Hi there, I've made a few Indiana Jones Sprites for a game project and just wantedtoknow, how I could improve them:
x3
(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Indyback.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Indyforward.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Indyright.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Indyrotate.gif)
(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Talkright.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Talkfront.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Talkback.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Indycrossarms.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Indytiphat.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Indypointingback.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Indysuspicious.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Indydunno.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/eugh.gif)
I hope, someone will give me some feedback...so, what do you think?
I think they are awesome post them at a larger size though like 3x so we can look at them nicely ;)
thx Afflict!
edit: now bigger images ;D
Well, the side and back views bob with movement, why not the front?
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.
@ [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 ;D but in one scene hes supposed to vomit ;)
I too think that the torso should move with his arms and legs when walking forward.
Look at this:
(http://666kb.com/i/aq4r2m62oqzm3tce2.gif)(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/Indyforward.gif)
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:
(http://666kb.com/i/aq4s4j362cv2plxq2.gif)
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 (http://images.bol.de/images-adb/8c/1c/8c1c186c-7a44-4cdc-a0bd-e9ab17ff1120.jpg))
Another thought:
If you plan to make that Indy game, why don't you make a fullscreen-Dig-interface version with bigger sprites?
Quote from: Lt. Smash on Tue 17/07/2007 09:49:11
...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 ;D
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!
Quote from: KhrisMUC on Tue 17/07/2007 10:50:33
-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 :D I just wanted the strap to be "recognizeable" (spelled wrong I guess :-\). Anyways the shadows of the hat should will be fixed soon.
Quote from: KhrisMUC on Tue 17/07/2007 10:50:33
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!
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:
(http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/3748/bostonindyhi1.gif)
x3, 11 cols
Hahah...nice work, kaioshin. Looks like a younger, slightly less experienced(the character, not your art ;D) version of Indy, though- with the oversized looking jacket and exaggerated movements. Is that what you were aiming for?
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.
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 (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=31863.0)) and posting it here.
Quote from: Saberteeth on Tue 17/07/2007 12:35:04
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.
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.
Quote from: Hudders on Tue 17/07/2007 13:12:52
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:
(http://666kb.com/i/aq4xs5sn3ar6vl43e.png)
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)).
Quote from: Babar on Tue 17/07/2007 11:56:25
Hahah...nice work, kaioshin. Looks like a younger, slightly less experienced(the character, not your art ;D) version of Indy, though- with the oversized looking jacket and exaggerated movements. Is that what you were aiming for?
Well...yeah..kinda ;D
Quote from: Hudders on Tue 17/07/2007 13:12:52
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.
(http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a147/kaio89/left.jpg)
;)
Quote from: KhrisMUC on Tue 17/07/2007 11:47:07
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. :=
Quote from: Jens on Tue 17/07/2007 12:50:36
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 (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=31863.0)) 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
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:
(http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z76/8orbg4/indyheads.jpg)
FoA / LC / your mix
(http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z76/8orbg4/foy-indy-talk.jpg) (http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z76/8orbg4/foa-indy-talk.jpg) (http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z76/8orbg4/mix-indy-talk.jpg)
FoY / FoA / yours
(http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z76/8orbg4/Indydunno-original.gif) (http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z76/8orbg4/Indydunnob.gif)
FoA / yours
(http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z76/8orbg4/Indycrossarms-original2.gif) (http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z76/8orbg4/Indycrossarms2.gif)
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.
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):
(http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/7752/indycrossarms3un1.png)
(http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/7752/indycrossarms3un1.png)
I didn't fix the other stuff since I didn't see Jens' later edit.
All lovely, just one thing: (besides the other things mentioned)
I know lucasarts' talking anims always make the heads lean back a bit, but in yours he appears to be totally disconnected his neck. Maybe just make this a little less exaggerated?
Again, apart from that I think you have done a good job. Can't wait until someone makes Indy look drastically different though, or draws him in a completely different style.
@ Saberteeth the pic doesn't load (Well for me anyway)
@ kaioshin
Indi feels top heavy to me, his body is as long or longer than his legs... Also some of the animations it seems that this gets worse some have long legs some have short legs etc.
