Skeletroids dump - Update: You've got friends!

[Ben2theEdge]

Scroll down for the new stuff!

Some of you may have seen a few of these monsters from over a year ago. (If anyone remembers that far back  )
I put the project back in the oven for a while because I hated the design of the main character.
OLD:


Now about a billion sketches later I think I came up with something decent, but you can be the judge (Still trying to decide on hairstyle, that's why there's two)

NEW:


Note that in the game the sword will be rotated in code, so it's a little jaggy here.

Animations: (Old design ---> New Design)
--->

[Sherman Gill]

Second hairstyle is bester.

[ndchristie]

nicely done, and yeah i think we all remember

second hair is better, bangs are "teh shiz."

I think Tsutomu Terada might "own" that sword design tho 

[leroy]

Nah the sword is not that similar, http://postback.geedorah.com/artwork/img/Dewprism_artwork_01.jpg

I like the design and I think the second hairstyle fit's better, first one seems unnatural.

Also when I read 'Skeletroids' I start thinking of skeleton-droids. Which there aren't.

[Sherman Gill]

Did Mister Terada do the concepts for FFTA2, too? Because the main character of that has a similar bulb-blade.

[Conzeit]

Definitively the second hairstyle.

Do I remember? here's something I made way back when...I think I never actually showed it to ya....
mostly because it wasnt relevant at all, I just wanted to do it :p

I specially dig the pilot-like hat you gave the little guy. you should give him more accesories of that type

[Ben2theEdge]

Somewhere along the way I was definitely influenced by that awful Tactics design; I remember seeing it and thinking, "Why the heck does he have a transparent plastic pizza cutter for a weapon? What's next, a guy who wields a giant blunt key?" But my weapon is more or less a sword with a gas-powered buzzsaw on the end of it (thought it could make for some fun game play, like if you stick it into an enemy and then you have to wail on the attack button and watch the baddie just shred to pieces).

[AdamAtomic]

But my weapon is more or less a sword with a gas-powered buzzsaw on the end of it (thought it could make for some fun game play, like if you stick it into an enemy and then you have to wail on the attack button and watch the baddie just shred to pieces).

YES.  This is good.  Do this!

Also, I have to say the enemies look quite bland next to this clean new hero design!  I like that they have this Bone-y kind of look but they seem like they are from a different universe than the hero.

[Reo]

Is that huge stegosaurus boss guy still in the game?

I loved that guy,was one of the coolest bosses iv'e seen

Edit:
found a link http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=2973.0

[ndchristie]

Somewhere along the way I was definitely influenced by that awful Tactics design; I remember seeing it and thinking, "Why the heck does he have a transparent plastic pizza cutter for a weapon? What's next, a guy who wields a giant blunt key?" But my weapon is more or less a sword with a gas-powered buzzsaw on the end of it (thought it could make for some fun game play, like if you stick it into an enemy and then you have to wail on the attack button and watch the baddie just shred to pieces).

i somehow managed to forget about tactics.  of course.....same company, so makes no difference.  and I didn't mean he literally owned the idea, just that i think 99% of people will look at that and go threads of fate what? 

I think the main thing will be in how it's used - if he wields it like a chainsaw (with both hands and a trigger) it will not only be more badass, but harder to compare.  or even make a difference between quick attacks - just the blade, swooshy, spinny, one handed, you know, like a sword, relying on movement - with strong attacks - both hands, slower, using the saw element more, relying on prolonged, fairly still, and uninterrupted contact.

gut shredding move is too cool to pass up.  do it.  DO IT.

[Vertigo-zero]

Yea that dino boss HAS to be in! Anyway are you going to program this or someone else?
If no-one is doing that yet, let me! I mean it, i want and can do it

(want proof? www.boomersnet.nl <--- my older, smaller games)

[MrMister]

My first reaction was to think of Threads of Fate.. these are really great though.
The running animation is one of the best I've seen.. the sword moves wonderfully.

[Ben2theEdge]

Running animation! The further arm is a little wonky, I know. Comparing this to the old one, it's kind of shocking to see how much I've progressed in just one year.

Conceit: Haha that's great; when I decide to make the game high-res I'm going to contact you

Reo and Vertigo: That boss is indeed still in the game; all the "main" bosses are dinosaur themed actually. I think I may actually redraw him even bigger though! Muahahaha
Vertigo: I haven't started coding yet but I think I'm going to use Multimedia Fusion; it's quick and dirty and I don't have terribly huge aspirations as far as porting goes.

ND, we are totally on the same wavelength as far as the sword gameplay goes. There isn't really a visible trigger on the pixel art (although I always drew one in the concept sketches). If I'm really ambitious I might make it shoot steam when you rev it though, heh heh.

[Willows]

Maaan, that's a beautiful run animation... though shouldn't his shoulder be bleeding profusely? Sharp edges + sawing motion = pain.

