Sprite walk cycle criticism

[tonedeafmessiah]

Hi everyone, I suppose this is what you might call my 'N00B' post.

I've just finished my first sprite for my first attempt at making a game. I'm a fairly inexperienced pixel artist, and for various reasons (including that one) I decided to use a fairly retro, lo-fi style for my characters.

Anyway, withought any further ado - my sprite from the front, and a left and right walk cycle:






Apologies for scaling issues - as I said I'm a little new to this.

I'm almost happy with the walk cycle, however I have a problem with the frames where the knee is fully raised. I'm aware that my sprite is a little tall, but I liked the idea of hving an intentionally stretched look for my characters.

Hope I've adhered to all the rules, and hopefully a more experienced member than I will be able to respond soon...

Thanks,

TDM

[EDIT]: edits are welcome

[Matti]

It's not too bad (esp. for an first attempt).

But as you said: The fully raised knee frame is a bit weird, because the character does make really small steps and doesn't really raise the legs. It seems like one frame is missing at the end.

This will show you what I mean. The second frame (=the stretched leg) is the one that's missing in your cycle.

[tonedeafmessiah]

Hi there, thanks for the oh so quick response

I had a go at adding a fourthand eighth frame to the walk cycle and it looks a lot better now;






...I've just noticed a blinking pixel on the jacket collar in the new frame, ignore that.

Thanks a lot for the help, if you have any other suggestions I always value good constructive criticism.

[BOYD1981]

i've found from personal experience and by watching other people (both in real life and in the media) that when walking, people hardly ever make that giant stride, so i think it's much more realistic to not have it.
people also tend to not swing their arms that much, i know i don't.
but it does kinda look as if the guy is in a rush becuase of both the shoe colours being the same colour/very similar colours, which if you're just looking at the legs makes it seem like a 3 frame animation.

edit: eh, kinda looks like he's skipping along now...

[tonedeafmessiah]

Yeah, the arm swinging is a little unrealistic - but now I have it done I knida like it, I feel it makes the character look more confident/purposeful.

The shoes thing is a good point, I'll have a go at that.

As for the legs I'm at a bit of a loss - as AGS sets the walk speed at 3 pixels a frame, if I have the character take any less of a big step I'll have to reduce the animations back to a 6 instead of 8 frame cycle.

[Khris]

Btw, you don't have to make bigger versions, just multiply the original width by 2 or 3, the put the result in the tag:

[img width="x"]http://URL[/img]

[tonedeafmessiah]

Ok, well I'm fairly happy with the side walk cycles now, but I'm afraid that the ones approaching/moving away from the camera are really bugging me;


Ignore the fact he only hops up once in this cycle - it's meant to be every time his leg is directly beneath


They just look nowhere near as fluid and believable as the other ones - I think maybe I got a little lazy animating, but I'm not quite sure how to fix it now!

Any feedback would be much welcomed

P.S; thanks KhrisMUC for the tip about enlarging displayed images!

[Brad Newsom]

i've found from personal experience and by watching other people (both in real life and in the media) that when walking, people hardly ever make that giant stride, so i think it's much more realistic to not have it.
people also tend to not swing their arms that much, i know i don't.
but it does kinda look as if the guy is in a rush becuase of both the shoe colours being the same colour/very similar colours, which if you're just looking at the legs makes it seem like a 3 frame animation.

edit: eh, kinda looks like he's skipping along now...

There is a lot of exaggeration in animations. The reason for this is to make certain things become more noticeable to your mind.  The fact that its animated, things need to be done differently to make the viewer understand things. It may not be realistic, but its practically must in animation. Else it will look like a typical amateur animated sprite.

Not only does exaggerating movement create a better look for animation, it also defines the characters personality. Realism in movement that isn't in 3d or captured from video NEVER looks right in animated.

[BOYD1981]

oh well thankyou for that mr. animation expert.
except it's totally untrue though.

[tonedeafmessiah]

Disagreements aside, I've decided I'm as happy as I'm going to be for a while with the sprite walk cycles for left and right movement. What I'd really be interested in hearing is some constructive crit for the front/back cycles...

Thanks for your time by the way, I find it really valuable to get feedback from those more experienced than me!

[Buckethead]

Hi shoulders have too much movement in the front/back cycle. Have you tried these in game yet? I find testing in game very usefull to see what need fixing.

[tonedeafmessiah]

Yeah, I'll give that a go - sounds like that could do it. Also looking at it now, the movement of the feet in the "away" walk cycle looks wrong for the leg that takes the next step - looks more like its walking in reverse than coming off the floor and swinging... I'll try to sort those out.

I've been testing in game all along just because the idea of making an adventure game is so exciting to me, and I'm a N00B XD. It's almost passable, there's just a couple of things that bug me that I can't figure out. Shoulders could be it though.

I know I'm being a bit anal about this sprite, but once I've got one perfect sprite out of the way, I've got a template for others!

[Brad Newsom]

oh well thankyou for that mr. animation expert.
except it's totally untrue though.

Working for Disney for a year. I guess I can say I am an expert (one year though isn't really enough to consider me an expert). Mind you. Your offense to free knowledge is offensive.

