Decided to have a fully animated, 8-direction moving character

[KyriakosCH]

Because ultimately it would come across as way too dead/ interactive fictiony if you cannot actually move the character in real time...

Anyway, i think it can work, and already rendered/imported the character

In the image you can also see a font i chose, along with some basic room. Game size currently is 500X500.



Each of the 8 standard directions currently have 19 frames. Previous pic uses a black outline, which will be removed by the end (eg next view doesn't)



Will upload more views of the character later...

[Andail]

19 frames in 8 directions, that's an awful lot of frames.

Have you tried 8-10 frames in 4 directions and deemed it insufficient?

Can we see the animation please?

[KyriakosCH]

I am cleaning up some bakcground pixels (magenta) for half of it. Obviously will be presented one of these days...

19 frames are overkill, although they only include the walk cycle (9 frames) and a repeat with alternative (more) hand gesturing. In reality it is two times the usual circle, due to some added animation in the hands.

4 directions aren't looking good if you have a pseudo-isometric room, as i do...

Anyway, some (not cleaned) of the original render i made:

[Jack]

He seems to be bound with rope from the knees up.

[Blondbraid]

He seems to be bound with rope from the knees up.

Yes, the movements look a bit weird, the character doesn't lift his legs when he walks.

[Mandle]

I think the character is supposed to be a troubled introvert, so I'm supposing his shuffling walk is designed to represent that fact.

But still: It seems a waste of all those frames if his upper body doesn't move even slightly...

I'm no animator but perhaps somebody has some pro-tips on how to squeeze a bit more movement out of the walkcycle while also staying true to character?

[NickyNyce]

I would also look into playing around with different fonts too. You certainly want an easy to read font for the player, especially if there is a decent amount of dialog. The font you provided is a little tough on the eyes.

[KyriakosCH]

I think the character is supposed to be a troubled introvert, so I'm supposing his shuffling walk is designed to represent that fact.

But still: It seems a waste of all those frames if his upper body doesn't move even slightly...

I'm no animator but perhaps somebody has some pro-tips on how to squeeze a bit more movement out of the walkcycle while also staying true to character?

Yes...! Well, as Kafka once said...: "The most widespread individualism among writers is their way of covering up for their weaknesses"... Ie i am not really trying to make an animated cycle which is perfect, yet in-game it likely fits the mood of being confined in a bizarre location with a ladder and a closed door, and the other loops there. The character isn't exactly happy, and wouldn't tend to make lively moves. (which is all the better, cause i wouldn't tend to want to have to animate such moves ).

That said, there are many special animations, eg for thinking, climbing up the ladder, trying stuff while on the ladder, and all-around being brooding and miserable

This particular segment/part (which i hope to be the first ever actually finished game i can present! ) is adapted from a short story of mine. Some of the plot can be read in the opening lines (translation may have issues, but anyway) :
"I had no recollection of the actual fall. Yet it did take place, that much is evident given i was lying down in a dark place, my body aching, and I could see a clearly lit opening, only far away and high up.
After touching my body all around to verify that i had not suffered a major injury, i stared upwards to the opening, before turning my sight right in front of me where a metallic and vertical ladder was partly visible.
In reality it was not so much a ladder as two extended beams, which at regular intervals were intersected by bars of equal thickness to the beams. I thought that i would have to use those to climb up to the light, given in the meantime i had realized that there was no further part of the space i was in which i could access, since only opposite the ladder there was a door, but that was locked.
And so i began my ascent, which at first was very easy to carry on with. I did indeed feel a brief but acute pain in my ribs each time i had to raise my right leg, but the actual ascent was not laborious in any way. Every now i then i would observe the opening above, which appeared to remain as distant and small as when i first glanced at it from below."

I would also look into playing around with different fonts too. You certainly want an easy to read font for the player, especially if there is a decent amount of dialog. The font you provided is a little tough on the eyes.

I agree. Yet i'd also want to avoid the very cold/generic fonts as well...

[Danvzare]

Well that guy looks as though he can barely move his legs. He looks as though he's trying to slide across ice, in a dignified and posh manner. He looks as though he's parlayed from the waist up. I wonder how many other remarks I can make?

Still, I always prefer adventure games which allow you to actually move the character around freely (even if, when you think  about it, it's technically useless), so I guess I can't complain too much. It is indeed difficult to animate a character.