[Ben2theEdge]

Well that part of the sword is actually where the blade ends and the saw engine begins. But he puts safety first and wears shoulder pads just in case 

[Conzeit]

hmmm...if you ARE thinking toward Adrias'es way in the animation...I really think you should figure out a cool way for him to weild the sword when he's in saw mode. Say....maybe he holds it like a bazooka, or like an electric guitar (maybe even do the rock sign! :p)

Other than that....I think you should modify the sword a little...maybe give it a better handle (according to the sawing pose you decide on). I've always found the movement of these incredibly big sword-weilding guys more reasonable when the handle reasembles a Lance handle, more than a sword's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7acpjKAyvzk Take Tsamanosuke from SamuraiX/RouroniKenshin for example

For the actual guy, his wardrobe still seems pretty non-dinstinctive. I like the direction you are somewhat tackling with that leather pilot hat. Maybe you should give him some beggining of the century, or perhaps even renaisance wardrobe.

When I see him i kinda think of him as Steamboy if he hadnt build a jetpack, but a ridicoulously big sword appartus instead. And I like it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1haSQGb3xs Steamboy Trailer

Relevant picture(s)
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/7298/steamboyif0.jpg
http://www.soundtrackcollector.com/images/cd/large/Steamboy_MICA0289.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/53/Steamboy044.jpg
http://www.beyondhollywood.com/posterx/steamboy.jpg

I dont post that to tell you "make him look like steamboy" I just post it as an incentive to consider maybe a steampunk mixed with historic aproach for his design

PS: About the Dino boss....I always LOVED the DragonBall-ish sensitivity to him. I felt like he could be a different model in the same production line as the Pirate Robot http://www.myfavoritegames.com/dragonball-z/Images/RRA/PirateRobot.gif that chases them when Blue from red ribbon is following them in that pirate treasure cave.

[Bouzolf]

STEAM BOY! Man, that movie was amazing. The one-whell moto thing was so cool.

Ben2theEdge, you sould include it into you game, it would me it the best game evaaaaaa  :

Just in case:
http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/motorwhl/steamboy1a.jpg
http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/motorwhl/motorwhl5.htm

[ninjascience]

why are rotating the sword in-game?  Will you have different versions that you want to swap out on the fly?

[robotacon]

Awesome! 

Only negative thing is the left arm + sword that seems disconnected to from the shoulder, but you've already said that you know about that.
It makes the sword seem too light also, it doesn't need to move that much really.

Great readability and cute as hell.
I envy your skills.

[Ben2theEdge]

Gave him a standing animation that I'm not 100 percent sure I'm happy with


And started on a jumping animation:


I'm reconsidering rotating the sword in code since I did it by hand for all these animations anyway, plus I can clean it up; between here and pixeljoint the feedback is unanimously "booooo!" to the jaggies on the sword.

[AlienQuark]

I think the idle animation is good, but the pause he has in his breathing either needs to go, to be more like your avatar, or it needs to be more subtle. It looks kinda weird with the pause in there in my opinion.

As for the jump animation, I think i'd give him more hang time, right now it seems like he could barely jump over anything. but it's still a WIP so maybe you already realize that fact.

In general I'm loving everything in here, you've got so much talent for this stuff. I want to see a game out of this! You've taunted us with so many mockups and loveable character designs. Give us the goods already!!!

[chriskot]

All of this amazing.

My only criticism is about the jump animation and the fact that his hair doesn't move. I'm pretty sure that you were going to fix that anyway though.

That boss is indeed still in the game; all the "main" bosses are dinosaur themed actually.

It sounds like you know what the other bosses look like. Do you have any other boss finished/in construction? Because if you do, I'm pretty sure we'd all like to see them. That one boss is fantastic.

Great stuff. Keep up the good work.

[buloght]

I think I'm being too detailed an ass in this one  but the hat-thing in his run view has the lines rotated at the same angle as idle stance though the head is rotated differently.

Anyways, I absolutely love this, this new character and especially the dino boss from before. I was wondering about the enemies, you used to have a small feet style for your main character too, now his style changed somewhat, will you re-model the enemies too in that regard? I'm not certain if it's important though, everything looks perfect .

[Xion]

I think the idle animation is good, but the pause he has in his breathing either needs to go, to be more like your avatar, or it needs to be more subtle. It looks kinda weird with the pause in there in my opinion.

totally agreed. If he's supposed to be breathing slowly its way too unsubtle. The whole rise-fall thing doesn't look like a controlled breath. If he's supposed to be ready/breathing hard or something, the pause just totally messes with that appearance. I mean, if you're ready you wanna be actively moving, not "I'm ready now. Oh wait not yet. Now okay. No. Yeah. No. Yeah." The way his arm is limp at his side, contributes to this unreadiness too, methinks.

In the jump, when he lands, the sword looks entirely too light the way it just settles onto his shoulder. Like a smooth rotation into place. I think it'd look more weighty if you had it go down quickly from its upward-pointing position, then overshoot the target angle by a bit, and then rotate back onto the shoulder comfortably.

[Faceless]

Agree with AlienQuark and Xion on the idle.

