character design EDIT: Walking cycle

[intermalte]

My new character in a talking-animation.
I developed it by doing some sketches, made a 3d model and rendered it.  This makes it easier to get all the views. And it fits to the type of character I think. But it feels like cheating somehow.

What do you think about it? A cute little guy?

EDIT

Here comes a background. Does it fit with the character? What do you think about it? May this be a style for a game or is it to stylish at all?



(and: yes, I'm working on the walking cycle but this make take some time...)

EDIT
ok.
This is (after a long time) the walking cycle. I can post the other directions but they look (despite the shadows) the same.
I had to deal with short legs without knees, so the body has to lift the legs and the eyes go up and down.
The cycle is faster in the game and the resolution is better. I want to know if the motion looks ok.

[pmprog]

That looks pretty cool! Although I don't think that shadow on it's chest relects the movement of the mouth properly.

Did you manually do the shadow or let the 3D app do the shadow?

[intermalte]

The shadow is made by the 3d program so it should be correct.  Maybe I should turn this off and add shadows by hand? I don't know if this looks better. I like the shadows because they help to get an Idea of the shape of this guy. Or I push the light source a little more in front. Maybe the shadows are to hard...?

[Evil]

Yes, the shadows do look off, but they are fine in my opnion. I would be interested to see walk animations. That may prove to be difficult.

[pmprog]

I would think that a computer would be better at predicting shadows than myself  but it was the thing that stood out to me.

I too would be interesting in seeing a walk anim...

[intermalte]

The walking cycle is difficult. It seems that the whole body has to move, otherwise the legs are too short to let the character move fast enough. This will take some more time I think, and some more thinking too.

[Russtaccio]

I really dig the background but the big red arrow is bothering me.  It seems to take away from the rest of the room.  Unless there's a hidden agenda behind it, I'd say drop it like 3rd period math class.  Sometimes less is more.   What 3D program are you using to animate that guy in?  It seems like it would be difficult to animate his legs without having to lengthen and shorten them as they move because he has no hip bone, therefore no pivot points for his legs to bend at.  In essence, if it were real, the legs wouldn't be able to bend at the waist.

[intermalte]

I'm working with Corel Dream 3d 8.0, So I have to construct each part of the walking cycle by myself anyway.

This is the room without the red arrow.



Is it too empty now? I didn't think about using the arrow as part of a puzzle or something like that, but it is a good idea.

[Oliver]

That looks mighty good!
Those white things on the wall are "doors" to another room? Right?
Those seem a bit odd at the moment. Other than that, it looks great.

[Pft!]

The main character needs a shadow.

[intermalte]

That's right, but the problems with shadows is, that I can't add a shadow to the sprite without getting strange effects when the shadow falls on something different than the floor.
How can I solve this problem? Different types of shadows correlating to different areas? This will be work for years I think.

The white things are light pillars, as if a plastic pillar is illuminated from the inside. The one on the right is in the front so it will be a walk behind.

[stuh505]

If the floor weren't so reflective, the character would not need a shadow so much. 

I think the 3d works with the drawing, but I don't really like your character design too much.

If he has arms, why doesn't he have hands?  Does he just walk around wacking things with those balls?

His arms have no elbows, his legs have no knees.  His legs are quite short and his feet are quite small.  How does he walk and maintain balance?

Is he a robot or an alien?  If he's an alien, I think he needs to be a lot more organic and not use primitive shapes.

But he doesn't really look like a robot either...

[intermalte]

So from this point of view it would be better to use the room version with the big red arrow because there is not much reflective floor left...

I wanted to generate characters using simple shapes. When I worked on the room, I tried to do it in the same way first but then it looked totally sterile and I changed the style.

He's not an alien or a robot - he's just a little guy made up of simple shapes. The other characters in his world will be made up of simple shapes too although they will look totally different.
Giving him hands would break the style. Is it so important? In other adventures charcters have hands but you never see them grabbing anything.

[Vespr]

Perhaps you could just put a rug on the floor to reduce the reflections.

Making the floor less shiny would help your character blend in more. For example, the reflection of the green shelf is a good balance between extremely detailed reflection and none at all. The fireplace's reflection needs to be toned down much more and have its detail reduced as it currently dominates the room. 


I think the character's cute, btw.

[Ali]

To solve the issues with the shadow on your fella's chest you could simulate a soft box light by putting a grid of weak point lights in front of your character. That should diffuse the shadow and give something of the look of global illumination.

The bg is very nice and the character blends in surprisingly well, but I agree with many of the other comments that a matte floor might look better.

[intermalte]

Thanks for all those tips and hints.
The Problem is that diffuse light makes it hard, to seperate the upper and lower part of the mouth due to smaller contrast.

I added a walking cycle at the first post.

[Erwin_Br]

I think people are going to have a hard time identifying themselves with your character. From an artistic point of view, there's nothing wrong with your character, but one of the things you'll need to know about games is that the player needs to feel connected with the protagonist.

I'd advise you to read some theories on adventure game design

--Erwin

[stuh505]

Erwin, who wants to play as a big-nosed doofus? 

[DCillusion]

I think stuh505 makes a great, although hidden, point at Erwin's remark.  People don't associate with a character's look as much as they do the ordeals the character's faced with and how the character reacts.

My 4-year-old loves to pretend she's Blue from Blue's Clues.  My daughter's not a blue dog with a species-identity crisis, but she relates to the experiences the dog has.  She and her friends also love Kirby.  He's a pink marshmellow who only seems to have hands, or arms for that matter, when the animators need him to grab something.  Anyone who doesn't think characters made of primitive shapes are well received should watch a popular kids television show called Rollie Pollie Ollie

As far as character shadowing, it's almost impossible to do in AGS, (it would have to be room by room or straight down).  You should take the advise to lessen the reflectiveness of the floor.

[intermalte]

I tried to make an interesting character - something different. The world looks somehow different too. And I can identify with this little guy :-)

I made the floor less reflective and kept the red-arrow carpet.
I can post the last version if someone is interested in it.
The room I created after this one has no reflective floor.
The problem with the character-shadows remains. But maybe it's not such a big deal. I don't want a flat black shadow at the characters feet and I don't want a pattern for half-shadow-illusion cause it looks strange.

What about the walking cycle?