Jappio's RPG Sprites

[Jappio]

Well, not sure how to respond to what Quirby said... moving on.

It won't be commercial game Midi, not for the time being. It's being made with RPG maker, and we will have some borrowed assets. Things like music, NPC sprites, and the such aren't going to be music. Also I do have Shroomette, a character that is pretty heavily based on Toadette.

Although in the back of my mind I have thoughts of maybe one day making the game totally our own. I could change Shroomette to be a bit more original, and with time we could create more of our own assets. Yet that would also be a big burden on my friend who is the one making all this. He'd have to do a lot of the coding and stuff from scratch. Right now we're just content with a simple little RPG maker game =)

Ryu is the main character. The story is as simple as him going off on an errand, meeting interesting characters, and eventually trying to put a stop to the war taking place.

Enough of all that though, got another frame done:

[Kelvin]

Ah, I see. I'm a bit rusty with GM, but if you were using that, I could still give you coding assistance. I find RPG Maker to be too rigid for my tastes. As I recall, the new version only supports FP battle view, though that may have changed. Making a turn-based RPG in Game Maker is fairly simple; in fact there's tons of templates out there, or I could even make you a simplistic base myself.

Besides, all the RPGM games I've seen use a 32x32 grid, and it's made me wonder if RPGM even allows different size grids. Your characters look like they'd be more comfortable on a 16x16 grid, or heck, maybe no grid at all. If you ever make diagonal frames, I could make the game support those as well.

I think I still have one of my old RPG templates lying around, if you're interested.

[Jappio]

Thanks for the offer, but my friend is doing fine in RPGM as far as I'm aware. I don't deal much with the coding myself, so I wouldn't know for sure, yet there are a lot of ways to customize RPGM from what I understand. You can do non first person type battling. In fact, he was telling me how people can actually make real time battle systems like the 'Tales of' series. Not sure about that Grid stuff, but hopefully he'd have let me know by now if my sprites aren't going to work =P

Thanks anyways =)

Also got another frame done. Only two to go.

[Jappio]

Well, I got all 6 frames (11 with repeat) completed for the most part. Still have smaller details to work with, like the shading on the axe, adding details like his chains if I can get them to work. Yet that's all minor stuff I'll get to another time. The animation itself though I think is done, at least I'm hoping it is.



This was quite a process to finish, but I'm pretty happy with the result. Probably the best sprite I've done. Sadly I have to keep this up for another 6 characters, and these are just the basic attack animation

[E-Man]

I have a question, Jappio. What is the deal with that green line intersecting the character's feet? By the looks of it, I would assume it's the ground plane.

If you are going to have a ground plane function like it does in certain platforming games (including the Mario ones), may I offer a suggestion? It would be wise to have the feet look completely flat, like how Mario is like here.



Even though feet like these normally look odd in some backgrounds (ones that are not in 2D orthographic view to be precise), having the feet like you have them now would look equally awkward if your sprite is placed in atop the ground plane in Mario's world (the feet would either penetrate through the ground or the character would look like he is standing on his tiptoes).

Then again, I am only assuming this because this is what it looks like to me based on what I see. If you're not attempting to active that kind of orthographic thing with your character, then what you have is perfectly fine.

[Sketchasaurus]

I think the green line is sort of there just to make sure that the feet line up with eachother, but then I think the background is going to be in perspective like final fantasy's battle system, since I assume it's going to be an RPG:

[E-Man]

I see what you mean, Sketchasaurus. Since I'm working on sprites that have flat soles in the feet, I didn't know for certain what Jappio had in mind.

EDIT: On a side note, though, even if your feet are in the correct position to match Sketch's idea of a battlefield, I actually noticed how jarring the legs move when he lunges forward. The foot in the front should remain in the same place, while the leg in the back takes a step forward in front of the character. As it looks now, both of your feet seem to slide, which looks a little unnatural.

For a rule of thumb in animation, try acting it out. For example, when I stood the same way your character did, I attempted to swing an invisible axe. To swing it, my feet did not do what your character did. Instead, I took a large step forward with the foot in the back and made my whole upper body lean forward.

[Jappio]

Yep, it's an RPG with a FF style type perspective, for the most part at least. I have a mock up a few posts ago to a Youtube link that kind of shows the idea behind it. That green line is just my own personal little helper tool.

As for the animation, I only had that much lung because it was recommended earlier.

As for the foot stance, I do the move in real life and even with a toy battleaxe, and I don't require a step with it. If which hand was holding the axe were different, I could see that. Yet it's his right hand that is near the head of the axe, and his right foot that is already forward, so stepping forward feel unnatural, as it's already there. Bring the other foot forward doesn't jive well with the swing.

However a stomp in general could help the animation I've been told elsewhere. I wish it were something I'd heard mentioned earlier when I had the more basic base going.

Yet the character does lean forward. In the middle, when he has the axe up, notice how tall he is. Then when he brings it down, his chest and head are much lower and you see less of his stomach. Due to his angle, the lean is more towards the viewer than anything else.

Here is a version without the lunging:


So the plan is, the next chance I get to seriously sprite, is to kick out his back leg so it's bent the other way, and add something in that makes it look like the first leg lifted and slammed down (which will be hard to show thanks to where the swing is).