I also have a concern with the weapon. It just doesn't look like the circular end is capable of rotating; it looks like one solid length of metal with a stud in it.
I'd suggest going with something more like this:

[Ben2theEdge]

Faceless: Good idea w/ the sword. Maybe I'll play around with it some more.
Xion: I agree about the idle anim; I tried removing that pause in-game and it looks far better. I still don't like it though; I'm thinking of doing something very subtle, maybe at the sub-pixel level.

I made some progress on the jumping animation.


And normally I don't post stuff this rough, but I wanted to give everyone a peek at one of the bosses 


Hopefully my skills have improved since the last time I attempted something this big, haha. (Having a Wacom definitely helps)

[tehwexxl0rz]

The jumping animation is great! My one critique would be how the hair SHOOTS up on the descend. I think even one in-between frame would make it look much more natural.

Great work in general! That new boss looks awesome.

[EvilEye]

 The right arm on the jumping animation bugs me. The forearm is doing something weird when he falls back down.

 I am not sure if it should be horizontal like that.

 Other then that it is great.

 The dino is nice, but it looks like someone shot a missile through his nose.

[Conzeit]

LMAO at the boxer dino! the bosses here look like they'd be fun. I can already imagine smashing at them oldschool noitu-love style =)

the tigh to the right (from our view) is definitively a whole lot shorter than the LEFT one.....and lacks that trapesoid shape. Everything else seems good to keep working on. if I were to change something I'd give him a stance from which it'd be more easy to go into footwork.
You should probably give the armguards on the right a bit more of a cone shape, it's much too round and reasembling the fist right now...one easy way would be to make the highlight triangular...although, I think it'd be best if you just came up with a diferent type of armguard

[buloght]

The boss looks great. It's still rough as you say, but those arms are very confusing, as well as the head. In case of the hands they fight too much with the metal on his chest (if it is on his chest and not held by his hands), considering his big head and shoulders, his metal on the chest will be covered more in shadow which will help the arms be more clear. And it's impossible for his right (our left) hand to be so far accross below his body considering where his red arm guard extends at the far side. I would agree with conceit, the arm guards are very round and red and adds to the confusion for me (and overly cartoony maybe), I would change them to different arm guards. The holes on his head is also a little unclear still. I know you say its still rough so ignore what I say if you are still working on parts. Keep up the good work 

edit: you have do something about the yellow outlines on the skeleton belt buckle thing.

[bluknight]

Are you doing the programming / would you like some help?
It looks like this could have the potential to be lots of fun and I need a project to work on.

I love that boss. It looks like it has a ton of personality.

[Souly]

I'm very intrested in seeing how you go about doing the attack animations for this guy. 

The boss I am keen on, I like his litte stubby arms.
I noticed the nose was strange, thought I'd do an edit if you don't mind.

[Feron]

I think everyone has been reading the skull wrong.  I think the big hole was supposed to be an eye socket, but its a skull so it has robotic eyes.

you can see the nostrils at the front of the skull, and you can see out the other side of the big hold therefore it must be the two eye sockets.

am i right ben??

[shaheen]

This page shows a t-rex skull along with the placement of skin & etc. I guess I agree that the shape between the eyes and nose is a bit too simple and could look better if it were more accurate, but it's simply a nitpick from me.

[Ben2theEdge]

Fenron is correct. Admittedly I didn't reference a photo when making the actual sprite (although I did in the sketching phase) but yeah, that great big hole in the middle of his face is totally supposed to be there. Now I see some perspective issues with it, but the big black hole is NOT his eye.

[Conzeit]

When I first looked at the Dino boss the hole reminded me of images of dino skulls like the one that Ben posted, so I didnt really take issue with it...but now that everyone mentioned it I think we should see the upper jaw of the opposite side from where we are, and I think ben kinda missed that. Maybe you have too static a refference for the skull here, perhaps you should scout youtube for a few clips from that Ben Stiller movie where a Dino skeleton comes to life..."Night at the Museum"

I also didnt take note of the anacronic little bony hands on his chest. you might want to change the way you shaded them so as to bring them forward....perhaps simply by darkening the metal that is surrounding them

[[High Templar] Tassadar]

in my opinion (looking at Ben's boss) it looked like (until i found out otherwise) that the dinosaur was wearing a monocle  , sounds a bit odd yes, but i really think so. and after later thinking i thought that i might actually be a little bit cool to have the massive dino skeleton wearing a monocle (dunno how much work it would take but i don't imagine too long, the shape is there already and the shading is already there, recouloring is all i can see would be in store if you actually followed down this road)

[Mike]

Ben your sword reminds me more of the "Chain Sawd" from Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe then any other sword mentioned in this thread.





hope pso-world doesn't get pissed I am linked their pics

Ps. Have you ever thought of sharing your knowledge of how you get such smooth animations?  I've heard that you draw keyframes and then tween, but with a run cycle isn't it all keyframes?

[ptoing]

Just to answer Mike's question

This image should be rather self explanatory I think. That is the easiest way to break down a walk/runcycle imo.

[robotacon]

Great post ptoing but I think it could be done even better.

