Need help and critiques on a male character sprite *New and Improved Animations*

Tenacious Stu · Mon 17/01/2011 12:07:26

Hi guys, I'm trying hard to improve my character sprites and I feel as though this attempt is a lot better than my
last one , but I'm not 100% yet. Here are areas that I am concerned with:

Jacket Detail - I added some detail to the Jacket, but does it work?

Front view head & Rear view head - The front face doesn't look right to me and I'm not too sure about the hair on the rear view.

I feel as though I suck at shading, does the shading look/feel right?

Anything anyone can point out or give tips on will be a great help, thank you.

R4L · Tue 18/01/2011 05:12:47

The diagonal view is superior. It's pretty spot on, except the feet. It looks like he's on his tippie toes.

The problems I see with the front and back view are the pants and the character's feet. On the back view, they appear to be bent inward, like he's standing on his ankles, while the the front view appears to be standing on it's tip toes.

Also, I can't put my finger on it, but his head seems a little bit too small for his body. It only really gets me on the front and back views. Like I said, the diagonal view is superior.

Matti · Wed 19/01/2011 17:14:15

The feet and the shoulders are the main problem I think. And I don't know if it's on purpose but while the legs and head look 'normal', his upper body looks rather fat.

I'll try to do a paintover soon.

Tenacious Stu · Fri 21/01/2011 12:12:11

I've done a little tweaking with the feet and I think its a little better. Not sure what you mean about the shoulders, do you mean that they appear slouched? and I also am not sure what to do about the 'fat' problem.

This image shows changes to the feet, hopefully it wont look so much like he's standing on his toes.

Thanks for the help so far

Tabata · Fri 21/01/2011 19:14:52

I'm a beginner with stuff like this, so maybe I'm wrong, but showing is an easier way, than describe it (in my english

).

Imo the shoulders should be a bit higher and the belly is nice (no need to create a model).

You see, what I mean?

Tenacious Stu · Fri 21/01/2011 21:10:52

Quote from: Tabata on Fri 21/01/2011 19:14:52
You see, what I mean?

Yes, I get what was meant about him looking fat now, the body looks much better in your version. I think also that your right about the shoulders being to low, I will make them higher 8)

Thanks for the help

Matti · Sat 22/01/2011 17:53:09

Quote from: Tenacious Stu on Fri 21/01/2011 12:12:11
Not sure what you mean about the shoulders, do you mean that they appear slouched?

Well, the problem is that there are no shoulders, just diagonal lines which looks quite weird. But Tabata's edit helped a lot. I still think that the shoes look weird.

The edit isn't great and I didn't use Tabata's version, but maybe I get the point across

x4

Tenacious Stu · Mon 24/01/2011 20:14:04

Hi I have been working on my character sprites and having an attempt at animating. Thank you to Matti and Tabata for showing me their paint overs, I believe they have helped me greatly.

Above is my animation attempt. It looks a bit choppy. Just looking at it now I can see problems with the arms and also the pop up on the jacket, but if anyone has any comments I'd love to hear them

Thanks guys!

LRH · Mon 24/01/2011 20:27:00

It looks very good, but as you've said, I see an issue in the arms and wrists. The movements seem a bit too pronounced to me. The arms bend and move quite a bit, which really doesn't happen to such an extreme when one is walking. Also the wrists seem to sort of 'pop' up at the end of each stride, it just looks a bit odd to me. Other than that I think it's a fantastic animation, keep up the good work!

Corby · Tue 25/01/2011 00:51:27

Looks nice!

An extra frame after frames 3 and 6 would probably do the trick. After a leg stretches out, it seems to come back too quickly. Same with the arms at those exact frames.

Though even one more frame would reduce the choppiness.

Unai · Tue 25/01/2011 11:57:35

My two cents: The feet pointing downwards when the knees are raised look a bit odd... $:-\$

Anian · Tue 25/01/2011 15:00:08

Quote from: Unai on Tue 25/01/2011 11:57:35
My two cents: The feet pointing downwards when the knees are raised look a bit odd... $:-\$

I think it's cause the moves are a bit too exagurated, to me it looks like he's accelerating and going to be running soon.

If the legs we're not doing that big of a step and knees weren't going so high up, you could cut out that wierd frame where the foot is pointing downwards, have tried walking like that? Not many people raise their foot that high to even be able to pint it down. The arms move too much as well.

Tabata · Tue 25/01/2011 19:37:19

Quote from: Unai on Tue 25/01/2011 11:57:35
My two cents: The feet pointing downwards when the knees are raised look a bit odd... $:-\$

Yes, that's what I thought, first time I saw it (like a kick step while dancing).
But it would be great in case of kicking a ball, whenever he is walking.

The stripes on his jacket needs to be corrected in one frame (it's jumping upwards) and it seems to me, that his knee is to be set a little lower (seems to be placed at the thigh). Also his fingers shouldn't wag around like hanging there without being controlled.

But all in all it looks very smooth for me.

Tenacious Stu · Sat 29/01/2011 16:29:58

Thanks for all the support guys, I've tried to take a lot of your comments on board and I've made a lot of changes to the side animation and added ones for the front and back. I'm pretty pleased with these ones, but there may be something I've missed. Thanks again people

Tabata · Sat 29/01/2011 19:16:22

Yeah â€" good work!

Only one thing may need a little changing:
Just in one of the frames (when the left leg is up, while walking to the right) the shoe seems to be a bit wrong (it looks like the ankle is twisted inwards).

So you made great progress! Well done! 8)

Darth Mandarb · Sat 29/01/2011 21:51:46

Three things:

1) In the "down" animation his left (our right) leg, when as far back as it goes, just blinks into shadow. You should have it transition a bit smoother (like you did in the "up" animation).

2) In the "side" animation his knees severely shift up/down; his right leg, as it starts forward, gets much shorter (I think this was already mentioned)!

3) you might want to try some kind of side-to-side movement in the torso area. The rest moves nicely (with the few nit-picks above) but the chest sits very still!

Hope it helps out (even just a little bit)!