Personally, I find the font quite easy to read. But if you wanted to make it easier to read, might I suggest you try and find a bold variant?

[Snarky]

Let me show you what the first screen looks like on my monitor:



Basically it's a black square with some text and a cursor. If you peer closely at it you can vaguely make out the character and the separation of walls and floor, but any details are overwhelmed by reflections in the monitor.

Also, the font has a problem with the kerning (spacing between the letters). In particular, the "a" doesn't have enough space on the right (while most other letters have too much), so a word like "considerable" is nearly indistinguishable from "considerdole". This is fixable, though.

[KyriakosCH]

^The forum page also looks messed up. Can that be linked? Otherwise people will have considerable difficulty to read it...

(ie yes, different lighting setting can be an issue, but your pic shows a blurred forum page too, so it somewhat beats the purpose?)

Agree about the text, of course.

[Chicky]

Your backgrounds are definitely too dark, seems your monitor needs calibrating. I've noticed this issue with a few of your wip backgrounds.

[cat]

When first seeing the first post in the thread, I didn't realize why you were talking about a character because the pics are just black squares, one with text, the other one with a magnifying glass. I can hardly see any character at all.

[Snarky]

^The forum page also looks messed up. Can that be linked? Otherwise people will have considerable difficulty to read it...

(ie yes, different lighting setting can be an issue, but your pic shows a blurred forum page too, so it somewhat beats the purpose?)

It's a shitty cell phone photo with different regions more or less out of focus, but that's beside the point. That's not why the image isn't legible; I can recognize your avatar perfectly well, for example. In fact, it looks like my phone applied some kind of contrast correction (notice the halos around the dark parts) that actually makes the image slightly clearer than it is in reality.

But I'm not here to convince you. If this is how you want it, knock yourself out.

[Cassiebsg]

I guess, if you going for a comic character, this walk fits. He also seems like he'll fall backwards any time.

[KyriakosCH]

Your backgrounds are definitely too dark, seems your monitor needs calibrating. I've noticed this issue with a few of your wip backgrounds.

Any way i can check calibration (and know what to change?)

[Gurok]

Your backgrounds are definitely too dark, seems your monitor needs calibrating. I've noticed this issue with a few of your wip backgrounds.

Any way i can check calibration (and know what to change?)

To an extent, that depends on your monitor. Most will have brightness and contrast controls in the OSD menu, some monitors (e.g. Apple) don't expose controls and some let you configure your monitor through bundled software.

A common method is to adjust the brightness and contrast in daylight or a brightly lit room, so that faces look natural -- not too saturated, not too light/dark.

You could also try an i1Display Pro colorimeter (this is what I use) or the cheaper ColorMunki. The general values are 80-140 candelas per square metre. You also want a gamma of about 2.2. Colour space should be SRGB (not Lab). This is an investment though, and the general method of comparing skin works for most people. You'd also have to ensure your monitor was compatible.

I suspect that your monitor's actually fine and that you're working in the dark. I don't think anyone would turn their brightness/contrast up so high that the images you present look normal.

Do you have a histogram tool in your image editor? A histogram shows the problem with your images really clearly:



See how your red, green and blue channels are all bunched up near the lower end?

They should be more spread out like:



Here's a crude mockup of the brightness levels I'd expect:



Yes, I added a background behind the text window. It should ring alarm bells if you *don't* need something to distinguish a fairly midtone yellow from the background, IMHO.

Also, I'm not an artist, but showing darkness well is about having contrast: a bright moon, an open doorway or some light source. In the room above, you've actually handled it well. The light source is coming from the camera, and the player character looks like he's in relative darkness as a result. It's a shame that this was obscured by how dark the picture was.

[KyriakosCH]

^Thanks for the information! I will get right to examining how i can fix the issue

[Andail]

I always make sure to view my art on some other devices/monitors and in different light conditions just to be sure. iPads and mobile phones tend to have stronger contrasts and more black, for instance, often rendering the darkest nuances indistinguishable.

Look at your image on your phone, in another room, and see if it's still visible.

[Mandle]

Bit late to the party here, but yeah, the way it looked in Snarky's photo:

That's pretty much the way it looked like on my monitor as well...

And thanks also to Gurok for the valuable information of those light-balance tables, and the insights on contrast best being used to simulate darkness:

I remember the opening cutscene of Monkey Island doing that perfectly!