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Could have shortened that up for ya!


"Over time people became bored with what was essentially identical gameplay across all brands, companies and individual titles. With the emergence of more sophisticated computers the potential for different forms of gameplay attracted consumers and ultimately the stale unadapted adventure game genre would be left to sit in a corner and talk to itself, slowly growing more and more insane until the only people that would play them are the people that make them. That, would be AGS..."

Dissertation = Finished

You probably would have gotten extra points for using less words, too! =P

The only rule is never ask someone from Sunderland if they have a geordie accent.

Is that pronounced "Jord-ee?" If so... that is one of the MOST difficult accents in the world to understand. They all sound like people from Boston with Downs Syndrome, and a loving dollop of an British-Speak.

This looks very similar visually to what i've been working on recently... I think you've nailed it a bit more than I have so far... maybe I should give you guys my script and you can make it for me... =P

Looks fantastic though, you've got to keep us posted! Not too many details though!!! I love being surprised by games.

LMFAO! A Nazi pic AND a Shining parody? GarGo, I think you've just leapt to the top of the polls...

Well then,  off to eBay see what they've got.

[Image > Adjustments > Threshold]

You might want to try these in Photoshop:

Image > Adjustments > Threshold > Adjust the slider

or

Image > Adjustments > Posterize > Keep number under around 7.

These are good helpers for simplifying, but they won't do the whole job for you.

O-I-C...  I didn't know about those. Threshold seems to turn my images black and white but I'll play around with it a bit more, and that posterize is pretty handy! Thanks for the tip.

I made you a trophy Le Wolt! If you like it, you might want to save it and upload it elsewhere as IMGShack tends to delete images after a short period of time.

I don't know if this is just due to my accent, but when I say "Steak ham" it sounds the same as "Stay calm".

Quick question from me: When the f*** have you ever found yourself saying "Steak Ham?" =P


@Ryan Timothy:

It's at least as East as Ottawa, all my friends their say about like that. It's no so much "A boot" as it is like "a boat" or "a bough it." More troublesome is this "Zed" nonsense; what's the first letter of the pronunciation of "Zed?" is it "Zed?" Or is it "Zeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..."

This looks awesome! Especially for a first go around! I can't wait to see this finished.

I think my question still stands though.

Haven't most males (at some point) been a 15 year old boy trying to make it with a 15 year old girl? I would assume that the game is legitimately entertaining and the content is clearly "G Rated." If so, it would be like watching a Disney Channel style show (Hannah Montana, Zoey 101, Degrassi) about a teenager trying to get to get together with a girl in his class. Sex is almost always implied and never explicit but there is a portrayed desire to be together. The fact that I am now older than 15 and know the details of what was driving me doesn't change the fact that I was pursuing women.

Ultimately I think that if the game was truly innocent than I wouldn't have any issues playing the game. Keep in mind, however, that many objects that are inherently innocent are twisted in the minds of certain people and they become more than what they are. I'm looking at YOU Dan Brown...

I'm finding it really intriguing to see the cost of internet connection in various part of the world. I pay $50 (USD) for 25Mbps. Before I moved I was getting 30Mbps for roughly $45... Where I lived before that I paid $60 for 5Mbps.

Leave it; I love it. I don't think that you need a mouth for a sprite this size (except when speaking.)
The arms look fine and the hair doesn't look BAD, just "a bit odd." My only dislikes are the richness of the jacket and headband, his pants seemed shaded unusually and his face is a bit too red for my tastes. Maybe a darker line to distinguish the nose, though.

At the end of the day though it is beyond satisfactory.

[then]

Also, I can't see the side view and I can't open the image linked to. Are you sure you put it in right?

It's supposed to be a GIF of the current walkcycle. I think I must have saved it wrong because it's not working for me either.

I think you've done a fine job with his presentation and shading.  The third image doesn't show up for me, though?  Perhaps what you can try is stripping him down to his base colors, animating him, then go back and add any detail you feel is lacking, like so:

Prog... I think you cracked it. I stole your pallette and I'm about 3 frames in and so far I like it! I'm not sure if I'll even ad any detail, it looks pretty decent!

