Definitely would like some C&C. Some of the things I wasn't too thrilled about was how it kind of seemed like she's pushing her rear arm forward (an easy fix) and I'm not to crazy about the hair movement. But yeah. You can also kind of see how I have my workflow set up. Usually I just play the animation in Photoshop, but (like in this video) an image this large (and the screen recorder going) it moves ridiculously slow. Plus, I've been having an obnoxious error where if I make a frame by frame animation in Photoshop, then play it, then rotate an object in free transform, all of the movements with the marquee tool are damaged, and I can't see what I'm moving until it's done moving (obnoxious) I can fix it by restarting Photoshop, but that's a pain in the ass, and I felt it was waaay easier to just export the frames (You can kind of see my nifty export slice to separate images flow, makes things totally easy) and run them in MMF2.
Could you upload a simple animated gif? Since you are asking for C&C on the finished animation, the most important part of the video was the last 2 seconds. And then its over before you can get a really good look at it.
Gah, I could've sworn that I had posted this. Oh well, here it is
You might need to zoom your browser in for that one, in game I scale it up, one because it's easier on the program than having a super large sprite, and 2 because I like the super blocky style that it makes. Maybe I can try getting a shader to do that hqnx filter and seeing how that looks...
EDIT: to compare, this was the sprite from the first one, though in game, one of the arms was removed for a rotating arm with a flashlight.
I like it. I know I personally couldn't do better myself. If you're looking for constructive feedback, I would say perhaps adding a little pivot to the body to match the shoulders. Nothing too extreme though. Subtly is like salt like salt. Too much and you've ruined the meal. Not enough and you risk missing it's ultimate potential.
You're doing this in Photoshop? HOW? Whenever I try and rotate pixel art in PS it automatically craps on the selection by blurring it out once I've rotated and hit OK...
I adore your sprite by the way! It's nice to actually see it animating here as it was difficult in the game with the darkness etc.
Edit: Oh and although the new sprite looks great and the animation is much smoother, I prefer not being able to see the face like on the old one. It adds to the mystery a lot I think.
Before you even begin to add shading, I suggest you block out your character. This means just adding blobs that begin to resemble the body. Otherwise, you get really stiff figures and not very nice results. This means adding no detail whatsoever until you have a really convincing movement. It also helps, if you've never drawn or painted with your hands before (carbon/pencil sketching, oil painting, etc.), to use lines to represent the skeleton of the character. Eventually, you'll erase them. But if you don't know what happens below the skin, you won't how it's supposed to move.
Also, I suggest you start with the 8 frame cycle, and then add empty frames between every frame and make the other 8 to get 16. There's just a huge amount of things you should consider that I won't mention in this short reply, but I recommend www.wayofthepixel.net again. It's a pretty big encyclopedia, so it doesn't hurt to make use of it.
In the GIF, you can see that the heels of her shoes disappear. It looks to me as though both feet turn their toes toward the player before they lift off the ground.
You already mentioned the left arm, but other than those two things I think it's looking slick. Nice work!
Originally Posted by Silveraura I like it. I know I personally couldn't do better myself. If you're looking for constructive feedback, I would say perhaps adding a little pivot to the body to match the shoulders. Nothing too extreme though. Subtly is like salt like salt. Too much and you've ruined the meal. Not enough and you risk missing it's ultimate potential.
I agree, I did add that to the original sprite if you take a look at it, although there wasn't much of a bob to the sprite.
Originally Posted by -Liam- You're doing this in Photoshop? HOW? Whenever I try and rotate pixel art in PS it automatically craps on the selection by blurring it out once I've rotated and hit OK...
I adore your sprite by the way! It's nice to actually see it animating here as it was difficult in the game with the darkness etc.
Edit: Oh and although the new sprite looks great and the animation is much smoother, I prefer not being able to see the face like on the old one. It adds to the mystery a lot I think.
That's because you have anti-aliasing and bilinear interpolation on . For every marquee tool you use, there is a tick mark to turn it off, AND you have to change the interpolation, which is in edit>preferances>general, change the drop down menu that says "Bilinear" to "Nearest Neighbor".
And I get what you're saying about the face. I was debating on adding the facial features or not, but in this particular version I want to do a lot more with reactions to the situation, and a face can go a long way to help with that.
Originally Posted by Alonso Martin Before you even begin to add shading, I suggest you block out your character. This means just adding blobs that begin to resemble the body. Otherwise, you get really stiff figures and not very nice results. This means adding no detail whatsoever until you have a really convincing movement. It also helps, if you've never drawn or painted with your hands before (carbon/pencil sketching, oil painting, etc.), to use lines to represent the skeleton of the character. Eventually, you'll erase them. But if you don't know what happens below the skin, you won't how it's supposed to move.
Also, I suggest you start with the 8 frame cycle, and then add empty frames between every frame and make the other 8 to get 16. There's just a huge amount of things you should consider that I won't mention in this short reply, but I recommend www.wayofthepixel.net again. It's a pretty big encyclopedia, so it doesn't hurt to make use of it.
