Walking animation... Am I going in the right direction... PUNS!

[Ogre]

This is a hero for a game that will probably never exist... but I figured I might use him to get tips on how to improve my sprites/animations

let me know what needs work.



(Heavily copied from various games)

[pslim]

The feet and hands look good to me. I think his body should rotate from side to side (if you want to include that movement) rather than translate from side to side.  Have you considered having him bounce up and down a pixel at the height of the walkcycle?

I also can't help thinking his hair could benefit from some highlights since the rest of the sprite has solid shading.

[Alarconte]

Wow!! Superman in King Quest era!!!

Nar, surely the walkcicle fits perfectly in a game with the adequate speed (more than that)

Maybe a little of shadows betwen arms in movement and torso works fine to make more realistic the movement...

[Ogre]

Hmmm... I never thought about it as a superman-ish... but it is a bit isn't it...

It's style is more monkey island inspired(ripped off) than KQ

[Alarconte]

Nah, I said "KQ" 'cause medieval-noblity style, not other thing.

Mmm, you have a LOT of game ideas, no? xD

[Nacho]

I think that it is quite obvious that Guybrush is the inspiration... which is not bad, IMO. I would remove the violent movement of the (violet clothes, dunno the English name) for something more slight, although it' s not 100% annoying if you want to give him a cartoony look. Also, as someone mentioned, the head has to move from a mid position one pixel up, and one other down, deppending on which step of the walking animation he is, not to the sides.

[Layabout]

I would say myself there are far too few frames in that walkcycle. Need to add some 'tweens. The rest I would say has been said.

[Questionable]

The feet and hands look good to me. I think his body should rotate from side to side (if you want to include that movement) rather than translate from side to side. 

Absolutely, instead of having torsion at the hips; your sprite is shifting yo the left and right, this makes him appear to glide from side to side as he walks forward.

I also feel that he raises his legs too high for it to appear natural, it looks a bit cartoonish, this matches the movement of his cloak, however, as that also appears exaggerated. Human movement is actually more subtle than most people conceive, and they assume that in order to translate human motion into a medium such as pixel art (an inherently small art style,) they have to exaggerate motion/action. It is of course an ill assumption, as the human mind fills in gaps. Even human sight is not a stream our brains capture images at approx 60-70 frames per second and we fill in the rest and it all appears fluid.

Take this for example:

Randomizing letters in the middle of words [has] little or no effect on the ability of skilled readers to understand the text. This is easy to dendrite. In a publication of New Scnieitst you could ramdinose all the letetrs, keipeng the first two and last two the same, and reibadailty would hadrly be aftcfeed. My ansaylis did not come to much beucase the thoery at the time was for shape and senqeuce retigcionon. Saberi's work sugsegts we may have some pofrweul palrlael prsooscers at work. The resaon for this is suerly that idnetiyfing coentnt by paarllel prseocsing speeds up regnicoiton. We only need the first and last two letetrs to spot chganes in meniang.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

(from, http://www.bisso.com/ujg_archives/000227.html)

Being more subtle can give your character more life and depth than having exaggerated movements.

Have you considered having him bounce up and down a pixel at the height of the walkcycle?

On a sprite of this size, that kind of movement might be too much. Hopefully Orge will do an edit so we can see.

I also can't help thinking his hair could benefit from some highlights since the rest of the sprite has solid shading.

I agree. It's generally accepted that the best shading technique is to use 3 high-contrast colors, it allows for lots of dynamic shading style and and looks good when used correctly. That's not to say that it's a limit, but anything bellow 3 colors tends to look almost as two dimensional than object with one shade and the people that use MORE than 5 shades tend to misuse them and make their images too muddy and distracted.

[Ogre]

Here is an updated walk anim... the animation tool I am using is messing up the image a little bit... the torso sway is not very good.



Here is the character more in style with my other sprites


And here is a higher Res version

[TwinMoon]

Better, but his legs are too high when they're to the back.

If you can draw things like that hi-res sprite, why not use that style for your game? It's gorgeous.

[Ogre]

Better, but his legs are too high when they're to the back.

If you can draw things like that hi-res sprite, why not use that style for your game? It's gorgeous.

Because I am lazy... and if I am having trouble animating the low res sprites... the high res animations would probably drive me mad.

[MashPotato]

I actually like the lo-res sprite the best, it's quite cute
Perhaps the walking animation could use a head bob (2-minute edit, so the placement is not good):

[Ogre]

I tried a head bob and thought it was too much for such a small sprite.

should of mentioned that in the thread earlier..

Yeah.. I sort of like my tiny sprites as well.. and they are really easy to work with.

[tube]

Tiny sprites do not stop you from making an excellent game. Duty and Beyond by Mordalles comes to mind as an example. Just work with whatever character style and size you like personally.

Ah, just noticed you'd already picked the tiny one as the "winner", if the background thread is any indication.

[Ogre]

After some sprite tips from ProgZmax I came up with these.

4-up


2-up

[Questionable]

I think I prefer the "2-up."

[Ogre]

The Heir To No Throne.

I think this might be it!... any other suggestions?

[Questionable]

It looks like it is:

Frame 1 - Frame 2 - Frame 3 - Frame 2
*repeat*

1>2>3>2>1>2>3>2>1>2>3


I think you need to have 5 frames:

1 > 1.5 > 2 > 2.5 > 3 > 2.5 > 2 >1.5
*repeat*



Also, I believe that people have mentioned that you try twisting his torso and also having him "bob" up and down. Have you tried either of these?

Personally, I think you should focus on sideways movement first. In my experience characters move sideways more than they do north and south.

Lastly, this is an improvement over the original! I do feel you can make it EVEN better though, I've seen the improvements you've made on the backgrounds... 

Good work so far.

[Makeout Patrol]

I agree with layabout, it needs more frames. I would say that you at least need to insert one before each leg gets to the back - that is an awfully large distance for a foot to travel in one frame.