[BOYD1981]

Not only does exaggerating movement create a better look for animation, it also defines the characters personality. Realism in movement that isn't in 3d or captured from video NEVER looks right in animated.

my main disagreement was the above statement as it is purely down to personal taste, personally i prefer less exaggeration.
also just because exaggeration is used a lot in animation doesn't mean people should just accept it as the norm, nor does it make it the only way to animate.
the first walkcycle would just look more natual if the character walks a short distance, nobody takes giant strides just to travel a few metres.
also, as you seem to be a japophile take a look at some anime, you don't see much exaggeration in walk animations there (they tend to save that for the violence).
and working for disney for ONE year hardly makes you an expert on videogame animation, or anything else for that matter.
however, i will not carry on this BS debate with you here (or anywhere else actually), it's for crits on TDM's animations.

[Brad Newsom]

Not only does exaggerating movement create a better look for animation, it also defines the characters personality. Realism in movement that isn't in 3d or captured from video NEVER looks right in animated.

my main disagreement was the above statement as it is purely down to personal taste, personally i prefer less exaggeration.
also just because exaggeration is used a lot in animation doesn't mean people should just accept it as the norm, nor does it make it the only way to animate.
the first walkcycle would just look more natual if the character walks a short distance, nobody takes giant strides just to travel a few metres.
also, as you seem to be a japophile take a look at some anime, you don't see much exaggeration in walk animations there (they tend to save that for the violence).
and working for disney for ONE year hardly makes you an expert on videogame animation, or anything else for that matter.
however, i will not carry on this BS debate with you here (or anywhere else actually), it's for crits on TDM's animations.

Good think you like to try to pick a fight. Japophile (Learn to word correctly. A japophile is someone who isn't japanese blood or is a whore for japanese culture. I am japanese/american.) , one year means nothing (wow, I swear one year working anywhere is long enough to learn a thing or too, oh wait...you are a troll and should be considered for temporary ban.) I am speaking through what I have learned in the industry. If you find that offensive, then please be quite. If you have nothing nice to say, then don't say it at all.

back on topic.

Note: The anime art style is frowned upon in the Non-Asian Animation and Gaming industry.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

That's enough of that.  If you two want to argue or go off-topic, take it to private messages.  You know better.

[Andail]

oh well thankyou for that mr. animation expert.

Come on, that's a bit childish coming from a man of your age.

Moreover, working with Disney for a year actually makes you quite qualified, at least in a community frequented by non-professional teenagers.
Unless, of course, he worked in the canteen, serving sandwiches.

[Brad Newsom]

oh well thankyou for that mr. animation expert.

Come on, that's a bit childish coming from a man of your age.

Moreover, working with Disney for a year actually makes you quite qualified, at least in a community frequented by non-professional teenagers.
Unless, of course, he worked in the canteen, serving sandwiches.

At my college, Disney presented there internship program. First two months or so, I had to work at Disneyland, specifically the Food Stand (was a horrible experience). After that I moved my way up to intern for the Disney's Animation department in Burbank, CA. That lasted 4 months. After that they were interested in keeping me on, so I chose to intern for the management department.

[tonedeafmessiah]

Yeah this is getting a little out of hand, but I must say I'm glad and quite impressed by the supportive nature of these forums.

I've been taking a bit of a holiday from my computer recently so have made no progress since my last post. I think I'm nearly there though. Once this is done I'll probably be posting another topic along the lines of 'how the fuck do I get my rooms to work?!'

[InCreator]

tonedeafmessiah, you might want to refine front and back walkcycles a bit:

* Front walkcycle has a strange 1-pixel "jumping bug" which needs to be removed. There's also a pixel lost near right side of neck, if you look closely. Also, it almost looks as if he's limping.

* Depending on your room, front/back walkcycles either are or are not very important. I try to draw my rooms so there's as little of vertical floor area as possible, with so weak f/b walkcycles you might consider this.

* To improve f/b walkcycles, to make frames more drastic, I mean, body movement change more, foot leaping more forward/back and so on. By no means I mean here more frames. Just try to pump more out from the frames you have.

* Making feet brighter and darker as they move away or closer to the "camera" is a good idea, but splitting it into strict half-foot sections is a bad idea. It looks artificial and not very convincing. Use 3 shades, but make them move smoothly from bottom half of feet to upper (and vice versa). Shading on hands turned out quite well - now add a mid-moment, where dark shade isn't either in upper or lower part of the hand, and that's also what you have to do with feet. 

Kind of difficult to explain what I really mean here, but I don't have time to make an edit...  Maybe you still understood.

Realism in movement that isn't in 3d or captured from video NEVER looks right in animated.

3D uses keyframes just as any animation. So does video camera. Records frames. Sure, it's 24 or 30 frames per second, not 6-8, but it's still same principle. I fail to see logic in your statement.

Which is ALSO limited by computer screen refresh rate.

And in the end of the chain, even human eye is limited to frames -- or at this speed, it's better to say time too. Light travels in time - which takes time - impulses travel in nerves - which also takes time - and brain processes impulse, which also takes time. So in the end, we never see any real or "realistic" movement - it's still something that we could call a "walkcycle" for our brain. A strip of frames. Of course, those are way larger numbers of frames than computer-made animation could ever achieve.

Point is, we NEVER sense motion in 3D space fully -- it's every moved unit in every moment. We skip alot of it, even with bare eye. So, I guess - the true reality would happen only when light speed was infinite, aswell as all other delays we need, when we want to see something. "looks right"? Really "right" should look only realistic movement. 3D or video might be better over sprite animation, but from true "right", it's away too much to even compare, I think.

But that's quite pointless discussion anyway -- real is what convinces, makes you believe in it.  And with a bit of tricks, even 4-frame animation walkcycle is convincing enough.

Maybe Disney never gave a thought about human biology.