Not sure if you watched the video, but that was the same technique I used on the skirt. The only parts I do feel are stiff is the midsection (which was intentional) and the hair (which I'm not particularly fond of). I might end up doing that with the hair. Also, I did start with an 8 frame and moved to a 16 frame, though just with the leg.
But I get what you're saying with the blob form/skeletal guide, I will have to use that for the entire sprite on subsequent animations. I usually do do that, though in this one I simply used the old leg animation as a reference and built everything off of the leg. I know for the running animation at least, I'm going to need a lot more fluidity to it, but I've got an idea on how to accomplish what you're talking about.
Originally Posted by s-m-r In the GIF, you can see that the heels of her shoes disappear. It looks to me as though both feet turn their toes toward the player before they lift off the ground.
You already mentioned the left arm, but other than those two things I think it's looking slick. Nice work!
Ah, I agree, I'll fix the heel up. My computer was running really slow at that point so I was like "forget this! I'm done".
I like the idea of changing the facial expressions based on the situation, I can't think of many games that do this. Thanks for the PS tip by the way, but it seems I'll have to remember it for when I get REAL Photoshop - It doesn't work in Elements!
That is one awesome walk animation. I like current things about both of them.
I feel your first version of the sprite. The dress flows better, it reads more like an "overlapping action" (an action preceded and followed by lesser actions that relate to, or are the result of the main action)
With the second version I feel like the arms have killer follow-though. The way the shoulder and hand cruve in and out. looks perfectly placed.
Their both vary nice. It's almost impossible for me to pick one.
If you're using facial expressions, then I recommend you make the head a different object from the body object(s). I have a hunch that will save you a tremendous amount of time.
Looks nice. I'm sure someone will tell you how it can be improved, but as a player, I wouldn't mind seeing it in games. You should probably ask some people in pixel art communities about it; I find that they're great in analysing stuff like this.
I didn't know you could make pixel art in photoshop though. Looks unwieldy, like cutting garlic with a cleaver.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Originally Posted by -Liam- I like the idea of changing the facial expressions based on the situation, I can't think of many games that do this. Thanks for the PS tip by the way, but it seems I'll have to remember it for when I get REAL Photoshop - It doesn't work in Elements!
Well the game does take some elements from the early clocktower games (mainly the first two, the SNES version and the first PS1 version), and they handled that fairly well.
Originally Posted by Pan-tosser That is one awesome walk animation. I like current things about both of them.
I feel your first version of the sprite. The dress flows better, it reads more like an "overlapping action" (an action preceded and followed by lesser actions that relate to, or are the result of the main action)
With the second version I feel like the arms have killer follow-though. The way the shoulder and hand cruve in and out. looks perfectly placed.
Their both vary nice. It's almost impossible for me to pick one.
I kind of felt that the skirt on the first one was a bit more unrealistic, since it almost looked as if it were simply rotating around her hips, not really following the movement of her legs. The newer one isn't perfect, I'm still trying to get the hang of clothy movement.
Originally Posted by s-m-r If you're using facial expressions, then I recommend you make the head a different object from the body object(s). I have a hunch that will save you a tremendous amount of time.
Depends on how I do it, but I might end up just giving her a few different movement states all together to indicate her state, rather than just sticking with just her face. I'll either do that, or just have her react in the situation.
Originally Posted by Muz Looks nice. I'm sure someone will tell you how it can be improved, but as a player, I wouldn't mind seeing it in games. You should probably ask some people in pixel art communities about it; I find that they're great in analysing stuff like this.
I didn't know you could make pixel art in photoshop though. Looks unwieldy, like cutting garlic with a cleaver.
Yeah, I was thinking about doing that, I might produce some more work and present those, as there are tons of things I feel I need to go over.
Nah, it's nothing like cutting garlic with a meat cleaver. Once you get the correct settings (which really is not much, all it requires is exactly what I just told Liam) it's just like any other modern graphics program, except it allows for many more helpful features that can save mountains of headaches, as well as customizable scripts and tools, all of which are extremely beneficial to pixel art. Usually people have said that Photoshop simply contains a lot of extra stuff that you'll never need to use, which is simply just a remark made out of inexperience. Photoshop has plenty of extra tools that you CAN use, if you know what they're for.
The analogy I would go with is that using photoshop for pixel art is like cutting down a tree with a chainsaw rather than a manual saw. Both can get the job done, but the chainsaw can potentially be a lot quicker if you know how to use it, though you're more likely to hurt yourself if you don't.
Originally Posted by Silveraura If you're looking for constructive feedback, I would say perhaps adding a little pivot to the body to match the shoulders.
I agree with Silveraura. In fact the more that I look at it, I think the body needs to pivot a bit. Otherwise, tone down the shoulder movement just a bit. But the actual arm (and legs) animations are great. Very impressive.
Well, if I were to tone down the shoulder movement any more, they'd actually be moving . But thanks a ton! Glad I know I'm at least doing something right.
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Edited by Chloe Sagal
. For every marquee tool you use, there is a tick mark to turn it off, AND you have to change the interpolation, which is in edit>preferances>general, change the drop down menu that says "Bilinear" to "Nearest Neighbor".
