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Nice BYOB sigs
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Mar 10, 2017 22:25
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| # ? May 13, 2024 00:04 |
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I forgot that I asked about tracing upthread! Whoops. I hacked at Asperite and made a squirrel running animation. Critique encouraged, I still have no idea what I'm doing.
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Mar 15, 2017 02:13
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Man I'm going through old files and I found this, which I'm pretty sure I got from this thread. The top row was randomly generated pixel icons, and people were posting their interpretations of them. Does anyone remember this? What was the generator called? e: Found it. SMP fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Mar 15, 2017 |
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Mar 15, 2017 03:35
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Trying to make some monsters in piskel:  
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Mar 16, 2017 04:55
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 Something i've done today, I never really tried pixel art before but i'm happy with the dude. I used a restrained color palette in asperite for it and it was in 64x64, probably could've been done with higher resolution if I want to try out lucasarts kind of games later on.
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Mar 19, 2017 00:55
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Bean posted:I forgot that I asked about tracing upthread! Whoops. I hacked at Asperite and made a squirrel running animation. Critique encouraged, I still have no idea what I'm doing. It looks good from here. Try scaling your images up at least 2x for posting because it makes viewing easier. SMP posted:Man I'm going through old files and I found this, which I'm pretty sure I got from this thread. Such a great tool. I'm surprised it doesn't get used more for game jams. These were my entries for a weekly challenge: 
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Mar 19, 2017 03:31
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If I was slightly better at catching small mistakes before replicating something, I probably would've saved myself hours on this. 
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Mar 30, 2017 02:13
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My New Year's resolution was to learn how create stuff in a visual medium, so, naturally, I wait to start learning until the last week of march. I've done one per night: Night # 1, 64x64 Canvas  Night # 2 64x64 Canvas Night # 3, 128x128 Canvas Night # 4, 128x128 CanvasI'm a complete amateur at doing visual stuff, especially animation. I'm reading a lot and watching tutorials on Youtube, so I hope to get a lot better over the course of this year. Also, if I'm missing any fundamental aspects of drawing or animation, let me know. I know enough to know I'm bad, so I welcome any advice on how to improve.
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Apr 2, 2017 17:40
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Most people will tell you to start with drawing instead of trying to learn via an abstraction like pixel art. Build up a solid foundation of anatomical understanding, do figure studies, etc. Even cartoony or otherwise abstracted stuff will turn out much better with that foundation established.
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Apr 2, 2017 19:00
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Well, the problem is that I have super shaky hands, so making precise lines and curves is hard. It's what kept me out of visual stuff for the past forever. Pixels aren't so bad though, I find. Maybe I just like abstraction.
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Apr 2, 2017 19:39
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Elpato posted:Well, the problem is that I have super shaky hands, so making precise lines and curves is hard. It's what kept me out of visual stuff for the past forever. Is it because of a medical condition or because of a lack of practice holding pencils and the like?
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Apr 4, 2017 03:26
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I dunno if this is the right thread. I have had an avatar since forever that I kinda like.  I'm looking for someone willing to scale it up to forums avatar size and make it pretty. Willing to buy forums upgrade or something else for the artist.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:06
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Odddzy posted:Is it because of a medical condition or because of a lack of practice holding pencils and the like? I've always had the shakes for as long as i can remember. I even remember trying to draw comics when I was a kid. All my lines came out squiggly and not at all what i wanted. Nothing medical. Just a high strung guy, I guess. Makes it hard to draw any graceful lines, regardless.
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Apr 4, 2017 20:46
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Elpato posted:I've always had the shakes for as long as i can remember. I even remember trying to draw comics when I was a kid. All my lines came out squiggly and not at all what i wanted. Drink a couple beers before drawing, then.
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Apr 4, 2017 21:52
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Tunicate posted:Drink a couple beers before drawing, then. Practicing form, cloth, and hair in motion.   Also, yes, most everything I do creatively is a couple beers in.
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Apr 5, 2017 08:30
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Reminds me of Seiko Miyazawa from Tough.
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Apr 6, 2017 08:33
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A cropped view of dem Cap'n Planet buns would make an ace av
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Apr 6, 2017 16:32
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Re-doing characters. I can't possibly recommend Pixeljoint's WIP forums enough, I wouldn't have progressed lately without their help.
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Apr 7, 2017 12:57
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Were they the ones who persuaded you to eschew the huge wooden shoes? 
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Apr 8, 2017 11:35
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Please don't start the dogpile again, it's undeniable that Ash has made huge improvements since first attempting pixel art and that sprite is totally acceptable.
