweak it into smoothness

[Elrinth]

ahh thx.. I'll do that..

[Elrinth]

Ok, here's a bit more cleanup of the run animation and a bit of fixing on it. I simply edited robotacon's awesome one.
Here's the character I'm going to fit into the run animation later. As you can see, there's no face, because I don't know how to make one that looks decent Maybe the idle pose should be something more cool..
c&c

[Dusty]

I do hope you know that that animation, as well as all of the ones posted in the tutorial are extremely exaggerate. Placing a 'normal' or not cartoony-by-nature character into one of those animations just won't look right. As of right now, I'm not sure what kind of style you're going for, but if it's not WB cartoon style, I don't think that's the animation for running you might be looking for.
If you want a more serious run animation, drop the amount of bobbing the body does as well pull the lean on the body up some. It should lean in a run, but not that much.

[ndchristie]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1200058447260450472&q=running&total=379816&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=3

a must watch for anyone animating in platform style and view.  There's even some running

[Zero]

^Wow, it's almost like they shot the video for platform animation. Love parkour (and Rise Against. )

Anyway, my two cents would be that you'll learn much more from making your own as opposed to tracing and copying.

[Elrinth]

blörgh.. oh, well I'll continue on this animation sometime later... Looks like garbage at the moment.. it's difficult to say, this is the front leg, and this is the back leg...

here's a few tiles and character in idle pose... what ye thinks? the tiles are heavily inspired from Jad's sidescroller work. But I wanted to make winter, had a song in the background when I came up with the idea. And I just loved the first moment I stepped into the snowy mountains in Donkey Kong Country with the snow falling everywhere and the music was so sooth... Perfect.. I'd like to create a similar atmosphere

[tocky]

Is that a robe or armor, pants and a hood? If it's separate garments, there needs more contrast between the bits, probably a secondary colour ramp. I'm getting the 'pants' vibe mostly from the run cycle, because a robe wouldn't break up like that. Who is the character, by the way? is he a mage or an assasin or what?

The back leg both legs twist kind of painfully where it kicks forward.

[Elrinth]

he's an assassin mage with a garment armour.. but yeah, you're right I need to fix the cloth for it . 


blorgh.. I destroyed one frame but fixed the legs being willywonka, it still needs loads of working.. anyways. I'll continue work some other day.. Now it's time to sleep.. Thanx for all good c&c! Awesome video btw! Base jumping n stuff is the shit.. (is that what it's called?, except they call it free running)

[Ben2theEdge]

It looks like his knees lock when he kicks them all the way forward - this is what's making it look so "painful". When running in real life, we always keep our legs sightly bent, turning our leg muscles into giant springs.

[Elrinth]

here's a new template I made.. still not sure how I should put the arms... hrmm.
and here's sum random punch:
here's my char giving something the thumbs up:
and here's char hanging inside wip grass tiles..

[Malor]

I think your last one, if sped up is much better than your current run animation. Speed it up, and then take a look at it. I would remove the random maroon pixels in the rock tiles, as you cannot see them in 1x, so they do nothing for the tile.

[robotacon]

I like the character you're developing but the latest run animation I don't like so much.

First of it skips. The character doesn't run smoothly. If you're totally sure you want that little hiccup on frame 8 it's ok any kindof cartoony, otherwise try to lose it.

Secondly the character is not making contact correctly with the ground. You had this problem with your last run too and I did an edit to illustrate it so I won't make an edit now, you have to fix it yourself. basically, the front foot needs to make contact in frame 5 and 10. You should draw these frames pretty early and base the other frames around those frames. The same goes for the two frames where the back leg leaves the ground. These frames also needs contact.

Thirdly, another thing I helped you with the previous running cycle, the head moves around in a irregular circle motion. With this running cycle it would look good to have the head move up and down just a bit since the upper body is not moving that much. If the character was tilting forward you would get a circular motion but since the upper body has little movement I'd suggest to keep it simple.

In short:
1. Try to make the animation cycle smoothly without hiccups.
2. Tend to the contact points early and base the other frames on those.
3. Make sure the head moves correctly. Lookout for wobbly or irregular motion.