Crappy animations

[Haddas]

Hi!

I was wandering if anyone can help me with a problem I have conserning animations. I can draw characters but my animations suck! Especially my walking animations. I try very hard to make games, but it usually stops at the animations. Can anyone give me a hint or two about making walking cycles so it doesn't look like he owns brick-legs.

However... I am not completely useless, for I have made an animation of a face!...in agony!...Which, turns red

[Eggie]

Okay..I've been trying to get these things right for years and I still haven't fully succeeded. But I have obtained some knowledge off various wise people and experimentation that I can pass on.

Okay, firstly. Walk.

Just pace about your room a bit and get a 'feel' for it. Notice how your weight shifts and how your feet move.

Secondly. Look at some other walking animations, draw over the top of them. Study every frame.

Thirdly. Experiment, experiment, EXPERIMENT until you get it right. You'll never be perfect (I doubt any animator, evenj a pro, could say they were perfect. Just get it looking 'right' for the character)

Fourthly. Give up and steal all your sprites from old lucasarts games.  

[AndersM]

This is the simple (but well-working) walk-cycle I use for all my characters in my upcoming, still nameless game.
It migh look strange when seen like this,  but if you use  it with Movement speed 3 and animation speed 4 in AGS it looks just beautyfull. Feel free to steal the concept (I did) but please don't steal my character.  

[Evil]

I often use video of myself walking and take screenshots and trace. It works quite well if you dont have a freakish brick-leg walk...

[Haddas]

Yes. I don't have a webcam. So it don't be working for me.
but I'll take the picture and use it as a model for my character (who btw has 2 water cooled XZ8000MIs-2 legs)
PS. I hve inly ONCE stole sprites from Lucasarts. It's the dancing monkey. He's a cuuute little monkey, yes you are! Coochiecoochiecoo!

[MrColossal]

maybe my tutorials will help:

http://sylpher.com/kafka

go to games then tutorials and tell me if they help

eric

[Haddas]

Hmm...
I read the tutorials and they're great!
But... I have no talent whatsoever of making things move
example:
<----
Anyways, I have this Main character that needs criticism. His legs are supposed to be 2 watercooled XZ8000M-is2 legs. If ANYONE can get him moving, then I'd be thankful. Cuz when I do it.. It sucksch...
http://www.geocities.com/haddas88/Gameproject.html

[Andail]

Animating a character from scratch is a lot of work, so I'd prefer if you made an attempt yourself, and then the helpful people here could provide some advice and suggestions.
If you're never gonna do it yourself, you'd need people to do it for you every time which wouldn't work in the long run

[Haddas]

I HAVE done it. I just get frustrated when he moves like an epileptic gorilla in a fridge even after 3 hours of trying. I have no skill...

[loominous]

Skill comes with practise. 3 hours of practise means 3 hours of skill which means crappy result.

[Haddas]

yay!

[Haddas]

How do I turn off the anti-alias for everything, cuz it's not nice when the character has a pink outline in-game

[Evil]

For Photoshop?

[Haddas]

for Adobe Photoshop elements, yes

[Haddas]

Oh, never mind...
I figured it out. I just needed to say that the Demo of the Demo of the game is out. Yes, the demo of the demo. Just to see how you think of it. And as you'll see... The walking cycle Zsczsczzzzuchksch!

[InCreator]

um... walking in front of a large mirror helps a bit. But best way (I use it) is to experiment: first create a walking cycle for a stickman (sketch) and put him into a game.Then redraw it until you feel that you got it and walking is fine. Next step is to redraw stickman and best way is to open frame in PhotoShop or any other drawing proge that supports layers. Just create another layer for your stickman and draw "right" character over it (onto second layer). then you may erase the first one.
After all, good character doesn't need many colors - only if its anims are good. Remember the game "Another World" (a.k.a Out of this world ) or even Prince of Persia?

[Haddas]

 : I'll have to try the photoshop trick with stickfigures again. Last time I got so frustrated...****, **** frustrated.

For the moment my characters just do the moonwalk, but going forward.

[Anym]

O.K., this might sound stupid (and if it is, I apologize), but if you can't make walking animations, don't.

Use a main character that doesn't walk. It could be anything... a crawler-mounted robot, a floating ghost, a flying bird, a winged angel, a swimming fish, a kid on a skateboard, a commander on a pogo-stick, a guy in a wheelchair, etc.

Hmmmm, are there any adventure games like this?

[Erwin_Br]

Uh, you shouldn't give up or avoiding animation in your game. Practice, practice, practice!

--Erwin

[Haddas]

Yeah, In this game the main character would look stooped without animations, but I thought of that too...

I just love games with pogosticks;D