Walkcyle test

[-=Lisa=-]

I'm kinda new to this whole thing but it wold be nice to get some comments
(i know he lacks feet... didn't notice until after i uploaded it that i forgot one layer)





btw what is a good size character if im to make a 640x480 game? this one here is 245px in height and i thought that felt pretty good
although he is kinda big for my backgrounds sometimes
/Lisa

[Danman]

Great Animation. Just a few character art issues I don't like such as pointy nose and hands.

Only thing I kinda think about the animation is the 3rd frame looks more like his right arm is going back. Not forward.  I have never been good at animating but that is what I see.

Also for the character size depends on the backgrounds. Also if you use walkable area scaling. And when I say the backgrounds I mean perspective wise.

There is my criticism (coming from me who cant even do a walk-cycle.)   

[Chicky]

Looks like it will run fairly smoothly. You might want to make him bob less, the second frame looks like he is ducking under something.

[Pixelton]

Really nice style there Lisa and I think it will animate great, I've not tried it in FLash mind but all the essential key frames of a walk cycle look correct.

I do think the head motion is alittle too extreme, usually I try and keep the eye level at the same height throughout the walkcycle and only drop the head and shoulders at two points (when the legs are at their most extreme points)...but to be fair..my character work is alot more low-res than your lovely artwork.


This is a dodgy Star Trek character sprite I've drawn up for an idea I had, I'm not sure if its that fitting for your walk-cycle as its much higher-res and detailed but looking at alot of reference out there...monkey island...Space Quest; they all do it the same. I'm not sure if it helps...I'm more of a 3D animator than a 2D one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByU8a-fhbis
Actually this might be abit better, this is a 3D animation walk-cycle I did, you can see that there isnt much head movement (By no means is this an AMAZING!!! walk-cycle...because it isnt! but it might help  . )

If your project looks anything like your character work it will be great!

[Matti]

I agree that he looks like he's ducking and then jumping afterwards. The cycle looks too exaggerated. I posted a generic walkcycle here if you're interested. I'm not too happy with it but I think it's good as a reference for hi-res characters.

Also, it seems a little like he's looking into the background, not in front of him. I think it's because of the cheek/chin perspective. Maybe you can work a bit on that.

As for the size: I think he's too tall for a 640x480 resolution, in my opinion characters shoudn't exceed 1/3 of the screen's height, but that could be personal taste As Danman pointed out it depends on whether you're using much scaling within the game (downscaling looks okay, upscaling doesn't) and it also depends on your backgrounds, e.g. if the character is walking a lot in the front or rather somewhere in the back and what perpective you use.

Other than that it's a nice style you got there and I'm looking forward to seeing more from you.

[Misj']

btw what is a good size character ifI'm to make a 640x480 game? this one here is 245px in height and i thought that felt pretty good
although he is kinda big for my backgrounds

As for the size: I think he's too tall for a 640x480 resolution, in my opinion characters shoudn't exceed 1/3 of the screen's height, but that could be personal taste

Just for reference...


I would normally agree with Mr. Matti on this though; just to ensure that you have a nice amount of screen real estate for your background. However...1/2nd the screen height can work well as shown in the example above (Guybrush never felt too big to me); but they do use a lot of scrolling to increase the background-size.

[Andail]

I'd just like to chime in with the previous posters and say that the style is really nice, but the bounce is a bit too pronounced.
furthermore - though this isn't a biggie - his chest and shoulders appear a bit static. With such a high-res animation, you could let the shoulders turn with the stride, so that he'd turn away slightly in frame 3 and 4, with less of his left side visible, and more of his back. Just a thought.

[-=Lisa=-]

Thanks for the pointers!

I've reworked the cycle a bit after looking at mattis generic example so its not that exagerated anymore.

Theres still some tweeks to be done, with jerky arm movement
and head is off by a few pixles on some frames (but ill save that for tomorrow).
still its much smoother now than the jumping duck i had before

I've already taken som pointyness out of his nose (even ifyou cant really see it with
the antialias-fail when converting to gif) and I'm gonna fix his very pointy thumb.

First and second one for comparison


Still havn't decided if i should go for 240px or 160px as the standard height. Tried a quick downscale to 160 and that felt tiny
we'll see..

[Questionable]

It looks to me like you've drawn various body parts and you're animating them like some type of paper puppet.  This would be all right if that's the style you're going for, if this was a low res character or there was almost no detailing (think South Park simplicity.)

With what you've got here if you want fluid and believable motions I would position the "body pieces" and then draw over them. Each frame being an entirely fresh composition. This will allow you more freedom to customize the appearance of him as a whole in each frame.


*ACTIVATE NIT-PICK MODE*
The biggest thing that is bugging me is that in the first animation his body motions are far too exaggerated and in the second he seems drugged. His legs don't feel like they're connected, his head is bobbing out of sync, his arm doesn't move enough and there is no sense of twist or torsion in his steps.

I think that if you bring the body motions somewhere between the two, do something with the legs and make each frame unique you'll have a masterpiece on your hands!  Great work so far, by the way. Took me ages just to get something that looks half this good and it's STILL pissing me off...

[Andail]

I was just gonna say the same - a middle way between the two extremes you've got now would be ideal.

[Danman]

I agree with a lot of what Questionable said. It does look too paper cut out. and is now too under exaggerated.

Here is some tutorials I thought helped my thoughts on animation and
I think will give you a better idea too.

http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~rpyjp/a_notes/anim_contents.html  
http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/02w/walk1.shtml

Edit- Definitely somewhere between two.