Frames 2 and 6 are the extremes and also the contact points. Draw these frames first and you get a solid start for the rest of the animation.
The arms are more extreme in frames 1 and 5 so those are better but I would like a the extremes to record the exact moment of the heelstrike where the legs are spread apart the most.

The passing point should look something like a mix between frames 3 and 4 (7-8 respectively) where the stepping leg is just passing, not after or before the standing leg.

Frames 1 and 5 looks more like inbetweens where the character is hanging in mid air between to other more easily drawn frames.

This being said the inbetweens would look something like frames 1,4,5 and 8 but with considerations of the changes I've suggested above.

EDIT:
 fixed spelling on heelstrike

[Conzeit]

healstrike

never heard that word before. what an intriguing word  is it specifical to running motions or did you sorta tweak it's meaning for saying what you meant to say?

Ben, it looks like people are gonna think of your sword as a hybrid of the two, shape of the first and functions of the second. maybe you should come up with an use for the non dented part of the sword?

[ndchristie]

"chainswords" have been around in popular media since the 80's if not longer (warhammer 40k had them aplenty when it came out and they were hadly the first).  I think the function is pretty safe by now, it's just the arc edge resemblance that throws me.

[ptoing]

robotacon: You are right, technically the whole shing should be shifted so that frame 2 is frame 1. That would make more sense

[Ben2theEdge]

Wheee it's been a while since I put anything up for this!
I changed the protagonist's hair AGAIN because I am impossible to please. I'm pretty darned happy with it now though. I started working on the attack animations... the sword is still messy because it's going to take forever to clean it up and I want to make sure everything else is perfect before I devote myself to that mindless task.



And some of the older animations that have been updated with the new look:
 

[Indigo]

the legs on that attack animation perfectly compensate for the weight shift of the sword.  I'm very impressed.  It looks very lifelike in that regard.  On the other hand, that idle stance is pretty generic IMO.  The vertical sin-wave movement is overused these days, and no one really moves like that in real life.  I'd suggest something a bit more subtle?  or maybe a kind of idle 'bounce' like people do in martial arts?  I dont know.

[Teknogames]

This is a bad edit, but the character could use more of a thump when his foot hits the ground, seeing as though he is carrying an object bigger than himself.

[PypeBros]

the "swordsaw" attack is really impressive. I'd be tempted to add a brief flash of light on the sword between the two moves, as we used to have in manga animes (may be a hint for the player to hit attack button again and do a combo, too).

[Ben2theEdge]

Yay for weekends!
Here's something fun, I have a few screens from the actually running game.
What do you guys think about the HUD?
I used a lot of references from the 32-bit Megaman games for this tileset... might be too close for comfort though, I haven't decided yet.

         

[AdamAtomic]

I am saying this with the very best intentions, but the foreground tiles especially are very flat and boring, and the HUD is almost unreadable!  The dithering makes the floors look rough and rounded or arched, and that bright blue of the HUD looks really out of place to me, more like a racing game HUD or something.  The foreground tiles appear VERY washed out against the dark background.  In general to me it is odd to have the environment composed essentially of one enormous 128x128 (or whatever size) tile for the most part.

Sorry for the harshness!

[Drazzke]

I like it a lot, except for the hud. It seems way to saturated, and does not seem to fit the style of the rest of the game all that much.

Otherwise, the rest of the game looks pretty cool... (Particularly the player and monsters)

[vierbit]

I like it. But yeah, as already mentioned by adam, the hud doesnt fit very well.
Maybe a little less style and more simple.
I also dont like the tiles very much, they lack volume. And I am also not much fan of same approach in the later megaman games.

Its not perfect, but you get the idea.

[wah_wah_69]

It's coming along quite nicely, but there's a thing I really don't like: the hud is huge it waste a lot of space with information which can be displayed in a more subtle and effective way.

Suppose you want enemies to start falling from above, the hud covers most of the upper side of the screen and the player has less space to figure out where to scape, or a huge boss who appears and disappears constantly,as you already know space is a valuable resource when it comes to playability as well as graphic/artistic expression.

The idea is to show only the most valuable information to the player in an intuitive way while keeping clutter at a minimun.

You should take in account that the HUD will be visible in pretty much every part of the game, choose the palette of the hud carefully so it blends nicely with any background

I made a little edit,the font sucks and  it does not addresses intuitiveness as I don't know which icons will be used for energy and ammnunition but to the player's eye is less distracting and easier to the eye.

[Ben2theEdge]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Harsh or not I'll take it like a man 

Vierbit I like your edit... this is something I was considering... it makes things inconvenient for laying out the tiles because they have to be able to appear both in front of and behind the characters... however it definitely helps define the depth a lot more so maybe I'll reconsider. The reason I'm building the background in such large chunks is that the game is focused on combat more than platforming, and tight areas really restrict the player's ability to juggle/knock enemies around and perform aerial attacks. The tiles are actually more flexible than what you see here, but in general this is pretty much what I need for the purpose of the levels.