Thank you both! Problem solved.

UPDATE:

Okay, so I took the advice below and simplified the image (actually I just stole ProgZ redraw) and I started animating slowly and patiently... It turned out like crap. BUT, I felt like I gained alot of experience with animating. The thing that seemed to work best was to animate the outline, fill in values and then just do a color overlay on a new layer. The only thing really being animated then is the outline and it's just paint by numbers from there.

So in my pursuit of a realistic(ish) walkcycle I came up with a new gameplan. I took a video of me walking, and semi- rotoscoped. using the process I stumbled on I was able to animate this little guy in about 3 1/2 hour. I did do it double size and reduced so there is probably some cleanup in order but I wanted to get an outside opinion on it; after pouring over this guy for HOURS I would appreciate any criticisms.



UPDATE 2: For some reason, the GIF is stuttering on the last frame and it's making him look like he has a PIMP walk... It's actually smoother than that. And his head is missing...

UPDATE 3: Will work on trying to make his jacket seem "less stiff."

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ORIGINAL POST:

So typically I'll focus on characters before anything else, then I make the rest of the world around them. I've really been wanting to make a throw back to my favorite noir films, so I drew something in my sketchpad, brought it into photoshop and sprited it up. No problems so far.

Then, I tried to make a walkcycle and for probably the past week I've been pushing pixel after pixel and its all crap. Either I get a really wooden walk where the character looks good, or I get a semi-decent walk where it winds up being a 10 color affair and you really can't tell WTF is going on.  I'm really not an animator at heart so maybe i'm going about this the completely wrong way and this is entire feasible.

What i'm really looking for is ideas on how to simplify the character without losing the integrity of it visually. Essentially I want to avoid it looking "cartoony" and I just can't figure out how to do that either; simplify without going cartoony. Keep in mind that all I have for background are thumbnail sketches so there is really nothing to "fit it into."

         

So any tips/tricks on animating a detailed character, or any suggestions on a different art style I could switch to before I get in too deep?

So the first thing that bugged me was that the gargoyle on the right was grey, while the one on the left was (sepia?) yellow. It seemed to me that the gargoyle on the right should be MORE yellow, if anything, being that it's closer to the light.

Another thing that I felt was a bit off was the pathway. You textured the brick columns so beautifully but then the path was left smooth as a dolphin.

I think that these are the two biggest things I can recommend taking a look at.

Once I took a step back though I realized that the entire background felt kind-of washed with yellow. So to break things up a bit I change the BG to a hue of violet (I found the color in the gate and thought I would expand on it.) If you like that concept I also took it a bit further bringing the exposure down in order to darken the scene a bit more.

How do you feel about all the suggestion that have been made. Do you agree with them or are you taking this in a different direction?

I feel like that Menu is a bit TOO blue... it's overwhelming. I also like ProgZ idea but depending on you game that bit of "branding" may or may not fit in. Either way, I don't think I can add any suggestions about the icon that haven't been said but I really think that you need to develop that menu/GUI more-so than even the cursor.

Just a reminder that there are only two days left in this competition!  Don't be shy, go ahead and enter!

Isn't today the 13th?

I think that TECHNICALLY, the official deadline is the 14th:

"All entries must be posted here by 12am Alaska Time (GMT-0900), Monday March 14th. "

Just a reminder that there are only two days left in this competition!  Don't be shy, go ahead and enter!

Uploading now...

UPDATE: http://www.box.net/shared/p2cc23no3c
Download available at Link

If monkey had met the unofficial regulation of; "there must be more than 20 words" he/it would be getting my vote.

Instead, I give it to conan.

Anyhow, SookieSock, I hope you're making a game with that background. It's looking quite interesting, just the style gap is bugging me a bit.

Agreed. I feel as if that Gargoyle (which is excellent, by the way) feels a bit too realistically styled for that background (which is also excellent by the way.) Ultimately i comes down to YOUR opinion, though. I am a bit busy at the moment but I will revisit this with more constructive thoughts a bit later.