Indiana Jones Sprites

[Kaio]

Hi there, I've made a few Indiana Jones Sprites for a game project and just wantedtoknow, how I could improve them:

x3




I hope, someone will give me some feedback...so, what do you think?

[Afflict]

I think they are awesome post them at a larger size though like 3x so we can look at  them nicely

[Kaio]

thx Afflict!
edit: now bigger images 

[[Cameron]]

Well, the side and back views bob with movement, why not the front?

[mouthuvmine]

Yeah, the foward movement looks kinda eerie. And, not so much a critique, but will vomitting happen often in the game? I like all the animations outside of the foward one. his torso needs to do something.

[Kaio]

@ [Cameron]: Yeah..dunno why I didn't add that...lets try and see how it looks.
@mouthuvmine: The forward was my "problem-animation", too. I know what you mean, the torso looks quite static...anyways, the vomiting was more like for fun I guess  but in one scene hes supposed to vomit 

[Lt. Smash]

I too think that the torso should move with his arms and legs when walking forward.

Look at this:



You should make his body and head moving like the indy reference. Do you see how his body moves left and right/up and down and how yours stands still?
Also the jacket should move like you can see in the original indy.


He looks also a bit small when moving to the right and his left leg is too much to the right moving backwards.

The others are very good I have to say.
But how do you want to use the ones with gesture when Indy is talking? Do you have to make another view when indy is, for example, talking to somebody, while he points to the back or have you found a simplier solution(coding)?

Also it can happen that Indy moves away when taking something because his taking animation is larger than the others. So it is always wise when you create the animations which are the tallest and then keep that size of the image and the point where the char stands and draw with this source.
Like here:

[Khris]

It's no problem to have wider sprites mixed with normal ones as long as the sprite is always centered. (So the only anim that might jump would be the puking one so far.)

The sprites are really nicely drawn, only two minor issues:

-in the front view talking anims, the shadow of the hat is a bit to dark in some frames
-the bag's strap is a bit too wide. It's a WW I gas mask bag, btw. (reference)

Another thought:
If you plan to make that Indy game, why don't you make a fullscreen-Dig-interface version with bigger sprites?

[Kaio]

...how do you want to use the ones with gesture when Indy is talking? Do you have to make another view when indy is, for example, talking to somebody, while he points to the back or have you found a simplier solution(coding)?

Hmm...no, I thought about mixing up the animations (which shouldn't be so difficult) and place them in a new view. So that there would be a view where he gestures and one view where he gestures and talks and so on...But maybe there realy is a sollution by using some smart coding, but I'm not into AGS enaught to find it 
The image size issue: like KhrisMUC said, theres no problem, as long as the sprites are central of the picture. I tried it out and it works fine. I'll fix the walking animation, thanks for that example of the FoA-Indy Sprite!

-in the front view talking anims, the shadow of the hat is a bit to dark in some frames
-the bag's strap is a bit too wide. It's a WW I gas mask bag, btw.

Yeah, I know  I just wanted the strap to be "recognizeable" (spelled wrong I guess   ). Anyways the shadows of the hat should will be fixed soon.

Another thought:
If you plan to make that Indy game, why don't you make a fullscreen-Dig-interface version with bigger sprites?

Sorry, I don't realy understand what you mean...the games supposed to be classical 320*200 resolution. I hope thats what you meaned.
Anyways, thx to everyone who gave some helpfull hints!

[Khris]

The Dig uses 320x200, too, but unlike e.g. FoA with its nine-verb GUI taking up the lower quarter of the screen, the backgrounds use the full vertical 200 pixels.
Thus the characters could be drawn bigger.

A picture's worth a thousand words, so here's Indy modeled after Boston Low:


x3, 11 cols

[Babar]

Hahah...nice work, kaioshin. Looks like a younger, slightly less experienced(the character, not your art ) version of Indy, though- with the oversized looking jacket and exaggerated movements. Is that what you were aiming for?