Regarding the HUD, I wanted to try something that would be unexpected but still very functional... looking at it now I agree it probably needs to be streamlined a lot and I agree it's not very visible. Wah Wah you have a good point about being able to see above you (and good advice about the colors too), however I can't go in the direction of your edit for a couple reasons. One is that there is actually quite a lot of information that needs to be displayed: Lives, Energy, Score, Ammo, and selected Sub Weapon, so there's no way I can consolidate the HUD down quite as much as you have. The other issue is that the game is pretty fast-paced and players need to be able to find and decipher the HUD very very quickly so they don't have to take their eyes off the character for very long. It's much easier to say "Oh, I have one bar left before I die" than, "Okay I have 50 out of 100 HP and I'm pretty sure this enemy's attack does 7hp damage so 50 divided by 7 is how many more hits I can take" I suppose in an RPG this would be okay but my struggle right now is really with how to make things spatially efficient but still very easy to read in the heat of battle. I'm not disregarding your advice (most of it is good) but I have a bit of a pet peeve with action games where you have to squint and calculate in order to figure out how close to death you are.

[wah_wah_69]

Yes, bars are much more intuitive than numbers, avoid numbers as much as you can.

I've been toying around with the hud:

I started with this sword:



Looks so so,because its too thin.

So I came up with this "capsule" thing.



The power up thingy should be bigger it's difficult to read, but I was just toying around...



You should have decided wich kind of power-up, weapons,etc is your game going to use before doing the HUD, since you said it was going to be rpg like points and lives do not make much sense, experience points should go in the status screen which usually is displayed in a separate menu.

[Ben2theEdge]

You should have decided wich kind of power-up, weapons,etc is your game going to use before doing the HUD, since you said it was going to be rpg like points and lives do not make much sense, experience points should go in the status screen which usually is displayed in a separate menu.

Oh, no I think you misunderstood me. This is purely an action game with zero RPG elements. The points you get are for your score. You only have one main weapon but there are a few different sub-weapons you can cycle through.

[Helm]

I strongly advise you towards 32x32 z-depth for your tiles. I suggest either fake-parallel like Flashback, or if you have to have some sort of z-depth, go with a 16 pixels depth, and if possible at a 45degree angle. Right now you've got Escher issues. They can be fixed with tricks, but still, why do you need th depth? Is this double-dragon like brawling, or is it gunstar-heroes style platforming? If the former, gosh dude, lose the too much depth!

edit:

example

[Elrinth]

Ben2Edge, can you code n stuff? looking forward to see how this runs in real time

[QuickSilva]

I completely agree with Helm in that you should lose some of the depth if you need to keep it at all. I pretty much hated the way that the later Megaman games developed graphical for the same reason and it is doing your great sprite work no favours as far as I can see. Helms edit looks much better despite being a relatively simple alteration.

Good luck with it. It is developing nicely otherwise. Is it going to be in MMF2? How about a YouTube video so that we can see those gorgeous sprites in action?

Jason.

[megane]

Just noticed this, but there's one frame of the attack animation where his face suddenly gets a whole lot brighter; you may have been trying to make it look like he's yelling, but right now his face just seems to be lighting up randomly for a split second.

[Ben2theEdge]

Point taken about the depth issues, guys. I do want to keep some depth because parallel pespective to me only works on games that are already going for a kind of "flat" look, like Cave Story or Knytt or something. I think Helm and Vierbit both had good compromises, maybe I'll do something in-between.

As far as code goes, I'm using Multimedia Fusion 2 - I can't actually code anything the "real" way 

And yeah... once there's a little bit more to show I'll definitely put up some videos - it's not quite ready yet though!

[Helm]

Both Knytt and Cave Story do not look flat at all. Depth is implied best with levels of priority, not 90 degree block z-depth. I think for your game you could try 45 degree or 33 degree 16 pixels of depth. Personally I'd go with no perspective and just parallax a few layers of background behind.

[Ben2theEdge]

While I'm working on the backgrounds I figured I'd post this - the full slash combo!

[Helm]

Function and flare in equal amounts. Excellent. Looking forward to seeing new tiles, as you got this animation thing down way better than me so I can't really give you useful critique.

[PypeBros]

excellent! Great job on legs poses! any chance that "sword" could be equipped with a device that allows throwing and catching it like a deathly boomerang (e.g. in "fury" mode) ? Just out of curiousity, are you still using the same kind of animating technique you presented in last augustus ?

e.g. --> --> --> --> ?

[Atnas]

In my opinion his face is too static. From my skimming of The Animator's Survival Guide last year, his blows need more impact and depth! shoutshoutshout



boop-beep-beep-booo :3

[ndchristie]

In my opinion his face is too static. From my skimming of The Animator's Survival Guide last year, his blows need more impact and depth! shoutshoutshout



boop-beep-beep-booo :3

in my opinion this is a good start at a great idea that takes it about half as far as it should.  subtle movement, although sophisticated and bler bler, is lost in-game.  if he's going to scream, which i thing he could, make him really scream - break the jaw off.  and lots of tiny squinting and then bulging eyes.  that's pretty much the only way to have it visible.  river city ransom, woo!

