The idle left arm. - Animation assistance requested.

[Victor6]

No, there's no filth here, well except for the unfortunate fact that when this animation is looped it almost looks like she's pulling knives out of her cleavage....

I've got a couple of things to fix on this animation before I apply any highlights or shadows which shouldn't be a problem (fringe, hair, skirt flow+shading), however I'm a little stuck regarding what to do with her left arm (the one on the left in the shot). Currently there's just a pace holder there, but I can't for the life of me work out what to do with it.

Actual size:
Double sized:

I do have a some limitation because firing animations have to use the same formula;

Frames 1-4 are the 'wind up' frames (so in another case it would be aiming a gun or drawing back a bowstring)
Frame 5 has to remain the 'action' frame, since the script picks up this frame and spawns bullet object(s) at this point.
Frame 8 is the 'wait' frame. The animation pauses at this point until the script calls another animation. So she won't actually loop like she does in the above image. Ideally the arm position in frame 8 would be close to the position in frame 1, to allow for loop,wait,loop scenarios.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Eric]

Is she throwing the knife, or just drawing it? If the former, maybe take a look at some pictures of baseball players throwing the ball (not pitchers, with the wind-up, but infielders).

I have a feeling that there's a way the other arm would move to balance the forward motion of the throwing arm, I suspect drawing up, bending at the elbow and then extending outward. But I've screwed up the ability to figure it out for myself by trying to do it left-handed like your sprite (and now that I'm aware of my left hand, everything I do feels clumsy and awkward!).

[Anian]

Anyway, maybe try to add sort of a counter swing of the left arm. When the character is grabbing the blade, the other hand could like come closer to the chest as well and then swings back (to about the position it is in right now) when the other arm is extended into a throw. I think that would give sort of a natural balance to the body, like what would a real person do to make the throw stronger.

Hmm, trouble with ASE, but here's what I tried:

Maybe the movement should be a frame or 2 longer and more pronounced (hand more bended, this is just a qucik edit), but I hope you see what I meant. Plus the hand actually goes a bit further in the stretch and then comes back to the action frame.

[Victor6]

@Anian
Thanks man, that provided some excellent pointers. In this case I really wish I could get away with adding an extra frame or 2, but I've got to lock her to the same time format as everyone else for scripting reason, at least for the time being.

Is she throwing the knife, or just drawing it? If the former, maybe take a look at some pictures of baseball players throwing the ball (not pitchers, with the wind-up, but infielders).

It's sort of a combination of the 2.
I already have the base animations for a cross body throw (for stuff like shurikens), and a forward, overarm throw (for spears, javelins and the like), but both of those are used by mooks\redshirts.
I wanted to make her animation unique, so I opted for a sort of reaction throw, almost as if she's just spotted someone behind her, and pulls the knife out of no-where.

The full baseball pitch (OF DEATH!) I might have to used for someone else though....

Mark 2:-


I've tried tucking the arm back at the start as if it's at her side (so the view is block by the torso), raising it up as she turns until the snap of the throw, then letting it drop back

[Anian]

Yeah, looks good. Glad I could help.

[Eric]

I agree, and am glad that Anian could help, because I was obviously talking rubbish!

[WHAM]

I have nothing constructive to add, but GODDAMN that looks nice!

[Monsieur OUXX]

I have nothing constructive to add, but GODDAMN that looks nice!

+1

[Victor6]

....and done. Which leaves me with a to-do list empty of characters. All that's left is some Frankenstein coding.

I have nothing constructive to add, but GODDAMN that looks nice!

+1

Cheers for the VoC from you both
@WHAM - You might regret offering to help me test something in a week or so.....

Just to finish off, and stick red in context, here's a somewhat misleading image of things to come;-

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I like that rather than succumb to ripping off (or riffing on) a jRPG style you've sat down and put together your own for these characters.  I'm looking forward to seeing more, though I would recommend brightening up some of your colors as the shades tend to become very close to each other so as to be hard to distinguish (this could be a low contrast issue with your monitor settings).  Brighter, more vibrant highlights coupled with some nice shadows and darker colored outlines would really make these characters 'pop' visually.  You could likely get away with considerably fewer colors by using broader contrast and this, in turn, will make animating a much easier process for you.

Edit:  I've done a quick edit to one of the frames of your animation to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

1.  Reduced the color count from 69 to 16, though I could probably have taken it down to 10 without a problem.

2.  Increased the contrast between the highlights and shadows (with the midtones bridging the gap).






Here is a side by side comparison between the two coloring approaches on a neutral background.  As you can see, the colors on the edit are much easier to read and you can even pick up shape of the fingers without resorting to a darkened outline.



Basically I've just refined down some of the colors to make it easier to animate while bumping up the brightness so you can see each color more distinctly.  Hopefully this helps.

[Victor6]

I like that rather than succumb to ripping off (or riffing on) a jRPG style you've sat down and put together your own for these characters.  I'm looking forward to seeing more, though I would recommend brightening up some of your colors as the shades tend to become very close to each other so as to be hard to distinguish (this could be a low contrast issue with your monitor settings).  Brighter, more vibrant highlights coupled with some nice shadows and darker colored outlines would really make these characters 'pop' visually.  You could likely get away with considerably fewer colors by using broader contrast and this, in turn, will make animating a much easier process for you.

I think you're definitely onto something regarding the brightness (it's not the monitor - It's the accursed nvidia control panel which keeps boosting it.).

I'll probably try to sort that out when* I get around to doing the dodge\darken filters. - After about 30 of these little b*stards, horses, and  I'm a little sick of the sight of this lot at the moment**. It's that or just just palette swap the sprite sheets en-mass.

I really love the edit though, although I've struggled with lower colour counts in the past, I'll give it a go once I've smacked the coding about for bit.

As for the not-quite-jrpg stuff. - I have a love hate relationship with the jrpg. Square \ Enix stuff I can't tolerate (I have tried...multiple times.), but a lot of the older, 16-32bit titles I enjoy. - The one's that let the actual game do the talking, not the pre-defined cutscenes. I'm still fascinated with the way that some games manage to pack more character into someone that gets 4-5 lines of dialogue and battle sprite, than other games manage by shoveling 6 hours of unskippable emotional drivel.

In short, I don't hate the jrpg, but I'm conscious of it's tropes, so hopefully the characters (and maybe the game) will stay free of the worst of them.



*when, as it 'when' I'm happy with everything and set on all the character designs, which my past track record suggests will never happen, which is also why I never get around to releasing things......
** Which would be my cue to go play something pre-1998, then wonder how it was coded, and wander off into a different project.