[Saberteeth]

Looks to me like you took the Indy from LC, mixed him up with Indy from FoA, and this is the result. Don't get me wrong, the sprite still looks awesome. the only thing that bothers me is the 'waving' animation(nr. 6 left to right). He looks rather stiff and unnatural. I would suggest loosening him up a bit.

[Jens]

I agree with Saberteeth. I mostly see in it a FoA+FoY-animation-and-sprite-mixing. I'd have a moral problem with calling this "all been done by me, maybe they seem like rip-ups from the Indy-Adventures, but if you give it a closer look, you'll recognize them to be new and never seen before (and it was alot of work!)" (link) and posting it here.

[Babar]

the only thing that bothers me is the 'waving' animation(nr. 6 left to right). He looks rather stiff and unnatural. I would suggest loosening him up a bit.

I thought it was a 'trying to get a lift' animation, but checking the filename shows that it's just Indy pointing back.

[Hudders]

You've not posted any sprites showing Indy looking left.

Hopefully you've not fallen into the trap of assuming you could just flip him horizontally; the strap across his chest makes him asymmetrical so this wouldn't work.

[Lt. Smash]

You've not posted any sprites showing Indy looking left.

Hopefully you've not fallen into the trap of assuming you could just flip him horizontally; the strap across his chest makes him asymmetrical so this wouldn't work.

Also LucasArts has fallen into that trap so I don't bother although it can be a bit annoying:

[Jens]

I think by browsing the ressource-files I noticed that the soldiers (which were split up into like half a dozen of elements) actually had different side views (see: simplified imperial eagle on uniform (chest)).

[Kaio]

Hahah...nice work, kaioshin. Looks like a younger, slightly less experienced(the character, not your art ) version of Indy, though- with the oversized looking jacket and exaggerated movements. Is that what you were aiming for?

Well...yeah..kinda 

You've not posted any sprites showing Indy looking left.

Hopefully you've not fallen into the trap of assuming you could just flip him horizontally; the strap across his chest makes him asymmetrical so this wouldn't work.

The Dig uses 320x200, too, but unlike e.g. FoA with its nine-verb GUI taking up the lower quarter of the screen, the backgrounds use the full vertical 200 pixels.
Thus the characters could be drawn bigger.

Ahh, ok, now I see. But I'd like to keep it classical LucasArts-stylish. 

I agree with Saberteeth. I mostly see in it a FoA+FoY-animation-and-sprite-mixing. I'd have a moral problem with calling this "all been done by me, maybe they seem like rip-ups from the Indy-Adventures, but if you give it a closer look, you'll recognize them to be new and never seen before (and it was alot of work!)" (link) and posting it here.

Yeah, and I got a moral problem with someone who accuses me to be a liar, without realy doing some research. If you would have looked after the LC and FoA -animations, you would have seen, that I didn't do any copy and paste work, but realy drawn these by myself. It's sure that they look quite similar, but how should Indiana Jones look in an adventure game? There are not much possibilities...I mean, of course he looks like Indiana Jones and not like a big green Yeti  :...Anyways, I hope this dosn't sound to offensive to you, since my first language isn't english and I don't want to insult anyone!
greetings, Kaio

[Jens]

There's nothing wrong with getting inspirations from other game-sprites (and telling so).

Now to the "research" you asked for - here are some examples:


FoA / LC / your mix


FoY / FoA / yours


FoA / yours


FoA / yours

Edit: Oh and as you wanted criticism: the last frame of your crossing-arms-animation is too much out of proportions (compare head/torso/arms to the legs). Also the right arm is not okay. Corresponding to the hands it should be in front of the left one. It also misses a distinction between the shoulder, upper arm and underarm, thus looks anatomically wrong.

[Saberteeth]

I also noticed the right arm is not in front of the left one. Here's how it should look like(or atleast how I'd make it):




I didn't fix the other stuff since I didn't see Jens' later edit.