Quick attempt at more complex animations
In my quest to someday make pixel art that doesn’t suck, I’ve started working more on details and animations. Details are things like fancy texturing of sprites and just creating things beyond the simple shapes I seem to work with. I’m still looking into that one and not really trying much yet. But animations I’ve started working with. My little space people are all very simple so I decided to try making a little stick man character doing a running animation. It’s not great but it’s a start:
It’s a little fast so here’s the sprite sheet I used to build it:
What do you think? It’s still very rough and I’m still really pretty new to all of this, so go easy. What things could I do to make this look better? I think I’m missing a frame that mirrors the second one (such that the arm closest to the camera is slightly back instead of slightly forward) which should round off the arm animation. As is it feels a little jumpy. But the legs also suffer from looking too repetitive and I’m not entirely sure what I can do to fix that. I also think I can play with moving the head down a pixel at points to give more life there.
So any advice from the artists out there is appreciated. I’ll be sure to post back once I’ve made some more progress on making this guy not look like such a hobbling weirdo. 
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Well, the best advice I can give is take a video camera, and set it up to record you running past, they when watching it play it frame by frame and watch your motion.
You can also take a look here -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsG0W_gfMrE
Which is a video for animating a running man in flash.
And as a side note it appears like one of your legs never touches the ground.
A basic running animation should be 4 frames, you still have those spritesheets from your old tile tutorials right? they give you some idea. A more complex running animation is 8 frames, and you can keeping going up from there but you need a larger resolution, which you do not have. So you need at least one more frame.
Well, the best advice I can give is take a video camera, and set it up to record you running past, they when watching it play it frame by frame and watch your motion.
You can also take a look here -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsG0W_gfMrE
Which is a video for animating a running man in flash.
And as a side note it appears like one of your legs never touches the ground.
A basic running animation should be 4 frames, you still have those spritesheets from your old tile tutorials right? they give you some idea. A more complex running animation is 8 frames, and you can keeping going up from there but you need a larger resolution, which you do not have. So you need at least one more frame.
you’re playing the animation in a loop it might work better if you play it ping pong…
that just sounds wrong…back and forth, 12321232123 4 frames like.
I’ll stop now
you’re playing the animation in a loop it might work better if you play it ping pong…
that just sounds wrong…back and forth, 12321232123 4 frames like.
I’ll stop now
Looking good so far!
You’re on the right track with your head-bob idea. The character usually rises into the air when pushing off and lowers down as they land. Putting that in here would add a lot of life, even if it was just half a “pixel”.
On the third frame also, you might try making his arm angle upwards a bit more, rather than sticking straight out. It could make the run look more powerful.
Of course… this is all classical animation talking. You’re using those big chunky pixels and not many frames. But I think it can be done. Good luck! XD
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/Ianthraxx/zzzzz.gif
(Something I threw together to try and express what I mean.)
Looking good so far!
You’re on the right track with your head-bob idea. The character usually rises into the air when pushing off and lowers down as they land. Putting that in here would add a lot of life, even if it was just half a “pixel”.
On the third frame also, you might try making his arm angle upwards a bit more, rather than sticking straight out. It could make the run look more powerful.
Of course… this is all classical animation talking. You’re using those big chunky pixels and not many frames. But I think it can be done. Good luck! XD
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/Ianthraxx/zzzzz.gif
(Something I threw together to try and express what I mean.)
Sweet! Makes me want to dig out the Atari and play some Pitfall.
Unrelated to this post, but wondering- Do you know of a way to generate the normal map on the fly, with your Deferred 2D Normal Mapping tutorial?
Thanks.
Unrelated to this post, but wondering- Do you know of a way to generate the normal map on the fly, with your Deferred 2D Normal Mapping tutorial?
Thanks.