Thanks for the tips, hopefully this time I can get it right *sigh*

[Rosencrantz]

The magical thing is you gotta think about the ~physics~ of this kind of stuff. Mass, in general, doesn't like any sort of change when it comes to motion; it'll basically either refuse to move anywhere, or it'll never want to stop moving.

SO
let's pick apart the animation:

That axe looks heavy. Like, really heavy. So when he lifts it over his shoulder, it's going to try and keep going into his back. So maybe add in an additional frame where the axe moves back by another pixel or two.

In that same animation, you're doing something pretty nice: you're making him rotate his body to go along with the inertia of the axe. The front foot shouldn't really be static during this transition; at the very least, the ankle wants to twist too in order to give the full body rotation it wants. And since you're rotating the pelvis, the upper leg should retract backward to stay connected to the joint. Try making the kneecap bend inward so that the leg becomes straighter towards the end of the backswing; do this in such a way that the upper leg stays in its hip socket~

Now, the actual swing: you've brought the axe to a complete halt, which means it wants to say "haha screw you I'm done moving". You should add in an additional frame here to model this point in the animation. Basically, you want to have him starting to sling the axe forward; have the axe shift a pixel (inertial resistance) and have the guy beginning to move into the swing pose.
(Here's a little secret: even though that handle is supposed to be rigid, truth is that material you don't want snapping in half likes to bend. So you can have the arms pushing the pole into the start of a swing, but then have the end of the pole bend down to attach back to the axe head, which remains rigid and unrotated in the inertia position. Like a very slight j. Just, you know, without a very curvy tail bit).

Now we get into the axetual swing bit. Again, the full-body rotation is great; the back foot's gonna rotate, but the back foot also wants to stay in place. If you want a good swing, you gotta put your own force into it, and moving forward while swinging is the best way to do this! But you gotta stop yourself while doing this big swing, otherwise you send your axe flying behind you (physics) and you go slamming into the dirt. So that front foot's got a job to do: it has to come slamming down into the dirt so you don't lose your teeth. Not to mention it needs to move forward anyway otherwise the twist becomes a tad awkward.

During the swing blur, couple of things: first, the blade blur doesn't stop at the back of the axe; the front of the axe head is also moving very fast and should also be a part of that blur effect. Second, remember your bogus physics lectures: that axe has stopped during the blur animation, but it won't be at rest at a position after the blur. Rather, it should be in its final position just a bit <before> where the blur stops.






ALTERNATIVELY, you could forego the one-two footsteps and just have him lean back. I toyed with the animation myself; it's a really rough 10-minute cut so I didn't toy around with body features, but I think it's a nice representation of the wind-up then swing I was going on about:

[Jappio]

First and formost, I do want to say thank you. In general of course to everyone. I really appreciate the help.

*sigh*

I'm not exactly 'happy' though, because I still seem to have so much to go with just this one sprite. It's proven to be quite a thing of endurance this project of mine. So many problems popping up.

Yet really, thanks, I appreciate what you've said.



Now, just to summarize and make sure I have this right before I go in...

Change the 2-4 so he lifts his front foot off the ground.

I need a frame after the 4th pose, one where he moves into the swing, but not enough to start blurring.

The 5th frame needs some editing on the blur. I also need to add in the foot coming down of course.

The 6th should be changed so the axe actually is pulled back from how far it swings in the motion blur.

So if I have this straight, I really should only have to add the one frame then between 4 and 5? Plenty of editing sadly, but at least not too much fresh new frames?

[Jappio]

Ok, just a little update. Got another frame in there and edited the others. I realize that the one leg is out too far, and should be bent more.

Plan to add a frame right before the swing so he leads into it better.

Of course still need to fix up the finish poses there, I'm still using the old ones.

[Sketchasaurus]

I kind of find the swing of the axe a bit odd, for two reasons:
-The anticipation and recoil of the animation make the axe feel like a light weapon even though it's a huge chunk of metal.
-The arc of the swing feels more like the slash of a sword than the chop of an axe.

Oh, I also think that an idle stance where he has both hands on the axe would make the transition from idle to attacking easier.

Here's a little rough illustration of what I would do; of course, it's all up to you at the end of the day.


as for the art itself, something about the dude's head and face looks off to me.

[Jappio]

Well, I do like to try my best and listen to critique, but sorry Sketchasaurus, I've been told a few different things now for this sprite and how the swing is done. I'm going to stick with the foot lift as suggested.

I do of course agree anticipation and recoil. I have added in a little more, at least I hope. I will also try to see what I do with the curve of the swing and such. I still haven't gotten to the those last two frames and such.



So yeah, I hope that I've gotten the lifting and going into the swing stuff done now. Time to fix the swing and the ending pose...

[Virtuaboy123]

Sketchasaur's edit would make for a good normal attack in my opinion.
The one above my post looks like a critical attack as he's putting all his momentum in the swing. Maybe have a little longer pause just before the swing.

I'd say do both animations.

Also the head could use a little work. Its almost ball like.

[Jappio]

I'll keep that in mind, but I'm not sure if the guy making this game is capable of doing something like that. For now I'm going to use this as the basic attack, but if he can separate them, and after I've gotten to other characters, I'll come back and see if I can add that.

Finally did work with the blur. I also worked on his head too. So, again I'm at a "I think I have it done" stage. If I'm all good at this point, I can go in next to do the finer detailing.



I really hope the other characters don't end up needing 9 frames of each (16 or so with repeat). So jealous of things that can get away with less.