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Apr 8, 2017 13:28
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Scut posted:Please don't start the dogpile again, it's undeniable that Ash has made huge improvements since first attempting pixel art and that sprite is totally acceptable. Echoing this, he's come extremely far from when he originally took offense to the advice here and has made incredible strides while maintaining his own style. Not everyone is going to look the same and that's what makes this thread so great.
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Apr 9, 2017 01:51
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Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for them!
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Apr 9, 2017 08:39
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Didn't mean to cause any problems! It's true, the feet were a tad large! I'm probably spending too much time on this, but I'm still trying to get the battle/fighting bit down:  Just a question, I've no experience with resolution and I'm trying to figure out how many tiles should be shown on the "screen" at any given time, I don't want it to look too distant, but I don't want it to need too much scrolling, if uh that makes any sense? The map above is 8x16 32x32 tiles (512x256 originally, but i upsized to make it easier to see) and because my tiles are so big it means less screen can be shown, and because I'm still unsure of how big it is or should be, i'll probably have to settle with what i have above, potentially ignoring a battle UI, Like i had in previous versions. I'd prefer not to have to resize sprites, if that's of any importance either.
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Apr 14, 2017 14:22
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From a game design perspective, the "No/Yes" confirmation needs to have some way to show them what they are confirming. If I hit the wrong command, just seeing "No/Yes" won't help. Maybe something like "ATTK - > 3 DMG" above the choices in floating text. You're probably in the early stages right now, so I don't know if that's helpful or not. Pixel art wise, I love the feel of it, and the tiled menus look great. Bright colors remind me of Advanced Wars on GBA.
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Apr 14, 2017 15:03
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It looks pretty good, and I have no answer to your resolution question. If you're not already planning to, I would add in a "guy is hit" animation so that the swing feels like it has power behind it.
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Apr 14, 2017 19:13
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I'll start by stating clearly that I can't draw or animate to save myself, just so you have a point of reference and can tell me to shut up. But I'm wondering what this idle animation is supposed to convey? It's like his left leg is a piston, but even if it was bending I'm still left wondering why he's bouncing up and down like that? Is this just a standard convention for this style of game and you see the same thing everywhere? I can understand side-to-side swaying in fighting games where the characters want to stay fluid, but what do troops do when they are waiting around? Like I said, I don't really have any idea what I'm talking about but it just looks to me like something that should be more subtle.
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Apr 14, 2017 23:18
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Ash Crimson posted:
Obviously it's going to vary based on aesthetics and stuff, but here's some guidelines to stick to: Tiles need to be big enough that all information being presented is clearly legible. Tiles need to be small enough that a comfortable amount are visible on screen at the same time. At the VERY least, there should be enough tiles that a character in the center of the screen can see all of their available movement options without scrolling. For more comfort, you probably want at least twice that. A character in the center of the screen should probably be able see any enemies that could interact with them in a single turn of both the PC and the NPC moving.
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Apr 14, 2017 23:44
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Gromit posted:I'll start by stating clearly that I can't draw or animate to save myself, just so you have a point of reference and can tell me to shut up. But I'm wondering what this idle animation is supposed to convey? It's like his left leg is a piston, but even if it was bending I'm still left wondering why he's bouncing up and down like that? Is this just a standard convention for this style of game and you see the same thing everywhere? I can understand side-to-side swaying in fighting games where the characters want to stay fluid, but what do troops do when they are waiting around? Hey man, I appreciate the critique, my reasoning for the animation is that i worried it'd look lazy or bad if they weren't doing something. I'll trying reducing the movement of the legs, but keep some of the movement of the chest.
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Apr 15, 2017 09:02
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Ash Crimson posted:Hey man, I appreciate the critique, my reasoning for the animation is that i worried it'd look lazy or bad if they weren't doing something. I'll trying reducing the movement of the legs, but keep some of the movement of the chest. Oh I certainly agree they should be animated in some way. But like I said, I don't play the sort of game this would appear in so maybe they all have exaggerated idle animations? I'm just trying to think what it is I'd be doing if I was a pikeman waiting for a fight to kick off. Whatever it is, I doubt it would make the thing on my helmet lever up and down. I wish I could be more helpful. Maybe the guy would be shifting his weight around from side to side more? I wouldn't change anything based on just me, though. I'm possibly the least qualified to make any sort of critique, except perhaps being so removed from the subject matter I have fresh eyes (but maybe a bad opinion)?
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Apr 15, 2017 13:35
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I mean, retro games of all genres had silly idles. They make jokes about it in modern shows like Gravity Falls. There's certainly room for other approaches, but I don't see much wrong with the above. Pixel art requires exaggerated motion, subtleties don't read well at tiny resolutions.