[Ben2theEdge]

Atnas and ND, you guys are right on. Now I'm thinking I should probably animate his hair a little while I'm at it.

excellent! Great job on legs poses! any chance that "sword" could be equipped with a device that allows throwing and catching it like a deathly boomerang (e.g. in "fury" mode) ? Just out of curiousity, are you still using the same kind of animating technique you presented in last augustus ?

No plans for a boomerang attack at this point  There are ranged attacks in the game and they are very powerful, but you only get to use them a couple times, kind of like bombs in a sh'mup.

And yeah, I'm still using the same technique to animate, which I learned from Richard Williams' book the Animator's Survival Guide. I kind of just adapted his techniques to pixel art (it's not a big leap at all). So far this is the most effective way to animate that I know of, and now I'm just trying to get better at it. If people want I'll be happy to post some in-progress stuff.

[QuickSilva]

Yes please do. It`s always good to see the work in progress stuff, especially with animations as cool as yours.

Jason.

[Mike]

And yeah, I'm still using the same technique to animate, which I learned from Richard Williams' book the Animator's Survival Guide. I kind of just adapted his techniques to pixel art (it's not a big leap at all). So far this is the most effective way to animate that I know of, and now I'm just trying to get better at it. If people want I'll be happy to post some in-progress stuff.

Don't forget that he also goes over how animating straight ahead can lead to some cool things too.  Also please do post more W.I.P stuff but go over how you pick colors too.  Whenever I start on a new sprite I get color locked into high saturated basic colors and it makes me sad ;_;  So any help for that would be greatly appreciated.  Keep up the good work Ben!

*oh and one more thing, how do you animate in graphics gale without a white background.  Whenever I switch a color to transparent it switches it to white, which is extremely blinding.  I want to be able to onion skin with any background color like you can with MMF2.

[Atnas]

*oh and one more thing, how do you animate in graphics gale without a white background.  Whenever I switch a color to transparent it switches it to white, which is extremely blinding.  I want to be able to onion skin with any background color like you can with MMF2.

You should be switching on transparency via frame, not layer. Layer gives you the white background, and it also loses it's transparency when saved as gif. Frame, however, maintains the transparency as well as allowing you to keep the background within your workspace. 

[Antago]

First of all, the skull edit from Souly is truly superior as it looks far more realistic. Still, he only did an edit and I love your original to death. This whole game looks really amazing. I actually really enjoy your HUD, I think it's very futuristic and beautiful. It is a little large. I don't think it's unreadable as someone said, maybe for colored-blind people and that needs to be taken into consideration. For me it stands out perfect.

I'd like to see your original HUD fade (turn semi-transparent) when it is inactive, and when something changes have it fade opaque real quickly and then do some sort of buzz lighting effect to show what has changed (for instance, a number glows orange real quick then turns blue again to catch your attention on that number).
I'd like to see the center squares (for whatever they represent?) be a neon glowing orange (or green) of some sort. Give the HUD some contrast and breakup its monotony

This is an extreme mod and the colors are much different than your original. But to freshen some things up and give you ideas on alternative colors:

excellent! Great job on legs poses! any chance that "sword" could be equipped with a device that allows throwing and catching it like a deathly boomerang (e.g. in "fury" mode) ? Just out of curiousity, are you still using the same kind of animating technique you presented in last augustus ?

e.g. --> --> --> --> ?

That's great! You should create a character for his game this character is clearly quite large, so I'd like to see it as a giant mystical character in the game. Consider animating the cape with the wind

[Jigsaw]

I could look at this all day. Love the animation to death! Good call on the hair, too, it looks really great and just makes the character much more interesting to look at.


I agree with the crits on the HUD; it takes up a huge amount of space, doesn't read as well as it should, and IMO just isn't very pretty. The edits people have shown are quite the departure (if nice), but  I'm sure you could make a much more streamlined HUD that maintains a similar style (and reads better).

Looking stellar so far, can't wait to see further progress on this project.

[Ben2theEdge]

Thanks for the feedback guys!
If I have time today I think I'm going to work on a more streamlined HUD.
Antago that character is actually from an older game that I never finished as it turned out too ambitious for me at the time.

One and a half new things!
First off, here's the Chumchum from a while ago re-done. Free lesson in game design: Figure out what your enemies are going to do BEFORE you pixel them. Once I decided how I wanted this enemy to function in the game I realized that all the work I had done on him before was useless. I've taken to drawing enemy attack patterns on paper now so I don't waste time giving them animations they don't need.

*Disclamer for traditionalists: I used "dirty" tools for the animation, and I'm still cleaning it up.

And here is the original rough for the sword swinging animation, for anyone who wanted to see what my creation process looks like. The key frames are in RED - I drew these frames first and then filled in the the frames in-between until it was smooth enough for my liking.

[ElementZero]

Wow, what a nice and smooth animation. Just like everything else in this thread. 
May i ask one question? Which "dirty tools" did you use for it?

[QuickSilva]

Gorgeous work as usual. Thanks for posting the creation process again I would love to see a finished game from you one day, hopefully you`ll find the time.

Jason.

