Walk-ish Cycle

[twentyfour]

Doing up some work on another character for my yet to be named project.



You can tell this guy is more important than the last guys I posted because he's gonna have a walk(slither?) cycle.

I tried out a proper snake slither earlier but the silhouette was crap. What I have up above was another idea that popped into my head while banging it on my keyboard(works better than you'd think, try it sometime!). Does it work? What do you guys think? I'm gonna tinker a bit more and maybe test it out in a half empty(or half full if you think like that) room and see how it looks going from point A to B.

[monkey0506]

I think it would be very beneficial to see how it would actually look in-game, that is, actually moving across the screen.

A slither-cycle is a bit harder to place than a standard walk-cycle, but just at a rough glance I'd say it looks pretty good.

[MoodyBlues]

Skull... snake... thing...  Whaaah?  You have me intrigued!

The slither cycle looks good so far.  It wouldn't hurt if his head had a little more recoil, but that's a stylistic choice.

Your style is great; can't wait to see a whole game like this.

[Fedx]

I think it's really good! But remember, he will have to stop when he recoils and move when he stretches, I don't know if you can do it with AGS, I think it will keep moving

[SpacePaw]

I think it's really good! But remember, he will have to stop when he recoils and move when he stretches, I don't know if you can do it with AGS, I think it will keep moving

With some scriptinhg everything is possible

[DoUn2u]

Just a thought, but would the snake's head move back towards its body like that? Wouldn't the head move forward, then the body follow? We don't have any snakes where I live, so I wouldn't know, but it looks a bit like he is stretching and then shrinking back rather than moving forward.
Hope that makes some sort of sense!


-- Actually, just looking at him again, I reckon the above suggestions would probably fix this.

[JimmyShelter]

Just a thought, but would the snake's head move back towards its body like that? Wouldn't the head move forward, then the body follow? We don't have any snakes where I live, so I wouldn't know, but it looks a bit like he is stretching and then shrinking back rather than moving forward.
Hope that makes some sort of sense!

Yes, he would, but he's now walking in place. To really judge the animation, we should see him move across a screen.

[Snarky]

I think it's really good! But remember, he will have to stop when he recoils and move when he stretches, I don't know if you can do it with AGS, I think it will keep moving

That's easy. It's just a matter of offsetting the sprite the appropriate amount in each frame.

[twentyfour]

Thanks for the responses!

In my head the movement is being initiated by the little hill in the centre. When it squashes down it pushes out both ends so I added a bit of drag on the head/neck and tail areas and the same for the upward movement of it. I'm tinkering with it in game to see if I can get him to move in pieces rather than one big slidey move. That's kind of the down side of this type of moving. I had a couple other ideas but they don't look as nice in my head(continuous wave, modified version of the inchworm walk).

The goal is to have him move closer to this

DoUn2u - Yea, snakes tend to lead with their head when moving. The forward push comes from their body creating a wave shape and constantly cycling in the opposite direction they are heading. You can kinda see it in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT4aN-Jojuo
But this is a cartoon, I think as long as the movement makes some sort of sense it's fine.

With some scriptinhg everything is possible

I hope so 

EDIT: Oooh, how do you mean Snarky? Like repositioning him in each frame of anim?

[Misj']

   

    With some scriptinhg everything is possible
   

I hope so 

EDIT: Oooh, how do you mean Snarky? Like repositioning him in each frame of anim?

While I do not consider it the most elegant solution (although quite possibly the only one available to AGS), the method is explained in this thread. I haven't tested it myself, so I don't know how well it will work (particularly with high-res images)

In my head the movement is being initiated by the little hill in the centre. When it squashes down it pushes out both ends so I added a bit of drag on the head/neck and tail areas and the same for the upward movement of it.

It could be a matter of taste (and in theory it shouldn't affect the end-result), but in this particular case I feel that the animation is easier to plan from the 'strechted' pose than from the 'squashed' pose, where the movement is initiated by creating the hill (squashing) rather than removing the hill (stretching). As I said...it doesn't have to affect the end-result, just the planning-stage of the animation.

Another thing is, that your movement is more or less like an accordion. This is not by definition bad...it depends on the anatomy of the character. In this case it looks a little like Moe's skeleton is created from 8 bones (neck, upper-body, and tail included). This creates a quite rigid structure...which is ok, since it fits well with the skull-like face. On the other hand, the snake-like body suggests a more fluid-motion, where most of the body is dynamic.

Below I have two (quick) stick-figure-animations and an overview to an indication what I mean (I've also added some more up-down head-movement):





I had the wave in his body pull the tale forward during the squash-motion, and then push the head forward during the stretch-motion.

The choice between using the accordion or a wave depends largely on the character...and your artistic direction. If he's more rigid with a clear sense of direction (and possibly sarcasm) then the accordion fits better, if he's more sneaky, manipulative, and character-wise 'slithery' (and possibly uses irony rather than sarcasm), then the wave would probably fit him better.

Misj'

Ps. On a side-note...I think your stretch-pose is held a bit too long without any movement in the body (just the head)...again, just my personal taste.
Pps. In the moving animation I think he moves too much during the stretch-poses, causing him to slide rather than move actively.
Ppps. My apologies for the size of the images...I didn't have time to correct them.

[twentyfour]

Ah Misj, how I <3 thee, let me count the ways...

Great examples! I know exactly what you were trying to get across. Snakey-dude(or Moe as you figured out) is more of an analytical jerk than a sneaky guy. His angular look is less due to bones and more due to me having the design of Jafar from Disney's Aladdin stuck in my head(high prominent forehead/turban, pointy curves, lean, and the classic badguy colours.. except I chose green instead of black and purple). I think I'll be sticking with the accordian style for now though.

I was tinkering with the slither cycle and fixed up the distance travelled(I had shrunk the character but not the distance while tinkering earlier) and fiddled with the timing a bit more when he's stretched out. I don't know if I updated the file to that version yet.

I'm a bit concerned now with the distance he travels, seems a bit short. I'll haveta bring him in game now and see if it looks okay... that and see if using this for 3/4 walks is murderously bad. I'd rather not make 5 walk cycles for a bunch of characters when I can settle for 3.

I'll be experimenting with the info from that link you posted.