new room new character (updated with walk cycle and idle anim)

[Neutron]

here's a snippet of the interior of the cave pictured in my 'enchanted forest' thread, along with flognar, my new main character.Ã,  this is the actual resolution that the game will be viewed at, but the background is much bigger.Ã,  640 x 400 i think.Ã,  I fixed the sprite with the pink hair problem so i'll probably use her in the first scene with the stumpface, and she'll send him off on some quest.Ã,  I figure the stump will be her uncle who has a curse on him, and flognar has to go on the quest to fix him.
<edit> here's his walk cycle http://home.att.net/~yorik/flogdownright.gif
<edit> and his idle anim http://home.att.net/~yorik/yoyo.gif

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Solid walkcycle, Neutron.  The guy kind of reminds me of a Fraggle, and the surroundings only reinforce it ;>.  Nice work.

[Ozzie]

A very fluid walkcycle, great! And it will have 8 walking directions? Perfect! 

[Reptile]

You're an amazing 3D artist. What programs do you use?

[Neutron]

thanks guys.  yes, the walkcycle has 8 loops, and he also has an idle animation where he plays with a yo-yo.  I could have made him one solid mesh, but then he would have been far trickier to animate.  I mostly use blender for 3D stuff.  It's great for rendering sprites, because you can just turn off the aliasing, set it to render with an alpha channel, then i just parent my camera to an armature keyed to the eight different directions, and put the base of the armature in the center of the object i'm rendering.  for anyone using the software, that's: set to file format png, unclick osa, click on rgba button, and premul button, and render.  the background will then be rendered as the alpha channel.  of course if you want aliasing, you can do that to by clicking 'osa'.

[Kweepa]

It's a fluid walk cycle, but you'd expect that from a 3d package...
I think it could do with more knee bend and lift - he looks like he's on one of those ski exercise machines.

[Neutron]

armatures and keyframes do have their advantages, but using a 3D program is not a magical way to make a good walk cycle.  here's his idle animation with the yoyo.

[Kweepa]

using a 3D program is not a magical way to make a good walk cycle.

I know. That's why I said it was "fluid", not necessarily good.