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Love that jacket animation, thanks bro. And I see what you mean there.

Good eye Guybrush, I hadn't noticed that yet. Will fix.

I think I can figure out the forward animation. It looks good like this, but ingame it's...weird. And it occured to me that from it I can probably figure out a better up walkcycle aswell. I'll get to work on it this week.

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'll be able to sort out the front walkcycle, so, on to the more pressing matters:

The up walkcycle.



I've gone through all other animations but this one before to fix proportions and clean up the lines, so it's still quite bad and very much like Eric's original animation. I've tried to make a new one but I haven't gotten past the first few frames yet, there's just something about this angle that makes animating difficult.

Those are some really helpful suggestions, I've never really accounted much for anatomy and weight distribution. In the previous version his body wasn't even tilted forward during walking. While you typed all that up, I was working on an updated version of the side walkcycle, where his knee bends slightly. And I also tweaked his left leg to be more in proportion to his right leg. I'll put in some more of your suggestions later.

   

About the hands, I've been thinking about that. I'm not down with the blobs they are now, so I'll reshape them a bit for sure, but fingers are too much detail I think. I'd need higher resolution sprites to really make that work well. Maybe just thumbs...

You're right about the the stiffness, that's especially my issue with the front walkcycle. Part of it might be my own complacence, getting things to animate fluidly is a pain in the ass.

And yes, the basic movement comes from Eric's animations. The previous versions were much more resemblant of it, I've been toning the cartoonesque motions down a bit.

I could use some help with finalizing the walkcycles for my game. I'm content with the side walkcycle, right now the problem is the down walkcycle (don't get me started on the up walkycle, that's a horror in itself which will be adressed later). I've postponed finishing them because, well, I don't like animating, but it's preventing me from putting out a new demo until they're finished, so I decided to tackle the problem and just get it over with.



This is I think the 4th version, and though close, it's still not right. Ingame the steps seem too small for the walking speed, and even when I lower it to match it doesn't look very natural either. And somewhere something is not quite right with the sway. Don't mind the speeds, they're not an exact match in the animations, but that's just a matter of the framerate.

It's great to see that we can discuss this here and that we all share the same ideas.

The sad thing about this isn't that you dislike smoking and drinking, the sad thing is a society that makes those actions a part of 'normalcy'.

I agree. I don't smoke or do drugs, and I hardly drink. There's a few reasons for this.

-I like being healthy
-I don't like the taste of alchohol, and I loathe the type of people who generally hang out in bars.
-Being rational, I don't enjoy my mind getting all foggy and chaotic. It's enough of that already when I'm sober.
-I'm too concerned with what other people think.

I used to (and still do) worry about what people think of me, but I started to give that up a long time ago, around about your age I think. It's a matter of accepting who you are. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, because they represent the things you don't want to be. It may seem like they're having more fun, but they derive their fun from different things than you might. And they have the advantage that there are a lot more people like them. I can have as much fun building a great game or executing the perfect kill (in a GAME! 0_o) as they have squandering their money away at a bar and making a fool of themselves. The trick is that you've got to find a joy and pride in the things you do. It compensates for not doing these other things that are considered 'social'. You can say to yourself "I did this, and I'm proud of it". You can build some confidence that way. For people who are creative I think this is easier than people who don't really have any hobbies, but still.

Because in the end, what have they got to show for it? Bruises? A headache? Embarrasing pictures? Does that outweigh having created something yourself, something other people may enjoy? Something you can be proud of? Let me tell you: It doesn't.

When people ask me to go along to a bar or go do something, and I'd rather hang out at home, or just don't feel like interrupting what I'm doing, I weigh the benefits of it to the question 'Is this what I really want?' I can suspend my objections for the evening if I can just have a good time with friends and maybe get into some wacky hijinks. I'm fortunate enough to be part of a group of close friends who all share my mindset. They hate disco's and the sort of people often associated with them, they don't smoke or do drugs, they dont really drink a lot, and they accept that I don't drink, so when we go do something I don't have to worry about not fitting in.

