First Try Walk Anim WIP

[AnarchoElk]

I have an odd pose to work with.


And I'm trying to find a way with this pose to create a walking animation off of it. Besides all the other errors, the thing that stand out most to me are the arms, I'm having trouble with them because, as in that base sprite, the right arm and leg are both backwards, so I can't get a proper swing to that arm. The base sprite is based on a specific style, so changing it too much isn't an option for me.

Is there anything else vital that I should be working on to get this looking ok?

[Jim16]

Well the thing that ruins the walk animation is that it was made from a pose, and now looks like a dance
Fix the pose to more of an IDLE pose where you could work from.
Also get rid of the black line and where in hell is the poor fella's neck?

And if its based on a specific style, then show us a reference or look at that style more clearly, as it wouldn't be a game style if you can't animate it.

Like you said "ALLOT NEEDS FIXING".

Edit:
Proportions are way off! Your body should be three sizes as big as the head at its least!
Fix this.

[AnarchoElk]

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii233/dbzvortex/VRP/SeasonOne/Goku.png

Here is someone else's sheet done in the same style. The game the style is from is a turn based RPG type of game, so the movement consisted of those couple of frames with no walking.

I'm trying to bring that style into a game some people are working on, where movement, as well as moving north and south will be required.

As for a more idle pose, I think the dynamic aspect of the pose is one of the things the people who want the sprites in LSW style are looking for. An idea I'm thinking of working on would be to remove the idle pose from the animation entirely, and just have a frame in the animation that can plausibly start from idle, but then have a regular 4 frame walking anim.

Unfortunately, the large head and lack of neck are staples of the style, its going for an SD style approach. Though I have made some changes that I'm slightly unsure of (like making the hands smaller.)

[NaCl]

I am very against ever using the idle frame in a walk animation. It never looks good, because think about it, when we are walking we never have both feet on the ground.

If you do not want to make an 8 frame walk cycle, and just do a 4 frame one, it will always look twitchy. This is because there is no longer any high point or recoil, and these are the frames that give it weight and movement. You will just have to do two passing, and two contacts.

This image (from www.angryanimator.com) has been posted a bajillion times, but it is useful enough to justify that:


As for the arms, his right one is just hanging there, it is not swinging to counterbalance his weight, and his other arm is only swinging at the elbow. Look again at that image I posted, and you'll see that the arms are moving opposite the legs to balance the weight.

[AnarchoElk]

Well, I made the edit before I saw your post, but I THINK I corrected a lot of the problems already though some remain, and it is still a 4 frame animation.

I put some swing into the right arm (though it's still pretty stiff, I'm going to have to move the whole arm definitely, but baby steps I guess.) I put more of a whole arm movement into his left arm, though I took out some elbow movement, and I took the idle pose out of the animation altogether in favour of another contact frame.

but that image is an awesome resource, thanks!

Besides the right arm though, is there anything major that sticks out?

[Pizza Tom]

Hmm.. Besides the right arm, the fact that the area from the waist to the chest doesn't seem to move much (or at all) bothers me. A little bit of rotation would go a long way.

[Jim16]

@Salty: You make a good point

Well I wont' comment on this any longer Due to the amount of excuses your making. Surely you can see away of animating this style? I do.

Your so called style that your using looks nothing like the reference....at all???
Well the head is always going to look wrong in accordance to the body.

I just loled at your laziness! Ok firstly, I wouldn't copy the head. Why? well due to the old proportions rule. You've gone and stuck a big head on a smaller body than the original sprite.

[AnarchoElk]

@Regulus, Thanks, I'll work on that for my next edit

@Jim, thanks, what a useful post. SD Never existed in your world I suppose.

[Willows]

I entirely disagree with the broken proportions comments, as the proportions seem passable for what they are, though obviously making no attempt at being realistic. There are a couple specific proportion flaws, such as the character's left arm being much longer than his right, but that ain't too hard to fix at this stage.

What I am concerned about, though, is that it is unclear what perspective you're going for. I'd assume he's supposed to be platformer, but it's hard to tell exactly, as he currently appears to be walking somewhat toward the viewer.

[AnarchoElk]

Yeah, thats some of the trouble I was having was with perspective. Because the style comes from a turnbased game there isn't much movement, and the characters are basically in fixed position semi facing the viewer, but actually facing forward, but I suppose trying to present a smaller target while fighting. I see now where that flaw was coming out, trying to animate the shoulder so far back, in my next edit I'll fix that as well as the arm length issue and the body movement.

edit:

I moved the shoulder forward a bit, fixed his arm length I think, and added a full arm motion, if I missed anything, or if anything new is wrong, please let me know...