Lighting a cigarette animation

[Kweepa]

Thought I'd combine character and animation into one for this.
I've included the, I think, dodgiest frame for crits. I hate that left arm.





Damnit, the animation doesn't repeat!

[Darth Mandarb]

I think this is really good!

- the red bow-tie vanishes in the middle of the animation.
+ the movement is nice and fluid.
- could use some shading.

I like this a lot!

Is this for the Mayan game?

[Kweepa]

Thanks Darth. Yup, it's for the Mayan game.

The bow tie! Doh! Don't quite know how I missed that.

As for the lack of shading, that was a decision I made to try and get the game finished. Maybe when I've got a beta together I'll change my mind.

[Darth Mandarb]

If the whole of the game lacks shading I say go with it.

That might actually have quite a kick-ass look to it!

The screens I saw in the GiP thread look totally awesome.  I'm really looking forward to it!

How about a slight 'glow' to the face/glasses when the lighter is lit?

[Nacho]

About the shading...  nice decission... I've realised that spending weeks in animating all the little pixels of that little sprite in that little walkcicle is a good way to loose interest and abandon a game production.

About the animation... nice! I really like it... But I would include one more frame when he moves the arm of the lighter down...

[Kweepa]

Farlander, exactly.
I love what you can do with that shading, but no doubt it takes hours for each frame.
I'll add another frame for the arm. [EDIT - done.]

Darth, added the glow. Maybe I overdid it though.

[Darth Mandarb]

The glow rocks!

I don't think it's overdone at all!

[James Kay]

Yeah, that left arm is way too short. Or just weird.
Otherwise, not bad, not bad at all. It could benefit from a  few tweenies but on the whole, not bad for a programmer.  

Also, I like the way he swallows that cigarette. Happens to me all the time!

[Chicky]

i must say i love this animation, much better than anything ive done. I think the arm should have a motion blur when he brings the lighter out.

thats basically it

-OSC

[The_Creep]

Very cool, but as a smoker I would like to point something out, almost all smokers treat "Lighting up" as a ritual, its rarely done so distractedly, I think he tilted his head down and used his right hand to cup the ciggy and the flame, this would look really cool (and obscure some of the left arm everone seems so worried about.) this suggestion would mean changing the whole animation, and I know from expierience how much that sux, but its just my two cents, otherwise keep up the good work!

P.s can someone put up a link this mayan game thread? it sounds interesting

[Kweepa]

Thanks OSC.
I'll experiment with some motion blur - could be quite amusing.

Creep,
The idea here is that the guy is staring at the main character as he does this - kind of pissed off, then blowing smoke in her face.
Here's a link to the GiP thread:
http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=8;action=display;threadid=12835

[shbaz]

I'm not a smoker, but I see one problem with your animation.. when smokers blow smoke out of their mouth, it doesn't go through the cig, it goes around it because if they blew the smoke through the cig then it would possibly put the flame out.

Your smoke needs to be coming out of the mouth, not the tip of the cig, to be short.

[Mats Berglinn]

It looks great but smoke from cigarettes are white, not darkgray.

[Kweepa]

shbaz,
Hmmm. It does look like it's coming out the end of the cigarette. That wasn't the intention obviously. I'll do something about it.
Cheers!

[EDIT]
Penguin,
Thanks! That arm looks more natural.

[Penguinx]

Your character holds his left elbow in close to his body.  Typically, when someone is reaching for their mouth their arm forms a triangle shape that juts out a bit.

I did a quick (& crappy) edit to show you what I mean:



I think that solves (or at least gives a direction to solving) the left arm problem.

Otherwise, I like it a lot. It's fluid, lengthy, and shows a lot of effort.