Animated character looking surprised then sighing/groaning.

[Jayel]

Another test character animation done with my software.  again copy& paste isn't fully functional, so the lines seem wobbly most of the time..
Any criticism and comment would be appreciated!

ps.  I tried loading this animation into AGS, and noticed I have to import individual PCX files as opposed to selecting a whole bunch of files.  I find that a bit time consuming.  Is there another way to load long animations?

[BOYD1981]

that's a pretty damn good animation you've made yourself there, the only thing wrong with it i can see is the way his hair moves back when he brushes it back, it kinda looks like it's springing back... i love that wobbly style, it makes things seem more alive

[12431]

you're good! how did you create that anim.?

[Chicky]

sweet,

really nice animation , the only prob is that i cant sew what it is he is doing. Is he ducking somthing then checking to see wether its been thrown?

-a chicken

[TheDude]

really nice animation , the only prob is that i cant sew what it is he is doing. Is he ducking somthing then checking to see wether its been thrown?

Topic: Animated character looking surprised then sighing/groaning. :P

[Cerulean]

A sort of a "Wait not THAT button-- D'oh. Well, crap."

[Scummbuddy]

His arms get really thin at the beginning, and I think that detracts from the beauty of this art.

[Jayel]

Thank you all for your c&c

Scummyb: I'll be sure to fix the arms.

Cerulean: I was imagining my cat knocking over a vase when I was making the animation, but I think your description is more fitting.

12431: I drew extreme poses first, then started filling in-betweens whereever necessary until the timing started to seem right.

Anyway, heres a screenshot of the program in case anyone is interested.  I opened the same file twice so I can display the onion-skinning feature and the final look at the same time.

[MrColossal]

i think the extreme positions are too noticeable

maybe it's just me but it's like there are 3 times when i can imagine that is where the extremes are and all action seems to stop for a little too long

the flow is interrupted

also [it doesn't bother me in the slightest but just pointing out] his legs morph from fat to thin to fat and his feet kinda slide around towards the end

just letting you know

i enjoy it muchly

eric

[jason]

Another great animation! I like this one much better than the first.

Jayel: Your app looks sweet... any chance us AGSers might get a demo or something?  8)

[Moresco]

Right on! Heh, but it looks like his hair almost comes clear off for a second.  Maybe the lift goes too far, you could try shortening it, it's all up to you though.  The scrawnyness of his arms etc...I like that alot.  If he's supposed to be scrawny.  I dig that scrawny limbs style in the animation.

Yah yah, the app looks sweet, I want one! ^^

[Evil]

Wow, I cant wait for it to be finished. These are amazing animations. The program looks a bit like photoshop 3 and 16 colors combined... Looks promissing...

[Jayel]

MrColossal: You're right - though it was in a deliberate attempt to emphasize his expressions a bit more clearly.  I wish I could do it without breaking the flow of motion, but I'm not that good an animator ...yet.   ;)

Evil: heh, that's not surprising because I tried to model it closely after Photoshop.  A lot of little useful UI-related features in PS are also available in my software, such as
Space Bar for scrolling
Alt key for eyedropper
Tab key for hiding pop-up windows
etc.

Thank you once again for your input.
My program will be freely available once it's done (within few months hopefully).  I'm hoping that many AGS users will find it useful.

[Scummbuddy]

Woa, woa, woa! This is your[/i] program!  Could you please do us allll a favor and put your game and your animations on hold and just finish the program.     I mean, don't be selfish.  

No, really, I'm positive this would be a great inclusion for 90 percent of all AGSers to be using along with their game.  Being able to see your animatoins is one of the things I miss most with the Windows version of AGS.  But, I do say, that there have been advances in the Windows version that I would never give up.

[ravenfusion]

Yeah, i'd love to use the program. Seems like a really nice interface and if it doesn't take years to load like PS6, then that's another benefit.

It'd probably be nice if CJ would put in a little preview next to the loops...but we will just have to wait it out until then. heh.

[dagooh]

Nice!, I really like the wobbly style, it reminds me of Dr. Katz, you should keep that!
I've never seen an adventure with that style, you can be the first!  
anyways, great work, on the animation and on the software

[Igor]

Fantastic- great animation and your program looks really nice too.
I must say i like a bit extreme poses. Bravo!

[Evil]

I just realized, is there going to be an AA feature? An AA feature would be so much help. Do you plan on selling this program? I would be plenty happy to buy it.

Edit: Oops, missed the freely avalable part. I would still pay for it though...

[Jayel]

Thank you for your comments!
Keiko: on my p233 loading time is... well about 1 second.
On a side note, I spent a lot of time optimizing the drawing algorithms so it runs reasonably well even on old pentiums.  Originally it crawled on my P4-2.0ghz (especially with  onionskinning)

Evil: sadly, no.  I thought about it, and I decided to go with 50% resize option (just an option) with bilinear filtering instead.  It's much like supersampling AA algorithm 3D apps use.  The downside of it is that:
1. you have to draw at 200% of the intended sprite size
2. since intermediate colours are picked from the palette, your palette must have good range of colours for a nicer result.

Plus side is that with my program, transparent (ie colour key) areas are taken into consideration when being filtered, so you don't get colour key ghosting effect you'd typically get when you resize your sprites in, say, photoshop or paintshop pro.

example:
(original)


size-reduced and filtered (right one is from my software):


How they may look against a game background:

[Evil]

Better then none at all I guess. Another thing that may come in handy that I didnt notice is a magic wand tool. That may be nice. Another good thing would be a bar snap-to option, but it isnt a real need, just maybe something nice to have...