Walk animation

[TrevoriuS]

Make the foot travel 3 pixel on each frame for a smoother motion.

Depends on what you're aiming for. Completely smooth isn't a good idea at any point, but you can exeggerate and make the animation really 'snap' into position by overapplying the existance of weight.

Consider lowering the body on the contact frame instead because at that's when the characters feet are the longest distance apart which at this scale would be similar to the catch frame where he bends his knees.

On the contact frame you wish to lower the body because of the shock of gravity being stopped by the floor as well.

[Arne]

I would guess that the hands and feet travel very fast through the 'passing' frame, and kinda hang around the contact frames.

Sometimes the movement (of loose objects) caused by shock comes one frame behind, I think.

[Arne]

Straightened out my legs, made them longer, displaced vertical bobbing one frame (as well as the head, because the hair was timed, although it's a bit jittery now). Maybe I should do something about the feet the frame before contact. They look like flippers now.



Something with the ground contact bothers me. doesn't feel connected with the ground.

[ndchristie]

i think the knees bend  farrr too much if you're going for a person's walk.  this would be a march, but even then the steps are too short.  it's like their walking in water, picking up their feet but not getting anywhere.

[Arne]

Yeah, I can agree with that. Looks like a military excursion. The leftmost one is definitely plowing through something. I should calm down the leg movements further.

(and it seems like Day of the Tentacle uses something like 8 frames, not 4 like I thought before - that would have been a little cheap.)

[robotacon]

@Arne: They seem more relaxed now which is good. I think the reason they don't seem connected to the ground is that they bob up and down at a constant pace like a sine wave. I know almost every tutorial in the world has that but I still thing you should look at what it looks like if you lower the frames were the head is highest one pixel so you get more weight in the step.

@TreviouS: I'm all for snapping but not when it comes to the feet traveling the ground. When this is put in a game later on you don't want the character to slip and slide. You want the feet to land on one spot and not leave that spot until they are picked up again.

@Arne: You're right about the hands and there is a sort of inertia in the feet as well since they will always want to stay on the ground (that travel at a constant speed) so while the heel is picked up the toes will try to stay on the ground for as long as possible. This results is the heel following a curve at the back position staying for a longer time back there than it does in the front position where the heel will start moving backwards directly after hitting the ground.

@ndchristie: I agree with you. A lot of people walk with their feet almost touching the ground when they move the feet forward. Ever stumbled on a folded carpet corner? These guys have a military look though so perhaps the high feet are legit.

[Arne]

I suppose that while the foot is in contact with the ground it will move at a nearly constant pace. Gliding could probably be countered by offsetting the character so it matches the foot movement. For stuff like sneaky steps /silly walks you probably need to do that. If a character is running then the body will have more momentum and the ground will travel at a pretty constant speed underfoot. (Guessing here.)

Perhaps these walk cycles can still be useful for soldiers, if I ever do any.

[Mabelma]

I like the walking cycle of the girl. My only actual problem right now is that on the space suit the head moves but on the actual girl only the hair is moving and the actual head isn't moving. I hope I helped in some way.

[Arne]

The helmet animation (right figure) was just something I kept. I mostly edited the left one.

I made a quick Probotector run animation to learn a little more. Pulling one foot up from the ground and leaning the leg in the 'passing' frame helped. I referenced the original Probotector animation, but it seems to be only 3 frames and cheating with which leg is in front. I kept the head, shoulder and gun part static to save time and I pretended I was limited to a certain number of tiles. The grey is extra, but it's possible to put it in there if you separate the tiles. The Probotector tile tables are very garbled and the figures are built from many smaller sprites to save space.


Based on my redesign of the robots on the Probotector cover art which I liked a lot.

[Mike]

I'm thinking the girl lacks hip movement.  Here is a little sprite I animated keeping in mind that it's meant to be a more girly walk.

(arms a bit long but I think it shows the girl style walk nicely)

Now I'm not entirely sure if it's right but it definitely looks like a girl walking.  What really helps sell it is the straightened contact legs, and the less bounce in the walk overall.

Here is another type of walk, kind of high society walk style



another thing you can do is try to exaggerate the butt during the walk.  Also I tried to keep the feet as low to the ground as possible so it almost looks like they are sliding that way it takes the stomp effect away.  If there is a big gap between the foot being raised and then hitting the ground that creates the stomp effect along with the raising of the body during contact.

*edit*

I decided to try and edit yours and here is what I came up with