Organicly winged spaceships (updated)

[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).