3 Hit combo Animation (WIP)

[Corsair]

Yeah ok sure I can fly around and spin in mid air in my small room, and then by some miracle remember what I did and than draw it out and animate it.  Yeah ok...  Excuse me if my poses lack interests, I'm not some martial arts master.  I drew what I could remember and could do in real life.  And I still don't think you are understanding that I have to consider more things than just animation.  Such as range, quickness of attack, and whether or not it makes the whole game super easy.  And imagine if I made the forward movement faster than his actual run.(Which is how your animation is)  How stupid would that be?  Players using that combo to get through the level quicker instead of running.  Not even Devil May Cry(short of the lunging stab) has stupid forward movement of that degree in its animations.

Although I value what you say it doesn't make you any less of a dick.  So whatever...

Uhm. Yeah. actually there are a lot of totally valid crits in there. It's not like he's saying "OH GOD ITS TERRIBLE SOMEONE PLEASE GOUGE OUT MY EYES I THINK THIS IS GOING TO KILL ME!" or anything. just stating what he sees wrong with it.

To be 100% honest, you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

The animation *could* use to stand a little bit more in terms of fluidity. it's very *fast* as it is, but unless he's weilding something that's next to weightless it shouldn't neccesarily be that way.. It's good, i'll concede without problem but no matter how good it is, there is always going to be room for improvement. In my opinion he moves in a very jerky way, but that's not anything that couldn't be fixed with just dicking around with the timing and adding a few frames. gives the motion a little bit more "swing"

I added the smiley face on the frames i edited. I also made him descend, since it didn't make much sense to me to have him float there for a second then suddenly jerk up a few frames.


Just swing your arm around a bit. when you make a sudden stop there's a little bit of "give". adding that , at least in my opinion makes it seems less robotic. Momentum.
Yes. I know they're crap. i'm busy doing other things so i can't exactly make this any kind of professional.

Without momentum.

And with momentum. yeah there's like 6 or 7 extra frames in there, but it really does make a world of difference.

Also, I like the earlier versions better

[Xion]

You say you must take into account timing, which is true, but what you have now hardly seems like a combo so much as two separate attacks. Slice
crouch
uppercut.
You should totally do away with the long pause where he crouches. Make the crouch a little faster and more like a parabola, going down quickly, slowing at the lowest point, then accelerating coming back up quickly. At the lowest point it should be a bit more active pose than just a crouch, as well. Think like a coiled spring. More like a crouch before a jump, leaning slightly in the direction he's going to rise in (forward). Also, I'd be pissed if I were playing a game and the player took that long to wind up before a basic attack. Unless it's a move you charge up. Even so, I'd like to be able to unleash the attack before fully winding. Cause fo sho, that's a long-ass wind.

Do you have an idle for this character?

Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post.

So Corsair fixed alot of stuff. Pay attention to him. good stuff.

One thing about Corsairs though is that when his is descending, the red knee looks to be closing where, I think, it should be opening, and the leg extending in preparation for landing.

[ndchristie]

Yeah ok sure I can fly around and spin in mid air in my small room, and then by some miracle remember what I did and than draw it out and animate it.  Yeah ok...  Excuse me if my poses lack interests, I'm not some martial arts master.  I drew what I could remember and could do in real life.

no, you could not do what that edit suggests, nor could most people, but you can use your imagination.  Did the prince of persia guys jump off a cliff, step on the wall six times, kick off, dig a knife into a curtain, slide down, and say "yeah, i think i get how i did that!" ?  Unless you are a martial-arts master, you shouldn't expect yourself to pull off most moves you see in video-games (aside from splinter-cell), but that hasn't stopped many designers before.  for the record, i was oversimplifying when i said you should try to do it - it's more about whether your body wants to go with the motion or against it, and there's a definite resistance at least in that right arm during the first attack.

And I still don't think you are understanding that I have to consider more things than just animation.  Such as range, quickness of attack, and whether or not it makes the whole game super easy.

yes, there's more to it than animation.  I know this.  My first posts says before the image is even shown "you probably don't have this much freedom."

And imagine if I made the forward movement faster than his actual run.(Which is how your animation is)

then you act like a designer and say hey, how do i prevent this exploit?  pretend like you've been ordered to use this edit.  there are a number of answers such as making the button combo (>, a, ^, b) or something like that that the player won't want to do over and again, or you make the hang-time at the end last long enough that, although he moves faster, he covers less ground.

Not even Devil May Cry(short of the lunging stab) has stupid forward movement of that degree in its animations.

there are games that allow you to cover ten meters in a single attack and blast all opponents out of your way while doing so, literally blink one end of the screen to the other.  They make up for this by integrating it into the game and balancing it against risks, difficulty of the command, energy used, etc.  Games like Black and White allow you to blow up whole villages with the extreme megablast miracle, which looks really cool.  The drawback?  it takes forever to charge and there's no more village to impress.  Everything has a balance.

I'm not saying you should have him move like my edit, which is extreme.  If you look to my original post, it was posed as a question. 

However, if there are two points i feel the need to make still, it's that some more movement even within the body - not across ground - would benefit the sprite and that good design is about balancing (interest/effects with production effort) and (player abilities with dangers).  The idea that a long jump attack, which again, i'm not saying you need, automatically makes any game easier is flawed.

[Mike]

You say you must take into account timing, which is true, but what you have now hardly seems like a combo so much as two separate attacks. Slice
crouch
uppercut.
You should totally do away with the long pause where he crouches. Make the crouch a little faster and more like a parabola, going down quickly, slowing at the lowest point, then accelerating coming back up quickly. At the lowest point it should be a bit more active pose than just a crouch, as well. Think like a coiled spring. More like a crouch before a jump, leaning slightly in the direction he's going to rise in (forward). Also, I'd be pissed if I were playing a game and the player took that long to wind up before a basic attack. Unless it's a move you charge up. Even so, I'd like to be able to unleash the attack before fully winding. Cause fo sho, that's a long-ass wind.

