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Sprite Animation: 8-Axis

How do you rate this sprite so far?

  • 1 Super Lame

    Votes: 1 8.3%
  • 2 Lame

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3 I've seen worse

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4 Bad but has potential

    Votes: 1 8.3%
  • 5 Mediocre

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 6 Average I guess

    Votes: 1 8.3%
  • 7 Good but could be better

    Votes: 6 50.0%
  • 8 Great

    Votes: 2 16.7%
  • 9 Amazing almost perfect

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 10 Super fantastic, this is perfect!

    Votes: 1 8.3%

  • Total voters
    12
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I'm working on a female adult template for my project, I'm open to any compliment and/or criticism on the animation, style and general look of the sprite, so far its only line-art not yet gone into shading yet but before I did I wanted to be sure that this sprite was solid or not.
I've also set up a poll so you can rank this between 1 to 10, 10 being perfect 1 being super lame lol. Your opinion is also welcome.
Note that its just line art so don't mind the shade, color tone e.t.c yet lets first tackle the animation and general style then I'll shade it and you can comment again e.t.c.

Thanks a lot for the support. :rock:
 
I really like the template, but the movement is kind of odd. For instance, the extremeties seem to move different ranges in different directions. The discrepancy is specially noticeable in the up and down directions.
 
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It looks better, before I was just using my eyes to judge how far the swing should go but here I used onion skin layering techniques in Paint.Net, the general animation is a lot smoother and I think it looks more natural now... what do you guys think?

Edit: Edited the side pose animation further
 
I think your arm movements are much better. Your leg movements seem a little too rigid. I think its because of your left and right poses. The legs are too straight. If you look at how most people stand it is not litterally straight up and down as you have it sprited. The lower half of the leg should be set back just a small bit to match more closely how we would walk/stand. I mean, do you lock your knees while taking a step?
 
(lol @ anatomically correct hooters ;P)

[[please do not become offended by anything I am about to say in this post. your sprite template is obviously a work in progress, and i am only looking to help you. i'm not saying you did a bad job; i am merely stating things that really need to be focused on.]]

first off, I have to ask: why do you need 45-degree angle walks for a side-view sprite?

consider another side-view-perspective sprite: Samus from Metroid. she has a bajillion frames, many of them involving her facing different directions, but she doesn't have a single angled walk or run, because she is running only side to side.

I worry that you are building this sprite to walk on a top-down or 3/4s top-down map. (ala Link to the Past, or the RMXP RTP sprites).

If that is the case, your sprite is 100% off-perspective, and it needs to be severely reworked.

In top-down or 3/4s top-down sprites, you see the tops of the character's head, shoulders, feet, etc.--in an exaggerated way.
If you placed your template on a 3/4s top-down map, she would look like she was always about to fall on her ass, or that the world was tilted.

If that is not the map's perspective, then disregard! And I will crit this as a sideview-perspective sprite.


On that, there are a large number of anatomical problems. I can list them.

- Her crotch is much too high up, and there is no shape to the insides of her legs, which, in the front & 45-degree views, makes her look like a strange compilation of noodles from the waist down.

- Her arms are not bending at the elbow, in any view but the side view, and in the side view, they are not bending enough. The arms' swings are randomly timed: they swing WITH the legs on most views, and they swing OPPOSITE the legs in others.
Think of yourself walking in a fluid motion. Your left arm goes forward as your right leg goes forward. You don't move your shoulders much. Most of the motion is in the forearms. Which means your arms will bend at the elbow. They will swing slightly inward, towards your pelvis, then straight back, as your other leg swings forward.
Consider your feet. Heel goes down, toes go up, toes go down, gentle push, press on toes, foot comes up at an angle, straightens midair, heel crooks downward, heel goes down, repeat.
Right now she is just stiffly shuffling.
In the back diagonal view, she is doing that russian kicking dance.

- You have her torso shortening in all views on the down-step, which at first makes it sort of look like her bust is bouncing, but after a second of staring it just looks like she's shrugging or shrinking. And breasts would bounce UP on a down-step, not move down with the shoulders.

- She walks with her torso PERFECTLY STRAIGHT. This is not natural. As you walk, your hips swing slightly, and in your gait, as your arms swing, your torso will also turn somewhat. This [in sprites] typically will result in only a pixel or two of budging or shifting, but it's important that you capture that natural aesthetic.

- Her buttocks do not move with her legs. Your butt sits on your legs. What your thighs do, so does your butt. The flesh bells up as the thigh draws back, and stretches as the thigh swings forward.

- On the sideviews, the shoulders/bust moves down a pixel, but the rest of the body VERY CLEARLY does not. This looks rather unsettling. If the lower half of her body is the one moving, and the torso is just along for the ride, why are her legs floating in space while her torso seems to be riding a steady gallop?

Some references for you to study! :D :
http://www.manningkrull.com/pixel_art/t ... alking.asp
http://www.idleworm.com/how/pic/a0002/wlk01.gif
http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Guybrus ... prites.jpg
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/6269 ... rence1.png

Hope that helps :D
 
Wow, thanks alot Venetia, I agree the legs looked kind of odd and I've been having a hard time understanding how people walk and anatomy during a walk cycle e.t.c. You really lay it out for me and thanks for that, I see what you're talking about. Might take me a week or so but I'm going to re-do the entire animation and see how it turns out, might be a little frustrating but its all a learning experience.

I have a lot to learn from the sites you recommend first though, I might also start of by understanding anatomy, I have a book lying around about that it might be useful. This time I'll first try hand draw the frame poses on paper just to understand exactly how it should fit then go into spriting. I'f their any good I might post them up here for some help e.t.c.

lol right now I'm going to play Metroid and see how samus runs.

I have the 3/4 poses because I was thinking of making it an isometric sprite, I know most isometric sprites are slightly top down but I've never liked that kind of angle and I also don't really get it, would you recommend I ditch the entire 3/4 poses and focus on making a purely 2d game or can I have them just for the movement? not really for "isometry" e.g like in Earthbound wait I think those are isometric a little...
 

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