E-Man's Sprite R & D

[Bombshell93]

in practicality you'd have frames ranging from crunched to stretched and the animation would simply follow a pattern through them, that in mind I'd say its an okay animation.
you could ease it a bit more at the end or you could have the spring be a bit more resistant, which I think would be your best bet, it'd save you a tone of frames and not look as silly.

[E-Man]

*Scratches head* I don't quite understand what you mean by this. Could you please show me?

[Gors]

he said not to make it wobble too much. They don't wobble in mario games because the principle of a spring is that the more 'rigid' it is, the quicker it returns to the original position, and thus the force generated by the elastic potential is greater, making Mario jump farther and higher. If the spring wobbles too much like a slinky then it means it doesn't have a bigger capacity of returning to its original state and thus its elastic potential is smaller, which translates to weak force.

[E-Man]

*Bangs fist into palm* Got it! That's all I needed to know! Thank you for the clarification!

Anyway, it's a shame to make my frames go to waste, but what are you going to do about it? Perhaps I could include them as bonus sprites on the finished sheet, but i'm getting ahead of myself.

How about this version of the animation then?

[E-Man]

...... Okay... Considering that nobody is replying for a while, I'll assume that my trampoline is fine as it is and move onto the next few sprites.

Anyway, I hope you're ready to be deviously denied, because I'm bring out some blocks now! *Crickets chirp* ....... Hello? ....... Anyone?



On the far left are the pieces of the brick block after a character shatters it (use several copies and rotate all of them to achieve the effect), while all the blocks bellow are variations with rounded corners. Should I just the sharp corners instead?

Also, the other thing I created was the flag pole at the end of almost every level in most Mario games.



Animating the flag is going to be a major pain... Before I move on, though, how is the shape of the flag?

[Virt]

The colors on the ? block are kind of odd. I'd think the yellow should be darker than the "white"

[E-Man]

Yes, but if I were to change the color of one sprite, then I would have to alter the colors of all the other sprites that share that color of yellow. On top of that, I think I would have to alter all the colors that are hue shifted from yellow, which would also take a lot of work.

I'm still able to do this, but are you sure you want me to?

[Gors]

yes.

[E-Man]

*Shrugs* Well, if you say so!



Everything in the black rectangles are objects with the yellows darkened by adjusting the Lightness slider in my image editing program (in this case, Adobe Fireworks). Even though this made the all the yellows look almost like the "default" yellow color, hopefully this should resolve the problem.

By the way, you think I should have left the darker values of yellow alone? Looking at the Star, it now has a glaring brown shade instead of a nicer orange shade. Forgive me for thinking out loud, but something tells me I didn't do something right... What do you guys think?

[Virt]

Question: is there a specific reason you're using an "imperfect"(?) white instead of pure white?

[E-Man]

That's a good question! You see, I purposely avoid using pure white (Hex #FFFFFF) and pure black (Hex #000000) because that's a rookie mistake. Not only are they glaringly noticeable, but some applications (MS Paint is a good example) cause strange things to happen to its transparency when used.

In short, if you must use black or white, then use values that are close to it, but are a little impure to avoid technical and visual problems. Since a lot of other good pixel artists keep this information under their hat, I'm sure I'm not alone with this preference.

[E-Man]

I'm going to be brutally honest here, but I sorely dislike making the blocks darker to make the white more apparent. Instead, I decided to do a little more hue shifting to bring the white out. The results are, in my opinion, more appealing.



Which option should I go with? Personally, I'd go with option two, but I'd like to know what you guys think.

Also, I animated the flag. It was a little odd to do, but I think what I have works.




Is it just me, or is the highlight on the flag (the light green color) look funny to you? I would consider making it look less bright or just removing it all together.

[Hiynastrike]

The flag slides up and down the pole...

[E-Man]

That's only because the flag is doing a bit of a wave motion...... Is it not supposed to move in a wave like that and I should anchor the places where the flag flaps in the breeze better regardless of its wave motion?

EDIT: Nevermind... I decided to fix it up anyway. How's this then? Any others improvements you would suggest?

[Hiynastrike]

I would say to use less contrast... It's a fabric sheet in the wind... Not a iron sheet. And the way the light colors switch with the dark colors makes the light source hard to define... Is it in front of the flag? Or in back of it?