Do you have an idle for this character?

Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post.

So Corsair fixed alot of stuff. Pay attention to him. good stuff.

One thing about Corsairs though is that when his is descending, the red knee looks to be closing where, I think, it should be opening, and the leg extending in preparation for landing.

I'm going to reply to you before I reply to ndchristie as I know it will be a long drawn out discussion but I'm busy with homework so I can't.  I have two more attacks planned for this set of animations.  The second part leads into the 3rd.  So the second is a jump up slash and that leads into a slash that hits the ground, which than leads into another animation.  Oh and I realize there are pauses but unfortunately I haven't been able to test out how it works in game so I was unable to see just how slow it really was.  Personally I wanted to get rid of all but one of the down positions in the 2nd animation but I left it in for the critique.  I thought maybe someone else would know what i should do.

I should be done with my homework in about 20 minutes and then I will get right to work on all these changes and possibly a whole separate version of the entire animation.  Sorry if I seem hostile to anyone, I don't want it to come off that way as I am super eager to make all these changes.

[Helm]

Hi. I'm just popping up in this thread to suggest that tempers remain low. It's the summer coming, the heat makes everyone look for a fight! Mike, ndchristie did not attack you personally as far as I can tell, but if you still think he did I'd suggest you take it up with PMs with him first, and if it isn't resolved, with me. His critique was sound and whereas I too think it comes down to what sort of videogame you're making and how much freedom you have with moving a character when he presses an attack button, this doesn't mean it's invalid or should be swept aside while you guys duke it out "you said, I misunderstood, I said, you misunderstood" style.

[Souly]

Most up to date versions below vvvv comments and critique please

Combo 1(this is someone elses edit but I liked it best so I went with it.)

I'm not trying to make anything of this but it seems you've done nothing but directly hot linked my edit for you over at pixeljoint.
Obviously you didn't even try to make your own version using the edit I gave you.
Not that I care or anything just saying, it's better to learn by doing it yourself.

[Mike]

New edit, I'm glad I'm done with all my home work so now I can put all my effort towards this.



Also I feel a bit better about this animation over all.  I have all of you to thank.  So thank you!  I'm working on the second combo this time and it will be much more dynamic.

**Update**



I hope it is a bit more interesting this time around.  Unfortunately the third animation is going to take a bit longer.

[Xion]

love the new uppercut. It has much character. Awesome.
Crits though:
With the uppercut, I think he should start bringing his hand up earlier. You want to get the force behind the rising motion, which is greatest when first pushing off of the ground, before gravity starts to kick in and stuff.
Also, you've lengthened the duration between the attacks.
Okay, so, when he does the first slash, the momentum from that attack would make it more reasonable to carry through into the uppercut using the green arm, since he's already twisting into a motion where using that arm would use the previous momentum. As opposed to, as you have now, using the red arm for both attacks, having to "reload," so to say, before attacking again. This is why people fight using alternating fists.
I think.
One-two punch, you know.
When he jumps the motion blur on the legs disappears too slowly.
When in midair, his twist should continue, since you can't just stop turning in midair, and he's already on a spiral when he leaves the ground.

So far, it's been seeming to me that you're animating the attack like two separate attacks in the same animation loop. I think of combos more like a single attack divided into parts. I mean, the point of combos is to attack in quick succession or with incrementally increasing power. The latter attack is dependent on the former, so while I see that the first attack may need to have a distinct beginning and end (in case you want to stop the combo right after the first strike), there's no reason for the second attack not to flow directly from the last frame of the first.
What I'm saying is: I get your reasoning behind the little jump at the beginning of the second attack, but it may be ultimately detrimental to gameplay, and totally breaks the flow of the animation.
Also, I have no idea what the arms are doing in the first attack

I would make an edit, but I can't, so I won't, but my suggestion would be:

first attack, ending at the last frame you have now
lift red leg, begin to push off with blue
twist back to viewer, green arm beginning to rise
leave ground, green arm rises
continue twist, green arm begins to lower
complete 270 torso twist, land
turn to face original direction
flow into third attack.

Or something like that or something. It would be alot easier if I could show you.

[zeid]

Well I think everything is progressing superbly, but I do have a rather big point to make, that no one has seemed to address yet (I think, otherwise disregard my comments and refrain from yelling at me too loudly).
What style/atmosphere are you going for in general, and what is this character suppose to be?
Give as much detail as possible please.
I think this question should be addressed as animation can suggest a great deal about who the character is. The overly limber stylistic movements you are showing us now (which are cool) is very different from the stiffer more mechanical motions you were providing before. I actually meant to ask this question earlier, so people could get a better idea of how to infuse the character, and his/her world into their edits.

[megane]

Okay, so, when he does the first slash, the momentum from that attack would make it more reasonable to carry through into the uppercut using the green arm, since he's already twisting into a motion where using that arm would use the previous momentum. As opposed to, as you have now, using the red arm for both attacks, having to "reload," so to say, before attacking again. This is why people fight using alternating fists.

I got the impression that he was using a knife, which would preclude switching hands unless you want to throw an unarmed elbow-bash in between the stabbity bits.

However, I'm not sure the two attacks you've got would form a reasonable combo in any case.  In order for the attacks to seem like a "combo," they need to flow naturally into one another: your knife/fist should be drawing a long, continuous curve, rather than a series of separate and unrelated lines.  Suddenly switching the direction of motion is unnatural (not to mention really hard), and the long pause you put between the attacks shows that you sense that fact, I think.  Perhaps try putting the third attack between these two, rather than after?