Running animation

[coffee]

Hi there!

I suppose no one knows who I am.. So maby I should consider myself new here for the moment.
This is not my first pixelart. I have been doing pixelart since 5 years ago actually.
I have done graphics to a couple of games and my art is quite a lot inspired by Kennethfejer's.

It's been some trouble with school so i haven't been able to do my art in about 2 years now..however,
I will try to start up again and I hope you will enjoy my works!

I made a small picture of myselves (my avatar...)
This is my try for a "running animation":



did this "update" later on:



Last update:



Personally I think it looks a bit stiff and it looks like his legs are faster than his arms but i can't figure out what it is? any idea?
You are very welcome to say whatever you feel!

[Opacus]

I think the sprite is pretty nice. The Selout is too prominent though. Either lessen it, or get rid of it all together.
The main isue is the walk animation. It doesn't work. At all.
However, lucky for you, our big bad pal Ptoing just made a nice breakdown of a run animation in another recent thread:
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=6233.msg73689#msg73689

Take a look at it.
A walk animation basicly exists out of 4 key frames per side. So 8 in total per cycle.
The contact, the recoil, the passing and the high point.
In Ptoing's picture the 'extreme's' are basicly the high points in the animations. The kind of highest, furthest stretched point in the walk cycle.

The contact comes directly after the high point, and the passing directly before the high point.
With inbetween, the recoil.
I don't know if this actually is a normal way of aproaching this, it helps me out atleast.
Once you have all these, you can make more betweens, to smoothen out the walk animation.
Remember though, depending on your image speed you may not want to make it too smooth.

A thing that I think has alot to do with wy it looks wrong is that he nearly seems to be flying.
His legs spend far too much time in the air. Remember that when walking or running, you're pushing the ground away to propell yourself forward.
You're not trying to swim in the air
Something that can also help give your guy some character, is to turn his head a small bit when walking. Or making it woble up and down a bit.

Often it helps to just really look at yourself.
In the mirror, or just normally. Take a walk and see how each leg and arm moves when you take steps.

The walk animation aside again, is this a boy or a girl?
Not because of his face, which seems manly. But it's his shorts, which seems to react like a skirt.

That's about as much as I know of it, anyway. Hope it's some help, haha.

Here's a bit of an edit like example thing I cooked up.

It's quick and sloppy. But hopefuly gives you an idea?

[coffee]

Hey!

thank you for the great critics! It really helped me a lot!

This is what I came up with:



I didn't bother doing the "bumping" now, just wanted to get the right motion
better?

(It's me, Male)  And the "skirt" is my black shorts

[Cure]

The lack of head movement and insanely straight spine are the most glaring faults with the animation.  And the shorts would look much more like shorts if each leg of the shorts acted independently.

[Willows]

Analyzing this on the fly, so my conclusions might be a lil astray. Bear with me.

First things first, I dig the arms. This is primarily because they work a heck of a lot better than the legs do, but also because I very much doubt I could do better myself. Well done on that count.

The reason I'm posting at all, though, is that you still don't seem to understand the motions/functions of the legs, which isn't helping your animation be believable. Think about how your foot works while running. If you were to simplify it, you could do so by imagining the two points of contact (Heel and ball) connected by a steel rod that keeps them the same distance apart, but able to pivot independantly of each other. The edit below will demonstrate that.



That imaginary rod dictates that they stay roughly the same distance apart. Likewise, one should be imagined between the kneecap and ankle, and hips and kneecap. Those lengths should stay the same.

The below were more for my benefit than for yours, but I'd imagine they'd be of some use to you, so feel free to use 'em as you can.





That's about all I've got in me for today. As a closing note, I'd suggest increasing the difference between the two legs, as it's virtually impossible to tell which leg is in front and which is behind at any given moment. Avoid using minor edits of repeat frames unless the contrast between the legs is much larger. It works well enough for the arms because overlap makes it very easy to tell where the arm is positioned in space, but it doesn't work for the legs because the legs aren't thick enough to noticeably overlap.

[Joseph]

what willow's pictures don't show, is the difference between the background and foreground on the legs, the left leg currently being in the background, being darker colors than the right leg, which is in the foreground.  they also don't any knees, which on your current animation, drop down pretty low...about 6 inches from the ground.  extend his feet in front of him further when he reaches to step, and then when he bends his knee, pull it up closer to his body.

to fix your black shorts from looking like a skirt, use what I said earlier, about the background and foreground.  leave the background leg black as it is, but use a dark gray on the foreground leg to bring it closer but keeping it an obvious black.

finally, your hips don't go backwards.  they pull forwards a bit, but when you move your leg back, your hip stops and waits for your leg to come forward again.

[coffee]

I made this edit:

old new



first, I changed the background leg colour and put a brighter colour on the shorts.
second, I added some headmovement.
Third, I lifted the knee on the forth and last picture and made the knee shorter.

His spine is still straight..But I like it that way 

This is really great! Thank you for all the efforts to help me, I hope I don't disappoint you too much!
If it is something you want to add, you are welcome. However, I wont be able to answer so quickly due
to a pretty harsh national test in mathematics this week...

see you later!

[robotacon]

I'm starting to feel like an idiot here because I'm constantly bringing it up but...
HEELSTRIKE!!!

You always land with your heel when your running and then you plant your toes.
With the next step your heel leaves the ground before your toes does.
In other words the heel leads your foot through the entire step.

ps. I like the design of the character. You're making great progress.

[PypeBros]

(It's me, Male)  And the "skirt" is my black shorts

a short would follow your leg much more. Here, it seems to just "stretch" when legs move appart, giving it a skirt look, indeed.

[Willows]

I'm starting to feel like an idiot here because I'm constantly bringing it up but...
HEELSTRIKE!!!

You always land with your heel when your running and then you plant your toes.
With the next step your heel leaves the ground before your toes does.
In other words the heel leads your foot through the entire step.

ps. I like the design of the character. You're making great progress.

Eh? Based on my memory whilst playing soccer, the faster I'm going the less likely my heels are to touch the ground at all, let alone strike the ground first. The ball of my foot absorbs almost all the impact. It is during a WALK that my heel strikes first. Perhaps I'm an anomaly

The new edit is an improvement, but two frames for the foot might be a few too few. The entire body weight is going into the contacted foot, so flat feet or 90 degree turned feet don't exactly make sense.

That being said, it reads well enough as a run animation as-is. Could certainly be improved upon, but it's clear enough as-is if that's all you were going for.