Speedo Joe

[Bombshell93]

Hey, not been here in almost 2 months but it seemed the perfect place to go now that I have my 2D engine working and I need to make some artwork for a startup project.

I decided to go with one of my old designs, including a revamp of the character and a retry of the spritesheet.
Here is the concept (drawn using graphics tablet then cleaned up as pixel art)
SPEEDO JOE!

To keep his life story short and comical,
Some summer afternoon "Super Dome" Science labs, threw unknown material into 9 spacial anomalies, each of the anomalies gave birth to a creature with peculiar behaviours and abilities, they ran a muck around the super dome and burst out into the world but one was captured, that one was Speedo Joe (so named as his speedos were stolen from a scientist named Joe) he was tampered with and sent out into the world to defeat and capture the remaining creatures.

Joes brief life story aside here is the sprite sheet so far, (also showing what needs to be done.)
GREEN is normal
PURPLE is gun sprites, the gun you can think of as a super mario fire flower kind of pick up.


Animated:


Any and all crits are appreciated, I will say in advanced, atm my main concern is getting enough animations to start working on gameplay, quality is second concern, but it will become primary concern once the game is semi-playable.
Thank you for your time,
Bombshell

[Hoeloe]

That animation looks quite choppy, mostly due to the fact that his limbs seem to move separately. His legs, for example, move on alternating frames, where they should move together.

[Bombshell93]

its worth noting I've got the frame rate running slow on that so the idle animation doesn't look like epilepsy. The jumping animation is less and animation and more a state, first frame is rising, second is the hang of jump, third is falling, forth is landing.
no doubt I've fudged this run cycle up, but I figured I'd post some progress while I'm at it, I'll cut some frames out and clean up the 2 high and 2 low frames then try and do the 4 mid frames. Sheet has been updated.

[Hoeloe]

I had already guessed that. Even so, moving one limb at a time is weird and unnatural.

As for that walk animation, his right leg shrinks when he has it fully backwards, and there's a jump in the animation as it loops, because he's gradually moving forward during it, it seems.

Fix these errors and it should be okay.

[Bombshell93]

the shortening leg thing was an over estimation of perspective, does the new one (right) look any better?

spritesheet updated.

[Hoeloe]

Yes, that looks a lot better. It occurs to me now, though, that it looks more like his face is drifting over his body, rather than his body rotating. This is because there is no movement apart from the face. Clearly, the guy's body is not totally symmetrical in all axes above his waist, so his body should change shape slightly as it is seen from different angles.

Also you still need to fix the jump.

[Bombshell93]

the jump I've fixed its just not in that sheet version, now the legs tuck a bit more when falling rather than his leg kicking out, which looks a lot more natural.
As for the turning of the body, I didn't want to touch the body until the legs were moving okay, the addition of the arms should fix it (the arms being the only thing to turn on the body that isn't his face.)
The dash I'm unsure on how to do, I think I'll tilt his bulb forward, pull his arms back (as if air drag) and have a very tuck and stomp cycle rather than a full waist swing and kick, like in the run cycle.
I'll post again when I have the arms on the run cycle and possibly a turn animation, after which I may start showing gameplay screens (as I'll have the bare minimum for platforming mechanics).
In the mean time, thanks for the help

[Bombshell93]

Sheet Updated,
As you can see I now I have 2 empty rows, turns out the turning animation wasn't necessary, because of the pose of idle, turning is fairly smooth without its own animation, so I decided to save those 2 rows for something more important, I was thinking the flame as shown in the concept pic, for rolling (when at high speeds) to indicate when the rolling can do damage (it'd make no sense to roll at 2MPH and still destroy stuff.)
I'd say that'd take up 1 row (4 frames for horrizontal / vertical, 4 frames for diagonal) and the other row I'm unsure, maybe HUD items (life sign, warning sign (for incoming dangers), energy bar, etc.)

[Hoeloe]

Yup looks a lot better on both accounts. I recommend adding another couple of frames to the jump animation, though. Remember, when falling, his feet should be preparing to land. At the moment, he's going straight from a mid-air pose to a standing pose, which looks odd. In reality, people would crouch upon landing, though that's not always viable in a game scenario. In any case, there shouldn't be such a big change when he hits the floor.

[Mashuga]

Actually you wouldnt need that many. Just a single frame thats some middle ground between is legs together and legs spread apart, instead of the quick movement it has.

[Bombshell93]

changed the jump animation (its still screwed up, more than before even just I made slight changes to the general sheet cleaned bits here and there.)

I'm not programming the physics, going for a sonic the hedgehog kind of physics, with less emphasis on speed, though I am still adamant of having a speed = grip system so loopty loops are possible.
anyway back to the point I'm not the best at tiles, and so I was wondering if anyone could help me with that? In this particular case I don't want to learn how, I want a partner to help lighten the work load, atm I'm stuck with the programming (essentially from scratch) and all spriting and all music (of which I will also be looking for someone capable of catchy chiptune)

The game when completed will be free and open-source, so sad to say there's no budget, its purely for the fun of it.
Here is the tileset layout I have so far the top is world tiles the bottom is cosmetic tiles, if anyone is interested a word of warning, one sheet is expected per stage (which will consist of 3 acts) yep I'm going with the sonic style ACT1, ACT2, BOSS. purple and green outlines mark the size of the cosmetic, 4 large (128 x 128), 16 small (64 x 64).

Feel free to fill in the 12 green spaces if there are any world tiles I may have forgotten, or just use them for gimmicks, w/e world collision will be separate from the tiles so what fills what spaces doesn't really matter.

I'm open to multiple contributors, were I so lucky as to get a few people interested, the next few days I'll be making the engine until I have an alpha stage level editor and basic platformer physics, I've got all sprites I need for debugging up to that point, where I will then need to start expanding gameplay and slowly building a more stable level editor (the more user friendly the better) hopefully there will be a point where I can give the editor to a few smart people to build up clever levels.

Thanks in advanced to anyone interested,
and thanks to anyone whos read my text wall,
any and all help appreciated,
Bombshell

[Zadaben]

I think that last post may belong in the request thread, but the sprites of Joe look pretty good, and definitely belong here.

[Mashuga]

No point in cutting the project into two threads is there?

I'll be glad to help with the tiling.
Heres some examples of my work:

[Bombshell93]

I suppose if its possible (consider this a request) this could be moved to the sprite projects forum as it would essentially be a project of organised mass spriting. If its not possible then I'll either start a new topic or keep the character spriting and tile spriting separate (which is kind of undesirable, if the characters don't match the tiles both efforts would be in vain.)
I also apologise I left out some details, stages feel free to imrpovise on style, design, hell even name it, I only care about needing 2 specific stages, stage 1, tumbling medows, peaceful looking, fine grass and minimal foliage. and stage ?(it could fit at any point of the game), to the skies, sky level, solid cloud floors, etc. tumbling medows I just like the idea of a peaceful opening. to the skies, based around a boss design for whom I have an interesting boss gimmick in mind.

anyway, I may go quiet a day or two while I get the engines basics working, its easier to sprite when you see your work in action

[Gors]

if this is going to be a game, wouldn't this fit Gamedev section better? Just my two cents.

About the sprites, Joe needs more balance, he looks like is going to fall on his back.