Animation Troubles on Background ...

[buloght]

Hi, I don't post here often. Anyways I was hoping for some feedback on the animation.
- the torches: is it fine, too subtle, too harsh?
- and I cannot seem to get the stream (water under bridge) properly animated, any ideas or advice appreciated. I will attempt to animate the stream for the umpteenth time, grrr. (it's not animated in this image below)

This is for a game I am working on (I am very busy thesedays, so I rarely work on it). It's a full out pixel art game, and it involves barbarians. Here is animated and still version, as well as main dude sprite. It's a scrolling room, so kinda wide (plays in 320x144 like MI). (the room is at fullspeed at 2x on my pc, so if it's slow on your side sorry )

(2x)


UNANIMATED room version

(2x)

[Ghost]

The location looks very well done and carefully planned. I like the colour palette, though it could be a bit more saturated- but that's a matter of style. The animated torches are a great addition, and their light reflecting from the objects is a subtle yet great effect- I wouldn't change them, maybe just adding a more "global light" to the ground.

Animating water is trouble  But since this looks a bit like a swamp location, the water's probably still, and you can get away with adding a few pixels shifting from light to darker colour?

The "dude" looks great too. Perfect fit for the background style, and I like the Conan-forehead.

You should be proud of that art, friend, it's great! How DO you guys pixel your backgrounds so well?

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I ended up spending more time on making the light shading more dynamic and interesting than I did on the river.  Both are rough but should give you some ideas.

1.  Added 2 frames.

2.  Relit the left trees based on the position of the left torch flame.

3.  Removed some clutter from the river design to make it look more like water (it looked like a tree to me at first).

4.  Animated the river.



The main thing I did here was make the lighting change based on the position of the torch flame, and since you've gone to such effort with the background it's a waste not to make the fire effect look more dynamic.  I also quickly edited out some of the rocks from the river because they made it look confusing to my eye and animated it.  Both are rough but should give you some ideas.  Nice background!

[Krysis]

Well, I know this sounds crazy, but you could add some movement on the branches or leaves.

[cobra79]

Fantastic background.
ProgZmax's river is very nice, but imho you should keep your fire lighting. ProgZ's version seems too exaggerated and because of it's circle motion reminds me of a police car light.

[R4L]

Holy moly!  :o

The torches could use a another frame or two, IMO.

Also, Prog's river looks awesome! I agree with Krysis; crazy as it may seem, maybe some branches could sway?

[Evil]

Progz' river looks good, a little too fast flowing. The lighting looks good too it just moves too far. Looks more like a swaying lantern than a torch. Your version isn't awful, just needs a little more.

As for your background, it looks great. So does the character. Swaying branches would be nice, but I really get a feel for this background. I can almost hear the character walking on the path.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

The river/torch animation is just an animation speed issue.  I didn't touch the original animation speed but a 20-40ms increase would probably look more natural, though it may be necessary to increase the frame count to 8 to keep the animation from looking blocky.  Also, torchlight does produce a rather spherical light distribution and the back/forth motion is also seen with a torch in an exterior environment exposed to wind.  Torches inside buildings will produce light more static than this and therefore be less interesting to look at, just something to bear in mind.

[buloght]

Hey, thanks for that progz, it helps a lot. The river epsecially, I'll try again now with your reference animation. You almost make want to add lanterns haha.

As crazy as it sound, haha, I thought about making the branches sway, but I thought maybe that's a little too much. But if you guys say it, its worth a try

Thanks guys. 

[Stupot]

Lovely BG.
Progs river paintover is class, keep it in.
The flames look okay and the glowing is grand, but personally I would make them ever-so-slightly larger and add one or two more shades of red/orange/yellow to make them more dynamic.

Cant wait to see this in a game.

As for the dood.  He's perfect.  Good job.

[buloght]

Thanks stupot I agree on your points as well.

I have attempted to animate the flames better but it really comes out sucky, it's getting irritating, I'm doing it over so many times, maybe I am rushing it. I really don't animate well yet, I'm gonna have to go back an practise my animation before I can use it in games. I'll update this thread once I've improved, and only then I can continue this game. grrr (or I could just hire progzmax haha, but I don't do commercial, so still a no go there haha) I know this room (as any room) can have so much more athmosphere and life with great animation so I'll have to try harder.

Thanks for the help all.

progz: I like how you improved the flame itself, I'm trying to figure it out still haha.

[Ali]

This is a gorgeous backgrop. I love the desaturated colours and the way you can half see hatching in the shading. The thing I would most like to see with this image is a parralax effect with the foreground objects. That could look amazing.