[Ben2theEdge]

Wow, what a nice and smooth animation. Just like everything else in this thread. 
May i ask one question? Which "dirty tools" did you use for it?

Just some rotation... personally I don't think it's a "dirty" tool although it looks ugly if you don't touch it up. But it got me in trouble on Pixeljoint once

[Ben2theEdge]

Excuse the double post... new in-game screen!


The HUD is more streamlined now and it's higher contrast so it shows up better against the background. And now the background perspective isn't quite as kooky.

[Jigsaw]

Looks better overall, but I'm still not sold on the HUD. The basic design idea isn't bad, but I'm not a big fan of the angles, and the fact that they make everything look jagged doesn't really help. :/ Maybe with more AA and more legible text it'd look better, but I dunno really. It is far better than the previous version though.

[tehwexxl0rz]

I think in MMF you actually can use semi-transparent pixels to AA the HUD with some simple trickery. Just make another object with ONLY those AA pixels, layer it on top of the HUD and lower that object's opacity. (This technique is completely impractical for moving sprites, but I think for something stationary like the HUD it could work quite nicely.)

NOTE: This is all from memory. I mainly use a MacBook now and I haven't dug up my PC with MMF on it in many months.

Regardless of the jaggies on the edges of he HUD, what's with the lack of AA on the inside? Like on the 3 and the energy bar and the text?

[Zero]

The Chumchum guy looks great, but why is there red ambient lighting (unless you plan on putting him only in levels with red lit floors or something)? I think it would make more sense to take that out completely; I mean, try putting him in the area where the screenshot was taken, it doesn't make any sense.

Everything else is really good.

[Ben2theEdge]

Zero, after going back and forth a little bit I decided that the bigger artistic "sin" would be chrome that looks flat. Although I could always add a few lines of code to change those colors depending on what area he is in.

[Antago]

I really love the red ambient lighting. Instead of pretending it's stupid, why not put him in a level where there are red lights on the floor? It completely fits the setting.

Moreover, I really like your blue HUD, and as a graduate in Video Game Design, do not listen to these nay-sayers and nit-pickers. Go with your gut instinct. The blue is fantastic and who is anyone else to tell you what style you should go for? It's yours and you know what's best

[Xion]

I like the new hud, only thing is I can't read "Ammo" that well. Everything else's real cool though.

[AdamAtomic]

Def an improvement, and the pink light on the chumchum rocks hard.  Also, I want a chum chum toy.  Like yesterday.  I still feel like the HUD is too low-contrast, its got about half the range of values that even the level art has.

[Conzeit]

HOLY SHIT! I think I know now why I like your stuff so much, you are one hell of a fan of MegamanX4...you must be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Tbmgg7bhU&feature=related

I mean, the reasemblance in the mockup to this is...astounding O_o
Ummm, may I ask...do you know the theme of your level? it just seems like a generic sci-fi space level...maybe you should sketch out what the general look of the tile, think of them as building block for rooms. MMX4 usually just made a generic wall and repeated it, I think it's better if you think of something that matches the level design.
I'm saying this because I think if you did know you could have some more interesting design, if I may reccomend a tiling style somewhat like EWJ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lScqDSLyOfw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHLW7vcmFj8&feature=related The perspective is vucked up, but who cares? this crazy scientist level still looks great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT4V12Bv7AU&feature=related this underwater level has some stuff you could use too.

You know the other refferences....MetalSlug....GunstarHeroes...Anything that displays a bit more design behind the space, not just generic wallpaper...like MmX4 did (as much as I like the sprites...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnp6P7Kgeoo StarOceanBlue again...

wait for the thing to load and watch the last quarter...might be I'm too obsessed with that game but there are some incredible ideas in there.



EDITING.....

[Ben2theEdge]

Haha yep, I've beaten that game more times than I can count... I didn't specifically reference that area though... I guess it's just burned into my psyche.

[Mike]

Oh I like the new HUD much better this time around if only for the change in size.  Also

I really love the red ambient lighting. Instead of pretending it's stupid, why not put him in a level where there are red lights on the floor? It completely fits the setting.

Moreover, I really like your blue HUD, and as a graduate in Video Game Design, do not listen to these nay-sayers and nit-pickers. Go with your gut instinct. The blue is fantastic and who is anyone else to tell you what style you should go for? It's yours and you know what's best

I also agree with Antago it is your game don't let the critique completely change it.  Gotta know when to go with what you want.

One more thing Ben2theEdge, Do you have a technique that makes detailing all the sprites for your animations easier, quicker, and/or more streamlined?  What I mean is from stick figure frames to final frames.  I currently have many animations that need to be finalized but the workload is a pain.  I'm pretty new at this so if there is anything that would help lift that load I would be extremely grateful if you let me know.  Thanks and it is very exciting to see your progress.

[Ben2theEdge]

Thanks again guys for your feedback. I'm pretty dead set on going in this direction with the HUD - it fits the direction I'm aiming for with the game overall, and it's got a good balance of function/attitude. But I think most of the critique has been valid and I can apply it without changing the overall design.

