Shiver animation - where to start?

[ndchristie]

Hey guys,

I know it's been a long time since I've put any pixel work up.  Shame on me.
Anyway, I have this piece I've just started getting happy with, but I'm a bit stuck for starting the animation.  Basically, the thing is a dying mess; the character was almost done transforming into a demon before being interupted, and not everything got put together.  So it's essentially paralysed, with only the magical energies stopping it from dying instantly.

What I want to do is have it do a short of 'shiver' or 'shudder' animation, which I've seen people do in a few places, the only problem is that I can't find any good references and have no idea where to start.  So I guess I was curious, if people know the kind of thing I'm talking about, if they had any references or bits of advice?

Here's the starting image, still in need of some refining/cleaning as we go...:



Original Palette - Revised Palette (he's supposed to be a "sun" demon) - blue skin because a friend said it reminded them of Velius from Preteen Fantasy Tactics.

(if it looks a little funny, he's leaning in a corner of the room)

[Ryumaru]

I cannot help you with animation but I can be mad at you with how pretty that is.

[JJ Naas]

How about doing it like Jad's avatar blob.. minor pixel action inside the outlines?

[Jakten]

Yeah the only thing I can think of that you are looking for is sub pixel animation. I went to find the thread that talks about it and you posted in it haha so... I doubt that's what you meant. Other than some subpixelling to make his muscles look like they are convulsing, the only other thing I can tell you really is just subtle movements, maybe making him arch forward slightly and have the head move side to side and the jaw dangle.

Haha, I had wondered why there was blood floating around him but now that you say he is leaning on a wall I can really see it. This so awesome looking! 

[NaCl]

Something like what happened to the giant warrior in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind might be really cool. Not a shivering animation, but it may work, not sure of the context exactly.

[Sherman Gill]

Considering how tight the outlines are, I don't think that would do much...
If you want to be cheap, you could just do it like they did in playstation games and distort it with software-side stuff, heehee.

Also, this is really really fucking fantastic. I am so jealous of your abilities right now .

[buloght]

If you want it only to be subtle, you can shake his highlights around (shake stop shake stop), and leave the outlines alone. It usually looks very shiver-ish in games.

This is beautiful, the style is really interesting and attractive!

[Jad]

Hmmmm lots of shivering animations are made by just making a veeery smooth animation in lots of frames, and then just switching the places of them.

so like. Say he shivers while he breathes - also he shivers while breathing in, but not breathing out. You decide to make it cyclic.

First animation run:

breathe in = 12345678

breathe out = 87654321 - but with faster tempo

to make it shiver:

breathe in:

1324354657687

and then reverse for breather out, maybe add some extra frames?

It's what I think of, at least. People have done it and proved that it works. I'm curious if it works with subpixel animation. I think it does! Herr.

.. Actually I went ahead and tried the principle.

In the ugliest little dot motion test ever. And I'm too lazy to make it look good.





second one shivers. It's very subtle.

[blumunkee]

I have a confession to make. I closely followed all of your threads years ago, but I always abstained from giving you critiques. All of your work had excellent design and pixel placement, but it was colored like rainbow vomit, and that seemed to be the way you wanted it, despite what anyone else said. But these sprites, which seem new, appear to have been spared such a grizzly fate. That's a complement, I swear.  

As for the animation, I think you and I both know that it's going to be a pain in the ass, and I suspect you are looking for some sort of...reassurance before you dive in. Unfortunately we can give you no such thing. Whether or not you use subpixel AA or just move stuff around until it looks good, you've got some work ahead of you.

Post your progress and we will help as best we can. But ultimately, you created the bloody blob monster, and you have to deal with it.

[Conzeit]

well....is it going to be a loop? cause that sort of defines everything.

Off the top of my head the ideal would be something like Tetsuo (akira)......there's that scene in GITS where the girl rips off the top of that mechanized robot too....

Usually the cheap way to make somethinig tremble is make the animation go back and forth in frames...and it can be useful at times but it's not very impressive.

something similar streamlined but with more eyecandy is what they did with talbain's ilde

...which to me, seems to be they first make a normal weight shifting animation, then they go trough each frame and make an alternate more exalted version of each frame (he's growling so they open his mouth too) and make the difference between normal and exalted more noticeable the more the animation advances. Then they take the two animations and interlace the frames.



Here is his page at Fightersgeneration Talbain...over there I also found that Zabel's stance has an interesting tremble

These pages contain very torough rips of both characters, and a lot of dudes tremble on that game anyways so u might wanna check it out.
http://114.80.100.225:8080/picture20091230/vhunt/index.htm
http://114.80.100.225:8080/picture20091230/vsavj/chars.htm

http://www.zweifuss.ca/hugo/hugo.htm this guy trembles after every move too.

overall...I do mostly agree with blu, I'd use a very simple technique for general tremblimgl...and use something more complex on the most important parts, the ones the trembling emmanates from to emphasize it. sorta like Talbain's neck fur