AuthorTopic: Lost game project, new energy.  (Read 6993 times)

Offline Jiisuki

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Lost game project, new energy.

on: September 12, 2007, 09:53:11 pm
Hello everyone, think this is my first post.
Been hanging around this forum for some years now, but never done anything myself, just admiring.

I had a game project many years ago, but it never got finished. Much because of the lack of graphics.
Just decided to start working on something, see if I can do this.

First up, a sort of test character. Trying to do a running animation.

First:

Latest:

The white parts will be transparent.
I don't like the colors, but I'm stuck in how to find good colors.

Otherwise, how is the animation?

The game itself will be pretty lo-res, 320 x 240. 16-bit though, so I have no color restrictions.
Going for a 16x16 grid.

Hopefully I can, with a little help, get this right this time ;)
« Last Edit: September 17, 2007, 11:58:04 am by Jiisuki »

Offline Jiisuki

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Re: Lost game project, new energy.

Reply #1 on: September 13, 2007, 06:37:27 pm
Redid the character and tried using different colors, a darker theme.
Also did some scaling, up to 32x32 from the 16x16 in the first version. Think it came out a bit better.

Any suggestions how to shade it better? I'm not sure what to do with the feet.
It looks a lot better in 3x then 1x though.

Offline baccaman21

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Re: Lost game project, new energy.

Reply #2 on: September 13, 2007, 07:59:06 pm
The dark one's much too dark.

... generally I'd say the anim's ok. But, I'd be inclined to not have the arms swing like it's running a sprint - isn't that a gun/rifle it's holding? Surely it wouldn't be swinging it madly like that? Plus, the way it reads righ now makes it look like his arms are mutating in front of him in a pointy thing ... it's just weird.

I suggest to try doing it so that the gun is held in front with both hands... keeping it fairly static in front, but jigging around with the general motion.

The legs ain't working for me neither. You've got the characters foot impact point being beneath him, where it should be out front about 8 pixels from center.

Finally, you're doing the classic animation cheat of 'just' doing a four frame loop for one leg and then using the same for the other... there's nothing wrong per se with doing that but there's one thing you need to do to make it read llike two legs instead of one leg phasing with the other... actually there's two tricks, one you've picked up on (changing the shade of one of the limbs) the other... is to simply offset them in the frame by a pixel or two. This would mean a slight re-edit in this case to make the character more 3/4 view... but if you look at a great deal of other successful character animations ranging from Mickey Mouse to Mario, they tend to be slightly rotated to the veiwer for this reason. (and the fact it's more asthetically pleasing)

So. in a nutshell...

1. Arms, keep them fixed in front, with slight jiggle movement
2. Legs, offset them in the frame by a pixel or 2
3. Legs, Point of impact for  landing foot should be a good 8 pixels from center.

That may help... if in doubt... read my post on this thread. It may come in handy.

Cheers
:)
Buy the book - The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams

www.burnzombieburn.com

Offline Jiisuki

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Re: Lost game project, new energy.

Reply #3 on: September 14, 2007, 12:34:12 am
Thanks for the pointers!

Redid the complete animation, tried to get the feet to land a little further away.
No cheating with copying the four standard frames now, tried to get it smoother.

Also tried to add some detail. At least it's improving :D Still not hundred with the coloring of the arms and legs,
not sure which tone I want with them. Any tips?



It should be viewed at least in 2x..

Offline Sherman Gill

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Re: Lost game project, new energy.

Reply #4 on: September 14, 2007, 02:20:24 am
Much much better now. Very smooth!
Colors are fine right now, too. If you change the legs and arms colors you'll probably want to change the helmet's, though.
Oh yes naked women are beautiful
But I like shrimps more haha ;)

Offline robotacon

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Re: Lost game project, new energy.

Reply #5 on: September 14, 2007, 06:08:29 am
Exellent, I like it alot!

Here are some C & C:

Looks like he's carrying a WWII rifle, was that what you were going for?

When his leg in the shade makes contact with the ground you put light on it.
Perhaps you should make it a little more subtle. To me it's distracting and looks like it's flashing.

Are you sure you need all that dittering?

Over all i think this sprite looks great, I hope to see more of him.

Offline Jiisuki

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Re: Lost game project, new energy.

Reply #6 on: September 14, 2007, 12:24:44 pm
Thanks for the comments!

Looks like he's carrying a WWII rifle, was that what you were going for?

Actually not, will probably redo the weapon. It should be more futuristic, but right now I don't have any ideas. Will probably sit down and scetch some, try to find some cool designs to go after.

When his leg in the shade makes contact with the ground you put light on it.
Perhaps you should make it a little more subtle. To me it's distracting and looks like it's flashing.

Just noticed, it's a faulty color, forgot to change that, or the frames using that color as his back foot. Will fix to next update.

Are you sure you need all that dittering?

Not sure, haha. Wasn't intended as pure dithering though, but I guess it looks more like that than vents and shadows..
Will try work on that a bit to.

Offline Jiisuki

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Re: Lost game project, new energy.

Reply #7 on: September 14, 2007, 02:54:54 pm
Alright, a small update.
Fixed the coloring error on the foot, tried to get rid of unessesary dithering and also fixed some small things I don't remember right now.
Also tried a different approach on the weapon to make it look more future and not history.



Also started a firing animation, feels a little static at the moment and I will probably work more on both of these.



What do you think of this weapon?




Edit:

Started working on some tiles for some sort of bio-lab. Can't figure out what to do with the stairs. Any suggestions?

« Last Edit: September 14, 2007, 04:40:45 pm by Jiisuki »

Offline Feron

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Re: Lost game project, new energy.

Reply #8 on: September 14, 2007, 06:22:35 pm
just wanted to say that anim is such a great improvement on the original... keep it up!

Offline Jiisuki

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Re: Lost game project, new energy.

Reply #9 on: September 17, 2007, 11:57:01 am
just wanted to say that anim is such a great improvement on the original... keep it up!

Thank you very much!

Just wanted to upload the latest versions, there are some fixes and I think it came out a bit better. Working a bit on other animations right now.



and an alternative look on the weapon,