Conceit, I replied to your comment before you edited it, I think... those Earthworm Jim refs are great! (I love that game, never really paid that much attention to the scenery though). The level is a space station and I haven't quite hammered out what I want it to look like yet. I know I want different areas like a Bio-dome and a ship hangar and stuff, because I agree the Megaman levels are pretty "generic techno-looking place".

Mike, if you don't have one yet, get a WACOM tablet. The cheapest models run for around 100 US dollars I think... it's a lot of money if you're a student but it is an investment you will never regret. Rock stars have guitars, and pixel artists should have tablets. It took me a little while to adjust to using a tablet with enough precision to place a pixel precisely where I wanted it, but once I did it made me about 10 times faster and I was able to get a lot of nice organic curves and shapes that I couldn't pull off with a mouse.

Also, I keep myself on a pretty tight leash with colors; you'll notice I never use more than like 3 shades of a color on the smaller characters. This isn't because of memory restrictions or because it's the "pixel art style"... it's just much easier to manage! Fewer colors also means less AAing, which is easily the most time-consuming element of pixel art (outlines come in second place). And if you look with a critical eye you may notice that on quick frames or when there's a lot of motion I don't even do much AA

[Ben2theEdge]

Just a wee little update...
Started drawing some of the supporting characters... kind of like in Metal Gear Solid, you've got a support team back on your mothership. Although this game will have much more streamlined dialogue than Metal Gear  One thing I hate is when it takes a half-hour of reading text to get to the actual game.

From left to right:
Hacker, Weapons expert, Mission commander, Science Officer.

I'm already reconsidering some of these designs... the commander looks uncomfortably similar to Jill Valentine and the science officer is probably gonna bleach her hair.

[PypeBros]

the commander looks uncomfortably similar to Jill Valentine and the science officer is probably gonna bleach her hair

well, jill is simply the stereotype of woman-in-arms if you ask me. She looks like Lara Croft in G.I. outfits
now, given that your #3 is the "mission commander", i guess you could just drop her beret, give her something that looks more like an officer suit and a more rigorous hairstyle (/me think of Cpt Catherine Janeway in Voyager, for instance).

One thing I hate is when it takes a half-hour of reading text to get to the actual game.

i know what you mean. Your teaser video somehow suffers from this. ~15 seconds of text to learn that your mates are trapped in a closet and that "those creatures" that haven't been seen yet in the game are everywhere ... Just a "mayday" call interrupted and a bleep on a "scanner" device of the HUD would give the player a good feeling of why he's moving ahead (imho), and having your commander saying "beware, those things are everywhere" would be more fun *after* you had a good fight with the things

but well, it's a pixel forum, so .. maybe just make the Science Officer being smaller or taller than the Mission commander and changing her hair colour would break that similarity they have right now.
<edit> Oh, and i showed your sword slash anims to a friend of mine who practice escrime, and he found virtual nothing to criticize on your sword moves (which means, trust me, that you did a stunning job,knowing the guy) but he pointed out that your characters had surprisingly short neck and that the head is moved forwards. For the commander girl, you might give her a more "martial" look by just making her stand straight, insisting on her neck that separate her from her troops.

[big brother]

It might be fun to break some cliches, and buff the Hacker up a bit. Then the weapons expert could be a nerdy grease-monkey. I'm guessing from the cartoony style that the game isn't striving for some kind of fictional realism (like in Firefly or something).

[cococamo919]

the beret lady looks cute

[MysteryMeat]

Just a wee little update...
Started drawing some of the supporting characters... kind of like in Metal Gear Solid, you've got a support team back on your mothership. Although this game will have much more streamlined dialogue than Metal Gear  One thing I hate is when it takes a half-hour of reading text to get to the actual game.

From left to right:
Hacker, Weapons expert, Mission commander, Science Officer.

I'm already reconsidering some of these designs... the commander looks uncomfortably similar to Jill Valentine and the science officer is probably gonna bleach her hair.

Oh, there's nothing wrong with looking like other characters. You could even mark it down as an homage, rake in some nerd cred from the people who like the character.
I also like the variety here a lot, especially the hacker. He looks like a real weirdo and I always do love the weird ones!
I'd try to vary up the girls a bit more though, there's a lot of difference between the hacker and the weapons master both in terms of complexion and body build yet the two girls are only really differentiated through their clothing and hairstyles.
It'd make sense to give the Commander a bit more muscle, since that's a very physically demanding job!

[Curly]

Oh, there's nothing wrong with looking like other characters. You could even mark it down as an homage, rake in some nerd cred from the people who like the character.
I also like the variety here a lot, especially the hacker. He looks like a real weirdo and I always do love the weird ones!
I'd try to vary up the girls a bit more though, there's a lot of difference between the hacker and the weapons master both in terms of complexion and body build yet the two girls are only really differentiated through their clothing and hairstyles.
It'd make sense to give the Commander a bit more muscle, since that's a very physically demanding job!

That post is from 2008

[MysteryMeat]

That post is from 2008

oh

doi

[Atnas]

pffff... locked.