I'm aware that this edit is less skillful in terms of pixel-pushing than both the original and ProgZmax's paintover, but I wanted to show roughly how I felt the river ought to look:



I felt it ought to reflect the sky from this angle, and so be a lot lighter. I felt the lines following the direction of flow created the appearance of rapids and of the river bending down towards the camera. I tried to use horizontal lines to get the sense of a more gentle rippling flow. It's very rough and only has four frames, but I think a polished version would be more inkeeping with the atmosphere.

[MashPotato]

Beautiful background, Buloght
I really like the lighting effect of the torches on the original... the impression I get from this scene is that it's misty and still--a "dead" environment (appropriate for a cemetery ).  So while ProgZ's torch effects are great in of themselves, to me there seems to be too much movement and range for this particular background.  The subtlety of the originals helps create the sense of the scene being dark, and only dimly lit as the torch light is lost in mist.
Great work so far, good luck animating the river

EDIT: Ali posted while I was typing this... I really like the effect of that river

[Darth Mandarb]

Incredible mood ...

I like ProgZ's lighting "style" better, but I prefer the more subtle effect of the original.  Hard to explain what I mean ... I like how it lights, but not how much.  Does that make sense?

Ali's river animation is top-notch (if a bit too fast).

Now ... about the bg:

If I'm being [very] nit-picky, the ONLY part that caught my eye were the first layer of "leafy" trees.  They seem too hard-lined around their edges.  Maybe just add some random leafy protrusions to break-up the edges of them?  Though that's just a nit-pick.  The image is beautiful.

[buloght]

Thanks for all the help guys (and nice comments ), this is proving extremely useful. The thing about the flames is, if I can fully nail it here and get it it's great, because a lot of rooms requires torches and lights, sometimes underground, so it's helping a lot.

The room is supposed to be a misty cemetery, daylight time, but very dark, so the lights is dim, like mash mentioned. Right now I am leaning towards doing something like progz did on a very smaller scale less extreme, more subtle, but still with how the light moves. If there is no wind (I haven't decided) then the flames need to be still with not so much light swinging-type lantern movement, but there must be a little at least, like darth mentioned

ali : Your image doesn't show from what you say I think it will help a lot.

I will update soon.

You should be proud of that art, friend, it's great! How DO you guys pixel your backgrounds so well?

I don't know about well haha, but I certainly find pixelling a lot of fun, it has certain charm, however sometimes I wonder if just going digital won't be better (not to mention faster) and better results. Either way, I guess pixel art is all I know at this point so I don't have much choice

[Afflict]

Buloght that is indeed a masterpiece. I will suggest one or two extra frames for the fire.

ProgZ as per usual did an amazing job especially on the river but always exaggerates the effects Especially the fire this time. But I think he does that for people to learn form it which is awesome I love the way he animated it.
(I personally will study how he did these cause its very well done)

I really cant wait to see these pics in the game, I like the idea of animating some branch / leaf movement altough it might push it over the top.

Anyway my main concern is the lighting on the character wont be possible. which might look weird.

But yeah back on topic my suggestion is purely to add some more frames to the fire animation, and keep the lighting out of the characters walk way, so that it makes sense that its not falling on him.

You did a awesome job of keeping it out of the characters way Buloght.

[buloght]

Hi afflict I just posted while you posted. I now have 12 frames on the fire, I will shade it next (it's only basic form right now). I studied fire a little looking at fire gifs, and understand it better now, and it seems to be the rising of fireballs which brakes out ontop (or something like that). Is it too fierce now? It's at its brightest color, I'll be shading in the darker tones on the fire, so it'll look sligjtly smaller then.



I will get a workin on the surroundings next.

afflict: Thanks I will use highlighting on the character, and de-highlighting areas where he walks.

(for some reason I feel guilty using the same flame on two torches (two front ones, even if they are so far away, not entirely screensize though)

But I think he does that for people to learn form it which is awesome I love the way he animated it.

I also gathered that actually, I think he intentionally overdoes it to better illustrate his points. It helps me.

You absolutely nailed that flame, B Smiley

thanks mash but it's not that great a feat, I googled fire gifs to guide me,  should've done it from the start.

[edit] Ali that water animation is amazing, I hope you don't mind me using a large part of it as reference in mine (I just saw it, someone saved it for me, the link is still broken to me)

[MashPotato]

You absolutely nailed that flame, B

[Evil]

Yeah, that flame is sweet. But for an animation that will repeat that frequently, I would suggest making the "fireball" that rises to the top a bit smaller. I have no doubt that a flame would do that, even more so if it was like an explosion or something, but that big ball goes up and then it just stops. Very cool looking though. I'd love to see you try, like, a river of fire, or something. Lava flows with flames popping up randomly.

[Stefano]

Wow Buloght! That's quite an impressive bg!
I haven't been around in a while and look how much you managed to improve! Astonishing.