Help with Retro Battle Animations and Small Sprites!

[Echo Magnum]

I'm working on a small sprite, involved in the spoiler are all the gestures/actions and the walk cycle. I am currently having a little trouble with the first action especially, its supposed to be swinging two dual-sabers but it looks like its missing something, maybe its just the speed or the positioning ( should I have made it in a side view pose perhaps ). The rest of the gestures and actions are as listed ( respectively )

>Attack
>Hippy Dance ( victory 1 )
>Wave ( victory 2 )
>No
>Yes

I need to more attack moves like:
>Hit
>Slash
>Defend
>Use Item
>Power/special attack

I'm thinking of making the battle real-time that's why I have these actions. The dance moves where just because I was kinda bored lol, they might need a little work but my main focus is on the attacks. I think I should make it with a side view battle perspective but keep it real time. Doing this might need me to re-create the side view sprite ( see the walk cycle ) to accommodate complex animation and moves like slashing, being hit e.t.c. I notice the rm2k3 batllers are almost always slightly bigger than the in-game sprites. However I really want it to be real time like in Tales or Blue Sphere.
Again I'm avoiding color until I get this perfect. anti-alising would help with small movements but I'm a total rookie at this, I've never used it before although I know a lot about its theory ( thanks to the tutorial here as well ).

Could someone help me/advice me with attack moves for a real time battle system. I don't mind if its side view. thanks

Spoiler

>>Gestures/Actions<<


>>Walk Cycle<<

 

[Echo Magnum]

Note: I'm already in progress of making a character creation system for the game, so far I have up to 42 character combinations all ready and looking good not including the attack gesture. I'm currently struggling with this one to get the sword swinging right.

I will post all the main styles of hair,clothes e.t.c when I'm done with it, by the looks of things if all goes well and I get some help with this I should be done by the end of this month or even earlier. ( I'm on vacation until September so I have a lot of free time )

 

[Echo Magnum]

Attacking

Charge Up


O.K I think this looks like an actual saber swinging/slashing. I will use the other one for charging up. it kind of looked like she was doing neon-wait lifting lol. What do you think, Is the movement O.K?

Here she's dead


...lets see what next... I think I'm left with a hit animation and item use. Item use could just be the yes expression.
It seems it would be a lot easier to do this on 2k3... their goes the real-time battle system though. guess its not everything but I get alot of responce that game makers not the best for this sort of stuff. Could get tedious since I have about 84 (14*6) character sets to work with. Its really not that hard though...

Um...any feed back, I feel like I'm talking to myself here...

 

[Perihelion]

Can you post individual frames? I think your biggest problem is that your movement is very limited. When you attack, your whole body moves, not just your arm.

 

[Echo Magnum]

O.K I will however I can only use 3 frames on rm2k3, one of them has to be repeated, I think their is a way to work around this. Here are the still frames however I don't know how you post images wich can be magnified.


This was the idea, a simple slashing sprite. This sprite is much larger but I think its still possible to animate this without the heavy detailed sword slash effects.


Blue Sphere ( Bowman ) uses sprites smaller than mine however the animation still looks a lot more fluid. This is a little complex though.




Your right though, I didn't know what to do with the body so I left it alone, I know you lean forward as you slash, I don't know how to achieve this : .
I don't mind using more frames and re-creating the sprites body a little. I just don't want to alter my style. I've kinda grown attached.

 

[Echo Magnum]

I forced the sword effects into the mix as well as the pose, zoomed in it looked kind of ugly uch: but from its real perspective
everything sort of fitted : . I guess thats something new I've learned :smile: . I observed blue spheres sprites and I can say the same. Its all in how it fits from its natural perspective, sometimes you have to take risks.


here's the still frames. I still have no idea how to move the body, perhaps in a fight-stance ( left-to-right ) at least for an idle animation but it might look kind of too masculine/macho and this is a female sprite...

Spoiler

frame 1

frame 2

frame 3

frame 4

 

[Echo Magnum]

Bump

Any ideas of how I should move the body? Should I just leave it as it is?

 

[Ikariz]

Start with an idle pose and then have your sprite step into the slash and lean forwards just slightly at the waist.

RE: If you can't get the forward lean that is absolutely fine, but the step is vital for a natural look.

 

[Echo Magnum]

I've been working on an idle pose, here is what I have so far. I think the bounce is good.


still frames

Spoiler

So I guess I should work over the frame where she steps forward and make her slash the sword/saber... I'll try post something later ( might be busy today but I'll squeeze some time in ).

Another thing is that I realized the game might be boring with only one weapon so I have added 2 other weapons that I plan on animating into the sprites attack later on.

The weapons so far will be set into 3 classes, each class will have different upgrades but their battle animation will still be the same ( stats will be affected ).

Spoiler

Saber - ( the one I'm working on now ) light and fast sword action, it also shoots a plasma-ray after each slash. however its not as powerful to begin with unless you upgrade it.

Gunblade - ( similar to gun-lace's in monster hunter ) medium/ balanced bladed gun, shoots a small explosive and can be used to stab/gab enemies. It needs special care as it can damage fast unless upgraded.

Dual Hammer -( Two hammers attached to each other ) heavy/slow but powerful, deals heavy wave-energy to enemies ( for ranged attack ) smashes ( for melee ).

The animations for ranged and melee will be the same but I will change their battle animations for effect ( adding projectiles or hit effects ).

I think that's enough to keep anyone entertained lol.

 

[Echo Magnum]

I have made everything zoom-able so you can see the pixels more clearly.

Also would any of you advise I stick with rpg maker and make a turn based battle system or I move to game maker and try create a real time battle system like in Tales of Phantasia, Zelda II or Blue Sphere. Each has its pro's and cons but I keep thinking back and forth about this.

The main pro's and cons are that:

RPG maker 2k3's battle system is built in and it would be a lot simpler to just add the animations to the database than having to code each sprite strip like in game maker.

Game maker is a lot more powerful meaning I can create the battle system anyway I wish and use unlimited animations and the cool pixel-explosions to my advantage ( all in all it would look and be more fun but be a hell of a lot of more hard work ).

This is my first custom made game so I'm thinking, should I go all out and make it an amazing game ( might take me a couple years ) or should I first test the waters and start of simple...

 

[Ikariz]

I believe there is a tales of battle system for rpgmaker xp out there

 

[Echo Magnum]

I'll look for it. It has to be user friendly, if not I might have to move to game maker before its too late.

Thanks, I never knew one existed.

 

[glorious caesar]

hey man my biggest suggestion for you is to think about three-dimensional FORM. especially ESPECIALLY!!! when animating.

that's the difference between

and your guys. that sprite has a lot of awesome contrast and looks like a solid object. yours are strongly OUTLINED.

at some point i'll get down and dirty and give you some nice edits to show what i mean more clearly, but don't think about your colors as having predefined roles (like one color for outlines, another for skin, etc), but rather think of all your colors and all the different ways to use them to express different levels of DEPTH.

 

[Echo Magnum]

Yeah I'm going to use my other "poki" sprites now though, I prefer them to this style but I get what you mean, I was thinking of leaving them un-colored until I got the animation right but as you said color helps bring out the 3d in them so I should animate with color, actually now that you mention it this is probably exactly the reason why I thought these sprites didn't look as good. You know what it doesn't hurt to give it another shot with this they might turn out better than I expect plus it doesn't hurt to have multiple styles as a spriter.

I'll have to color it later next week though maybe, I have some family stuff then school so my vacation ( :toot: :cheers: ) has pretty much been bummed and burned : .