[C&C] Few Characters + Music

[ravenfusion]

Experimenting with a new style for my sprites, advice appreciated. Especially of the animating/music kind...



Here's another sprite to show you my ameteur abilities. :'(


Music: 'Hero'
http://pphosting.net/ravey/files/music/hero.mid
or
http://pphosting.net/ravey/files/music/hero.mp3 (Recorded from my soundcard MIDI)

Thanks,

- Ravey

[markbilly]

I like the music, it has a good tune. It fits the style of the soldier sprite well.

Have you got a .gif of the animation? It would make it easier to crit the movement.

Thanks.

[ravenfusion]

Sorry, didn't have any animation programs installed at the time...

[ThreeOhFour]

The step in which the right leg is furthest back looks a bit weird. Lift the heel up a lot for this one. Youd could also make the gun bob a little.

Otherwise speed it up a little, and its looking good.

[ravenfusion]

Added a bop to his step
Messed around with the awkward feet a little
Upped the animation speed
Fixed the left leg overlapping the right hand

Right leg needs greater extension like the left leg but i'm not sure how to go about it yet.

[ThreeOhFour]

I like this one much better. Good work.

[SinSin]

Ravey i'd like to see that character with a double bounce with his walk to show the weight of the armor and weaponry
just a thought

[ravenfusion]

Not sure if it looks right but I made the head and gun bounce a little.

[CodeJunkie]

The bounces aren't identical, I can see that the part behind the neck is sticking still for one of the bounces which looks odd.  Also I think that the character should bounce upwards, not downwards.  Remember that their body moves vertically because they are raising a leg, which raises their hips, so their upper body is above standing position.  Otherwise it looks great, nice pixelling and nice palette.

[SpacePirateCaine]

The abundance of colors in the sprite here make it somewhat difficult to animate efficiently. Granted, they look pretty nice, but with dithering and so many extra shades of gray to deal with, redrawing something at a separate angle is something of a chore, so I kept everything level. Ideally I'd take what you had already and have the gun angled slightly down at frames 4 and 8. As is, I've only added a little 'physics' to the movement. At present, you've managed to fix by and large the bounce of his step. Obviously when you step down, especially when you're walking with something heavy but also in general, you tend to put extra weight on the feet which causes your whole body to move downward. However you're still not making use of all of Newton's first law of motion - Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

What I'm talking about is: That gun is big. It's big and very far out in front of our hero here. Even if he has some massive strength, it's very likely that downward motion (caused by stepping down) and the law of gravity are gonna try their damndest to bring that gun to the floor. Now this means that he's going to be wanting to heave it back up into position to keep it forward. This will cause a slight 'afterbounce', if you will, to the gun.

Like so:


Technically, this should also apply to his MDK hat, but I'm just trying to make a quick point. It's a sloppy edit, so I hope you at least get the gist of what I'm saying. Hope this was helpful!

[ravenfusion]

Thanks for the posts.

Yeah I see what you mean about the colours, what I could do is this - Remove the colours, fix any double pixeling if necessary and shade it correctly afterwards. Luckily for the most part nothing but the legs are really moving so it's made considerably easier... I also planned to have the gun angled down slightly at frame 4 but haven't gotten to it yet.

Awesome that you recognised the MDK in him.

Edit: Like so?

[DrewCCU]

since music is my specialty, I'll comment on that - and let the sprite/animating pros comment on those ... however, i'll just say that as this thread progresses, your animation is looking much better ... anywho ...

i like the overall melody of the piece.   However, that is really all it is - a melody with a drum set and like timpani drums.  I think you should dive into it more.  Add some counterpoint and more background "stuff".  Think about maybe adding more instruments so you can pass the melody around.  Also, I don't think it's finished.  I understand it's video game music and it doesn't have to be really long and elaborate becus it's ambient music that will more than likely loop.  However, I still believe it should be longer and more elaborate than what it is now.  You've got about 8 or so measures that just repeat over and over.  Add another idea/melody in there and/or maybe even do variations on the current melody.  The biggest thing is: it just sounds empty and needs more support with other instruments/parts.

Like i said, I like the idea here but it just needs more ... these are just suggestions that I think if you execute them you will be much happier with the piece.

good luck and keep us posted! 

[ravenfusion]

Yeah I was hoping for some criticism of the music ... It's actually only my second attempt at MIDI and to be honest I have very little experience with music in general. Right now i'm still at the stage where i'm trying to compose something and i'm thinking what kind of instruments to use or whether the choices I make are even suitable. I did try to create a little variation by messing with note durations, arrangements and transposing but nothing that went to far away from the original melody which is part of the problem as to why I decided to cut it short for now, but what i'm doing is pretty much just early experimentation, any advice you can offer is appreciated.

Thanks alot,

- Ravey