This:


to this:
(2x)

Had some fun scribbling then refining it into something better. The brownish parts on the outline are to emphasize speed because I felt that the movement wasn't as obvious... might not be the best solution.

Hmm... C+C?

I'm working on a few more things; I'll post them after I fix this one up more.

ok! i think if you want to convey speed, making things brown won't help. i've also noticed the cloud of dirt is going to the side, unlike the direction the birdman's taking.
you could create a background to give an impression of speed, as it gives the character a context and a place in a space.

i'm looking forward to more!

Thanks, Chris! Yeah, the background makes sense, I was actually thinking of making one for it as a possible solution after struggling with it, but I decided I wanted to focus on the sprite and not the scene. Sorry, should have made my intent a bit clearer.

I think this looks much better now.


Removed the brown, changed up the dust cloud s'more so that its angle is more in-line with his direction.

the sword is perfectly straight. this means it's disregarding any perspective the character has, turning the whole piece flatter.

slanting the blade a little might solve this.

I messed around with slanting it this way and that, but still couldn't quite get it right. I'll try out some more solutions later. I got rid of the funky squarish part at the end of the blade though, which I think helps a tad.





I made this today; might turn into a game project. It's not superb as far as pixelling goes, which I hope to gain some ideas or pointers with.

The inspiration for this was a Link-esque character. A silent protagonist on a journey with a bevy of items to aid them in their quest, and wielding a sword and shield as their primary weapon. While not totally original, I thought it'd be fun to try something like this.

C+C would be most welcome. I hope to animate this as well.

you seem to have a habit of making the your swords absurdly straight. like gorsal said, this just has a really weird effect when the blade is exactly perpendicular to the player. still, i really like both of these

Think I'm getting a bit closer, probably needs some more tweaking. I just set her on a tileset I had lying around to get a feel for things.

Edit: Made a small idle animation.



Hmm, seems a bit faster than I thought it was. I'll chalk that up to how my browser processes it. :/

The shield bobbing motion seems out of place, I imagine it would be a smoother, possibly circular motion. The legs should have some noticeable change too, they look completely stiff at the moment. (Also, it seems like a pixel in his shorts disappear?)

As an additional suggestion, in the future it would be easier on the eyes if you changed the background color to something more in the middle (like gray or a low saturated tone) because the sword and the hand holding the sword are very bright compared to the black used in the body.

(06-14-2011, 10:52 AM)Strasteo Wrote:

i actually really like the design to this, reminds me of a simpler ico/sotc.

^I think there was definitely some inspiration drawn from it. Can't recall whether I was actively going for that look or if it happened subconsciously though, haha. Great games.



Much smoother now, I think. Nothing's final; right now I'm inching towards just keeping the sword tapping and blinking at the end. Maybe add in a little tapping of the foot. :]

Quick slash animation. It's actually not accurate in the way a slash attack actually works as footing is concerned, at least, from how I've acted it out; but I had a hard time thinking of how to revise and it just generally became a hassle so I did this a bit more freely.

I'll probably need to add one more frame of smoke for that to disappear nicely.

C+C?

Edit: Excuse my double post, I know it's generally frowned upon on most forums.

That doesn't really have much power behind it. She barely moves her body (and as you said, her feet) so there's minimal weight being put on the sword.

I realize it's a quick slash, but... it just looks wimpy.

Edit: Rather than slashing straight down, she should be slashing diagonally down to the right (or clockwise) since she's left handed. She should twist so that her torso faces more toward the camera until the end of the slash, at which point she turns back and pulls the sword back to her shoulder.

Thanks Vipershark; I haven't done anything drastic just yet, but I added some leg movement, tweaked the timing to give more emphasis, and twisted the main body a little while slashing/afterwards. I also got rid of the smoke because it was getting in the way of properly animating it. In-game the smoke would be generated separately anyway so it wasn't really needed here.



I think it looks a bit better.

Edit: One of the frames had a pixel off. Fixed.
Edit2: Found another one.

when you're animating its definitely worthwhile to redraw your frames. it seems like a hassle at first, but you get used to it and it really bumps the quality of your animations

(06-15-2011, 02:03 PM)Strasteo Wrote: Thanks Vipershark; I haven't done anything drastic just yet, but I added some leg movement, tweaked the timing to give more emphasis, and twisted the main body a little while slashing/afterwards. I also got rid of the smoke because it was getting in the way of properly animating it. In-game the smoke would be generated separately anyway so it wasn't really needed here.



I think it looks a bit better.

Edit: One of the frames had a pixel off. Fixed.
Edit2: Found another one.

one thing that a lot of people (myself included, sometimes) seems to have trouble is when a character attacks. Most of the time, it ends up being 'let's rotate this sword/pole/club/whatever so it looks like it's flailing', and it doesn't look natural at all.

Take a look at Pkantom Kojjiro's sprites for example:



it's got the same idea as you, but notice how it doesn't look THAT powerful, but more like 'hey let's stick this sword forward'.

Adding some in-between frames with drawback and recoil (while messing with frame's speed) increases animation quality greatly: