This is the image, I use it at Speed 8 and Animation Speed 6, which feels just okay:
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/walk_right_full.png)
While animated in the preview window, it looks fine, but it starts to look wierd when animated moving about the screen. Something about the way the foot that is behind is pulled forward bothers me, I feel it's just too jerky. But I have no idea how to fix that, because in Kafka's walkcycle tutorial a very similar walkcycle looks fine. Is it the angle of the lower leg? Of the leg in general?
I've been trying and brooding over this the whole day...
The transition from 1 to 2 and 4 to 6 is too big. Add an intermediate frame.
I've increased the speed to 8 which looked pretty good, apart from the two missing frames.
To prevent the feet from shuffling, make sure that the foot touching the ground moves back speed pixels per frame (set the animation speed to 10 or sth., then disregard it entirely until the foot planting looks fine).
Look at the 3rd frame: his left foot is on the ground. In the 4th frame, it has moved back about 8 pixels. In the next frame (#5), it is about to be lifted but still on the ground, however, it has moved back about 10 or 12 pixels, giving the impression the foot had slid back.
Once the cycle looks fine, play with the animation speed setting to achieve a decent speed.
(30 minutes later:)
I've added two frames and adjusted 1 & 5:
(http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/7359/redrawtamyt1.png)
Thank you, that explains a lot... especially the part about moving (speed) pixels per frame.
I thought, since Kafka's tutorial works with 6 frames and looks fine, It will work for me too... http://kafkaskoffee.com/tutorials/walkcycle2.shtml (http://kafkaskoffee.com/tutorials/walkcycle2.shtml) Maybe it's because his figure is more simplistic than mine.
The dimensions are similar, and you can notice the same jump in the tut's walkcycle.
It's hard to tell until you see the actual in-game movement.
The most widely used walkcycle base is this one from the same page (10 frames):
(http://kafkaskoffee.com/images/games/tutorials/template/templatesideviewanim.gif)
That looks really smooth, but at the same time it means a lot more work multiplied by the number of animations I will use, because it would look odd if the character has 10 frames, while all other animations use significantly less... hm...
EDIT:
Ok, NOW I think I fully understood how "speed" and "animation speed" works. "speed" says how many pixels per frame the character is moved, and "animation speed" says how much delay there is between frames! Until now I thought they were independend from each other...
What also made the animation jumpy is that in the two frames where the behind foot is lifted and pulled forward halfway, the foot kept moving upwards and then afterwards was suddenly planted on the ground. Had the movement been more "ballistic", it would probably have looked better even with 6 frames.
Now that I know that and can fine-tune the walking speed, I think I will go with 8 frames which looks quite decent (many thanks for filling those missing two in!). My adventure will have 4 characters as it is planned by now, and I don't think I could stand having 10 frames for each direction... I can still "upgrade" it after everything else is finished should I feel it is necessary. But so far, I just want to have a player character that can move around as I add and test new rooms that doesn't look like a cardboard stand ;)
Just a little quickie - The arms are at the end of the swinging on the down(impact), not the contact (heel contact) - Or so I have been taught. Can ofcrouse differ from person to person I guess.
Sounds sensible, but it looks fine as it is, and for work-in-progress animation it's good enough. I will keep it in mind for changing it later, maybe :-)
- Use stickfigures to try out animation, do not render until you're happy - saves 90% of your time!
- use an animation program to be able to judge and correct your work immediately
- 10 frames/walkcycle is an overkill, I beleive 4 frames are more than enough
- the problem with AGS is that it doesn't let you specify the exact amount of translation of the character in each frame - this can cause 'gliding'
- when walking, all parts of the body move - the shoulders, the pelvis, the head. do not hesitate to exagarate a bit
(http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/9403/walkfrqy4.gif)