Organicly winged spaceships (updated)

[Souly]

->

[Tremulant]

Nice. Do the wings flap? 'Cause that would be badass.

I just have a couple of nitpicks. You have some banding going on in the wings (particularly the larger wings), and the nose cone, to a lesser extent. Also, the nose could be divided or something, for lack of a better word, and made a little more interesting. I couldn't resist doing an edit, but since I've posted a bunch in the last 24 hours without getting consent, I thought I'd check with you before putting it up.

[Souly]

I'd be glad to see any edits you have.

->
Animated one of them!

[Souly]

Sorry, made a whole new ship upgrade.
Thought it was worth posting a new post for.

[Tremulant]

There's the edit. The nose is a bit way  overdone, but as an example, it probably still works.

Spaceships with dragon wings... throw in some robot strippers and you're golden.

[Corsair]

I thought there was something a bit "off" on the wings of the middle 'upgrade', in that they look sort of dead, or paralyzed. the position of them also sorta makes the ships look rather off balance. Here i *think* i've given them a little life and tried to give them a bit more of an agressive posture:



I really like the style, color choice and the overall concept though, and i'd like to see where you're going with these.

I dont like the wings on the final form at all. i'm working on editing them now, with an exmplanation as to why.

[Souly]

or
Thanks for pointing out that I was missing the third wing bone. 

[Corsair]

Now this may very well be totally *not* what you're going for, because this is a more (Though not completely, by any stretch.) anatomicaly correct *bat* wing.
it's quick and dirty, iknow. but it gets the point across.
Think about bone structure:



As it stands (the unedited wing) it looks as though the flapping motion would cause a giant 'parachuting' effect because of the largeness of the skin between the outer and middle wingbones - imageint ath in motion; it just seems like it would be uncomfortable for the poor ship :\

[Souly]

Your wing structure is great compared to mine.
I was going for something a little more alien then batty.

[Corsair]

Your wing structure is great compared to mine.
I was going for something a little more alien then batty.

Well, if you're going down *that* route it would probably make more sense, to make each bone move independently of the others, like this:
even though there are no 'bones' in this example, it's just to better illustrate the effect it would have.

[Souly]

I animated the big one.
The chasis is still under development..

[crab2selout.png]

If you're going the organic route, maybe add some subtle differences on each side of the ship so that each side isn't a mirror flip of the other. Just something that came to mind while I was looking through the posts. I like the animations posted so far. Very lively, but maybe distracting for a shooter?

[sharprm]

A sword that is so big that it can't be (realistically) moved fast enough to cut anything.
Spaceships that have wings (which are useless in space - you can't swim or walk in space).
Souly - you are definitely making admirable attempts at both and its not up to me to say what should or shouldn't be drawn - but aren't you making it hard on yourself learning animation by animating unrealistic things? Why not animate a dragon instead? Or just a spaceship with thrusters?

edit: I don't mean to be rude and I definitely don't want to start another awful physics discussion - I just think what you are doing is hard and I'm just stating why I think it is hard.

edit2: If your making this into a game, you could keep the wings and have a giant beam of light as part of the backdrop. The reason is that light can push a ship like wind, so flapping the wings might make sense by association. I dunno but I think drawings need to be reasonable unless they are intended to be funny or supernatural.

edit3: Tremulant - totally agree with what you say (below) 

[Tremulant]

I'd argue that animating a winged spaceship will allow him to focus on the animation of the wings, ignoring their effect on the body (of say, a dragon) thus making the process easier, if anything. Also, part of the charm here, for me, is the ridiculousness of it. I mean, yeah, flapping wings on a spaceship would be useless, but it's that whole "who-gives-a-shit-because-it-looks-cool" mentality that works for me here. It's like the whole space corvette thing in Heavy Metal. If you actually tried to enter the atmosphere in something like that you'd be instantly incinerated, but who cares. The man is flying a corvette. In space. Likewise piloting a giant sword with dragon wings doesn't have to be logical. It's just fun.

Oh, and I do agree with you, Sharp. I mean, obviously the best way to learn animation, as with anything, is to study life (and in this case, I'd say studying a bat's method of flight would be even more informative that attempting a dragon). So yeah, I'd say study the bat, and apply what you learn to the spaceship.

(This is likely terrible advice, so feel free to ignore it, Souly, and everyone else feel free to let me know as violently as I deserve. And Souly, if the chassis isn't a sword, it should be. ).

[Souly]

Do you think this one is better?

[Dusty]

I think there's a few problems with these animations.
1) They are way too distracting. I can't imagine playing a game where the ships wings were jumping up and down like that. I think the key to getting this to look right in a game would be fluid and subtle movement.
2) I can't think of many wings that are designs to push forward and pull back. There is simply no propulsion in a design such as that, especially with your designs(flat airplane-type wings). It may look better to have the wings actually flap up(towards the screen) and down(away from the screen). Sure, it's a bit more realistic, but I think this would also solve problems with the first point. It would remove a lot of the vertical movement, so it'd be a lot less distracting.