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Apr 16, 2017 02:03
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mutata posted:I mean, retro games of all genres had silly idles. They make jokes about it in modern shows like Gravity Falls. There's certainly room for other approaches, but I don't see much wrong with the above. Pixel art requires exaggerated motion, subtleties don't read well at tiny resolutions. I always thought it was funny that the guys from Final Fantasy Tactics (and various other tactic games) would actually walk in place for their idle. I suppose it was to make it feel like people weren't just standing around to get hit?
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Apr 16, 2017 05:19
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I want to say that it helped communicate that the game was still running and not frozen, but I'm pretty sure I'm just making that up. I think at the end of the day it just goes to "in video games, moving is better than static".
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Apr 16, 2017 06:34
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A really quick update, eliminated the leg pivoting and focused on the chest moving, added more AAing. Apologies for posting such short, incremental changes. I've looked at other examples of idle animations in strategy games on the battle/map screen; shining force 1&2, advance wars series and the old FE series, but for the most part the sprites are much smaller or/and include a walking animation such as the shining force series and FF tactics series and Tactics Orge. Telepath tactics doesn't even have idle animations afaik. Going through the FE series as a whole, alot of the idle animations seem to be similar to mine; movements not exactly condusive to a battle situation be it through pistoning of the legs or raising of the arms. It works in that series, but i'm not sure if it translates well to (comparatively) larger sprites. Hopefully this doesn't sound like complaining, it's just difficult to make subtle movement on sprites that are under 32x32 (excluding the base/stand) and I'm trying to ensure readability by making sure weapons don't overlap, although i don't mind so much if characters do.
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Apr 16, 2017 09:08
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It kind of looks like he's shrugging now, also stop apologizing 
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Apr 16, 2017 13:58
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Ash, post as many quick updates as you want, this thread hasn't been moving super fast lately. The first version reminded me of old school idle animations more than the shrug version.
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Apr 16, 2017 15:39
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yeah i like the old version better even if it was kinda nonsensical
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Apr 16, 2017 16:14
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There are two approaches to strategy idle animations: - the more realistic / western RPG approach, where the character just breathes and stands mostly in place (eg. Fallout, Jagged Alliance) - the more exaggerated / japanese RPG approach, where characters always animate in place, even if in context it doesn't make sense (eg. Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics) You're obviously copying the latter model. I think the problem is, as you said, in those games the animations only shifted a few pixels because that's all the resolution could afford. Cranking up the scale it looks weirder because people normally don't straight move up and down, they shift back and forth, breathe in and out, etc. So instead of trying to make it more subtle, I think you should keep it exaggerated like the first one but break up the "stiffness" instead. Your movement is very vertical. Body parts that stay static or only move in one axis in an animation always stand out, make it look like the body is stretching around like a piston, rather than shifting its weight around back and forth like its organic. Again, if you go look at something like a recent Fire Emblem, you'll notice that while things only move a few pixels, there's more moving parts moving in different ways to make the whole thing more dynamic. Sometimes the body moves up and down but the limbs move back and forth, sometimes there's a sway to the weapon, sometimes there's slightly different movement between the body and clothes, sometimes there's other subtle animations like hair and capes and stuff, etc. These are characters in an RPG after all, not just generic stiff army dudes, so all this can help giving them some more character.
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Apr 16, 2017 17:18
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also, it's important to consider the pacing of your frames as well. you can emphasize the motion by going fast on the in and out and pausing for longer on the middle frame.  it makes the motion a bit more natural than the chest oscilliating up and down at a consistent speed.
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Apr 16, 2017 17:39
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Thanks for the comments and critique so far! To SupSuper; my hesitancy towards vertical mvoement is because in the past i would tend to depict them in such a way that it'd look both unnatural and dance like. A quick update:  The arms could probably do with moving a bit more, regardless of the body's moving up and down
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Apr 16, 2017 23:32
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| # ? May 13, 2024 00:04 |
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If the previous mockup you posted is any indication of scale and amount of elements onscreen, etc, those idle animations are going to get distracting fast. That's quite a lot of movement for an idle animation. Pikemen could just tap their pikes on the ground, maybe have the shield get tilted a bit to compensate. That said, don't overcomplicate it. Idle animations are 80% of the animations people will have onscreen, so you are going to want to spend some time on them. However until you have the rest of the animations done and polished, they should be more or less placeholder since they'll be changing to match any other changes you make to the model/animations. This is also why 'just have it be static for now' is such a good idea, but having a slightly bouncy soldier is perfectly fine as a placeholder as well. e: also re my first paragraph, to make what I'm saying more obvious, try adding them to your mockup before and after the actual interaction. You'll notice that there's movement near constantly on the screen. Add more models and suddenly there's movement everywhere on screen. Unless it's very slight, the movement will catch the eye, so you want it to only be where it matters. Attacks, people coming onto the screen, events, etc. Red Mike fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Apr 17, 2017 |
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Apr 17, 2017 03:00
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