AuthorTopic: [WIP] Action platformer type character (walking, slashing)  (Read 2800 times)

Offline drak

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Uh, hello! :[] This is my first post here as I have just discovered this wonderful little place and skimmed through a few pages of topics.

But anyway, yes. I am working on a personal project at the moment which requires... a lot of animating. I'm mainly working on it to push myself in aspects that I pretty much suck at - the main one being, er, animation.

So, here we have this fancy little chap.

The "end product" on the left is a little chef guy. His shading/etc is by no means complete, just gettin' some basic shapes and colors down. To the right is my little mannequin guy who I base all my animations off of. He will be helping me today.


Here we have his walking animation, sans arms. I looked at a few references for the leg movement (Castlevania and Mega Man mostly, derp) and it came out pretty smooth, if a bit floaty. I am generally happy with this part. However, here comes the problem.. hands.


This looked alright to me at first... but then I realized how much of a jump the hands would make from idle to walking, and the fact that the placement of the hands would make arms look really short anyway. (If you're wondering why I placed the hands first rather than the arms, the arms will be only 1-2px long, making the hands more prominent... so I thought I'd try placing the hands first. Dunno if this was a good plan. XD) So, er, does anyone have any reccomendations for arm animation? It is tricky for me. I guess I could also considering changing the idle frame, but I like it how it is.

So... er, yeah. Any suggestions to help me out with arm/hand placement and stuff for walking animations? Critique on the legs is welcome, too.

While I'm at it, does anyone know of any good reference for slashing animations? My little guy uses a knife to cut stuff up, but I'm really struggling with animating weapon swings. It's not so much the animating that I have trouble with (like the trails behind the weapon), but the pose and movements.

Herp derp. So, yeah, help appreciated here too.

I've got some more stuff to post, but I suppose it's best to tackle these things one or two at a time.
To anyone who takes the time to read/critique, thanks!

Offline Bohne

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Re: [WIP] Action platformer type character (walking, slashing)

Reply #1 on: February 06, 2008, 03:01:42 am
Cute little man you've got there!

The slashing needs follow through. Right now your manly-man does not really look like he means business with that huge knife. You need to shift some of his bodymass *into* the slash so as to make it look as if he's actually applying force. Just have him follow the sword a couple of pixels into the slash, and give some buildup for that a coulpe of frames prior, and it should look fine. A baseball batter could propably be a good reference.

Cheers!
England expects that every man will do his duty.

- Horatio Nelson, Oct 21st, 1805.

Offline Salvage

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Re: [WIP] Action platformer type character (walking, slashing)

Reply #2 on: February 06, 2008, 03:21:26 am
Welcome, I just joined too.
Good idea to push yourself, thats important.
What you have here is not a walk animation, but it is in fact running.
If this is what you want, dont worry about it, I just want to help you think about your animation.
Walking animation should have at least one foot contacting at all times.
As for the hands, remember that the arms will be bent at the elbow, so dont worry that they will be too short when you draw them in.