But I stand by my first point the most... way too much movement. It may even help to slow it down a lot.

[I Am Uh]

There is a very easy solution to your problem... add more frames.

[Conzeit]

uh, flexible wings wouldnt be useless...atleast in aeroplanes, they would just be used for hovering instead of flapping along. you could come up with some crazy theory of gravitational devices controled by motion to make it fit in a space enviroment.

[Feron]

Wings wouldnt work in space, there is nothing for them to get resistance from.

I think a up-down (like a bird) motion would look better than backwards and forwards....

[Faceless]

They'd be harder to hit if they were moving...
I think the concept is original, but I'm not sold on the execution. Animations don't pay much heed to the joint structure (which in itself is unrealistic).

[Souly]

I think there's a few problems with these animations.
1) They are way too distracting. I can't imagine playing a game where the ships wings were jumping up and down like that. I think the key to getting this to look right in a game would be fluid and subtle movement.
2) I can't think of many wings that are designs to push forward and pull back. There is simply no propulsion in a design such as that, especially with your designs(flat airplane-type wings). It may look better to have the wings actually flap up(towards the screen) and down(away from the screen). Sure, it's a bit more realistic, but I think this would also solve problems with the first point. It would remove a lot of the vertical movement, so it'd be a lot less distracting.

But I stand by my first point the most... way too much movement. It may even help to slow it down a lot.

I'll try and do the up and down movement, hopefully I can get some better results.

As for the image being too distracting.
In game it does not bounce the animation hovers there while the wings flap, I only added that to try and give it some motion.

They'd be harder to hit if they were moving...
I think the concept is original, but I'm not sold on the execution. Animations don't pay much heed to the joint structure (which in itself is unrealistic).

Think of them more as tentacles then joints.

[Ben2theEdge]

I love the concept, it's very 1800's retro-futurist. I would actually push these designs even further in that direction if I were you, it's an incredibly fun era, design-wise.
http://bp0.blogger.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/RnbBhWYnwzI/AAAAAAAAAv4/s5toWLb-MbI/s1600-h/robida+1882+full+paleo+future.jpg

As far as the animation goes, the big problem here is that you're trying to illustrate vertical movement with horizontal movement. These ships look more like they're inching along the ground like spiders rather than flapping their wings. I think it's just the curse of the perspective you're using, although it might be possible to use lighting to show the up-down movement. Currently the sense lighting on these ships is not very strong and consequently they're very flat-looking.

[Vertigo-zero]

Souly, no offense but finish your terra online game 1st plz 

[Corsair]

oops. double posted

[Corsair]

nimations don't pay much heed to the joint structure (which in itself is unrealistic).

That's what I was trying to say here, but i don't think he wants to listen. Even if the wings are entirely alien in structure they still have to make some sort of sense, or else they're going to look wrong.
Which is why I take no issue with the first two (other than the second one being bent at an unpleasant lookin angle, which is easy to fix.) but the thrid one just looks bad to me.

I'm not trying to be extra harsh or anything, bu the plain truth of it is, the third form's wings don't even look like a logical progression from the first two, and the outmost 'bones',while being well shaded and correctly colord, aren't shaped in a very visually pleasing manner.

Think of them more as tentacles then joints.

then have them behave as tentacles rather than joints! I see you kinda started doing that with the most recent animation, but only on the innermost 'tentacles, it would make sense if a similar motion were to be added to other others but i don't see it happening there.

And yes; add more frames. just one or two would be enough.

there's no point in getting C&C if you're not going to yield to any of it.

[Souly]

->?
Removed the static movement of the chasis.
Does it look like it's flapping up and down?
Or still just back and forth?

[Xion]

still just back and forth.
It won't look like it's flapping until you add some bend in the wings. They're too stiff. Or at least some delay between the movement of each "bone", so as it looks like it's undulating or something.

[Souly]

Trying to get a feel for depth but it seems weird...

[Dusty]

The front of the chassis doesn't turn at all.

[Souly]

Oops. 

Also tried making another type of ship.
No organic wings though.

[Souly]

[Helm]

There are no volumes to your work. Though the end result is interesting in its own right, you should be aware of that, if you're improvising. Volumetric studies are required. Start with platonic solids, draw cubes and pyramids and squares under lightsources!

[Souly]

I've been finding volumes hard.
Trying to get more depth shown but it's not working...

[Helm]

Start with platonic solids, draw cubes and pyramids and squares under lightsources!

if you want to get better on the whole. Won't directly help on this piece.

[vierbit]

Maybe be a look in the dodonpachi cc couldnt hurt
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=4212.0
its not the same style, but these pieces showing some good sense of volume.