I get into a state I refer to as "drunk on people"

This is what I do aswell. I have maybe a drink or two over the course of the evening, and I can just ride along on the vibe of the more intoxicated people.

So I guess the moral of the story is that you just gotta do what you feel good about, follow your dreams, and you'll find your own crowd. You may not end up living the fullest of lives by society's standards, but at least you did it your way.

Really goodlooking game, can't wait to check it out!

Looking very good! I tried this year but I can never bring myself to work on a comic for that long. So I just drew a buffer of half a dozen strips for my webcomic.

I think he actually animated it in 3D. It looks very good, good character and really smooth animation. I've been struggling with getting the up and down animations on my sprites right, so this will be a good example.

wrench battles?
Play Condemned: Criminal Origins.

Decent FPS horror? Darkness WITH shivers?
Penumbra: Overture

You hit the splicer on the head there. Two excellent creepy games that really scared the shit out of me. Can't wait for their respective sequels. And even though I agree they're better, I enjoy Bioshock very much.

I haven't finished it yet, and apart from a bit of a crashing tantrum it threw up in the beginning it runs pretty well. I LOVE using the plasmids, particularly and mainly the telekinesis one. I hardly use any other. Chucking dead splicers into living splicers and killing them that way never gets old. Ammo and such is a bit too plentiful, but because I always play these games harvesting all possible resources and conserving them, this actually forces me to take out a weapon more often to free up some space for new bullets that I can gather up and stuff in my virtual pockets.

Overall, I kinda feel like I'm playing Deus Ex: Lovecraft edition. Which for me is not a bad thing. The fact that they even included the infamous Deus Ex security code 0451 = win.

Interestingly, when I'm away from home for a holiday or something, I don't miss internet, at all. When I have other things to do or go out with friends, I don't miss it either. It's just that when I'm at home, it beats watching TV by a long shot.

Amen to that. If it's down, I really have to prevent myself from hitting the refresh button every few minutes, otherwise I'll go insane. But the problem is I'll go back to work and totally forget the internet is down, until I need info on something and realize I can't get it when I start up my browser again.

Argh, did I pick the wrong week to go on a vacation...

I'll probably pick it up when I come back next weekend, when my new laptop should have arrived aswell, so I can enjoy it in all it's glory. Can't wait!

That looks ace! Been a long time since we've seen a game like this. And made by some fellow Dutchies too. Will check it out.

I was just thinking about the game yesterday, hoping all was still well. And I see it is! Can't wait to play it, and certainly can't wait to get my hands on those sexy plugins!

This looks great! Story sounds interesting, and you're pulling off the real vs pixel blending pretty well. As has been said in the CL, you may want to play with some filters, and definitely add shadows. Basic ones a pretty simple, and with a little effort I think you would be able to get proper soft shadows aswell.

I love the first screen, I think the scene fits very well. It is possible to pull off photo backgrounds, I use a fair share of them also in my game, but I trace all the outlines and add some colors/textures here and there. The problem is that with nature that's a lot harder to do.

There's some good advice here already, and I don't know if you have Photoshop, but I think it would benefit from a shadow/highlight filter also. And Radiowaves makes a good point about shadows. Outside, they are more important than anywhere else. I think with AGS's alpha channels you could pull off a blurred shadow sprite like he demonstrated.

And don't forget to use regions to adjust the characters' light level. That does a lot for blending. I'm still trying to figure out a way to do lighting like in Broken Sword 2, where rather than change the character's brightness, they had some sort of shadow overlays, which allowed for partial shading. It looked fantastic.

Excellent job on the lighting. I do agree on the stairs, they're a bit off. The top and bottom are not that divergent that perspective slimming would be applicable. Try letting the railing go parrallel with the stairs.

This reminds me of the whole 'I found a camera in the woods' debacle at the GTAforums. Someone posted photos with lots of creepy things in it(catspiders) from an alleged abandoned camera he found. It turned into a 60 page discussion. There were even people who went out to the supposed location with shotguns...

Really awesome game. Great atmosphere and good gameplay. Keep up the good work!

Oh yes please, that would be a very nice feature.