I will now review each animation in order from the original post :P I might be harsh so don't read further if you don't want crit. (By posting here I assume you want it :P )
Walk up : It feels like indy is not walking hes pacing, hes arms feel out of sync with his legs and his jacket feels cut off, it also looks like his left butt cheek is filled with some weird silicone ;)
Walk Down : Feels smoother than the walk up and also slower, his body is static which makes the whole animation feel fake. It also feels like indi is shrinking since the Walk up animation seems to be bigger than the down. (I would rather have a bigger down than up.
Walk Right : Indi is seriously getting smaller, in this view his jacket is also longer, he si very top heavy imo. Hes legs really seem very short. and when the legs are fully extended it looks like he has elf shoes on.
Rotate: This looks bad without up right and up left positions.
Talking 3/4 : the body is too static no one stand that still ever. Notice the Jacket length.
Talking Down : Body is too still again. Notice the jacket just got shorter.
Talk up ? : Feels like hes bopping his head up and down, or hitting it against the wall. Its way too fast. I don't like the legs at all in this one. it seems odd. Notice the jacket is really short and cut off here.
Arm Cross : As mentioned by Jens the arms are too narrow, I also feel that the jacket pull up should extend a further pixel from the lowest part since this stays static while the other part pulls up. (It should move too in fact more than the back imo)
Hat Adjustment : The jacket feels unnatural at the bottom part here, make it also animate with the up down tugs to the hat. (Add frames to the bottom part of the jacket)
Thumb point over shoulder ? : This is too fast, pace down the animation with an extra frame or two. Timing is crucial in animation (take note of this for all the other animations too)
Hands on hips ? : I would suggest making this more fist like cause it looks weird with his hands out like that. I have no idea what your trying to achieve here. But really go for fists on the hips. Unless its made for a specific comedy part of the game.
What? : So hes like "what?" ;) Anyway the jacket is static with all that arm movement.. this should not be happening.
General : Indy has a leather jacket not some lounge jacket, so the rounded off parts that look like a blazer or suit jacket should really not be happening. Reference FOA for more accurate reference on the jacket.
Also I noticed now with your sprites & FoY (Which I haven't really looked at yet) that the arms are on the sides with no spaces in them, notice how awesome FOA looked with the spaces between the arms and body, indy has real "attitude" here when he looks like a choir boy with his arms directly onto his sides he looks like a indy wannabe. The posture I think will be crucial to the believable indy character, along with witty and intellectual dialog's etc.
I wish you luck in all your efforts to create a great game, some final ideas/advice is to get the animations and character gfx down so they blend well with your BG's so remember that your character art needs to compliment your BG and visa versa, you cant have a FoA character and a lc bg.
Bg's take long to make so be wise about the decision & the volume of work.
Enjoy & goodluck, your off to a great start.
Afflict.
to Afflict:
Wow! Thank you for taking so much time to give me helpfull hints! All the things you mentioned are right, and I'll try to fix most of them. The speed of the animations btw isn't the ingame-animation speed, I just got a lousy gif-animating-program, where you can't control how long a frame appears, and so the animations with less frames seem to be to fast (which won't be case ingame). Thanks, again,
Kaioshin
It's a pleasure kaioshin. I usually animate in layers within my graphics program. Then I use a free ware gif maker program where I add the individually saved frames and then alter the timing etc. I found it the best way to animate :P
Probably the long way round ???
Quote from: markbilly on Fri 20/07/2007 22:26:28
Can't wait until someone makes Indy look drastically different though, or draws him in a completely different style.
Wikipedia says that the cancelled Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix had art deco style characters, anyone know if any screenshots exist?
Kaioshin: My comment on your sprites would be that when Indy stands side-on his face is the same as when he is facing the screen, so he looks like he is looking at the player while he's pointing behind him, has his hands on his hips, throws up etc. Maybe that's intentional but it does kind of break the fourth wall...
http://www.mixnmojo.com/galleries/gallery.php?gallery=348&image=4474&goback=http://www.mixnmojo.com/php/site/gamedb.php?gameid=39
Some concept art only I think. :P
Thank you for that link! It's somehow cool to see concept-art of another official Indy-adventure (even if it has been cancelled long ago).
btw - does the sign at the train station show greek letters (like the omega)? From the environment (city outside + soviet union logo) I would have expected the cyrillic alphabet. Not sure about it though.
Here's the official link to the original artists site. There is some rough sketches next to those already seen concepts :P
Nothing to new though, hes other work is also pretty good.