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Red Mike posted: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. Eh I disagree. This is entirely a matter of taste and most of the old retro strategy rpgs had really active idle animations. Hell as was mentioned in FFT, everyone just runs in place which was far more active than this. It's a staple for the genre this is being made for. But again if he is doing all this at his own pace, there's nothing wrong with him starting with the active idle animations, then seeing how it looks in the mock up and choosing whether to go forward. There is no getting past the iteration step in design and it's much easier to cut and refine things after you see how everything works together. Also as far as problems to fix, fixing "everything moves too much" is a much easier problem to solve than "everything looks bland and static". In general, it's more efficient to go overboard at first, then cut and refine as needed once you have a lot of raw material to work with so to speak. As far as the animation goes, I think the leg animation is a huge improvement. The thing about the old one that bothered me was that it was like the leg was sinking into itself, now it's clearly the knee bending forward. So that part looks much much nicer. I don't think the arms need to move more, you got plenty of motion already.
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Apr 17, 2017 04:02
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Yeah the thing about turn-based games is that the idle animations are literally the only thing going on the screen. Without them you get a very dull static scene. They don't need to be overly elaborate, but they are an important part of making the game juicy and visually stimulating. Of course in low-res games the animation is also filling in details the graphics cannot. Like in Fire Emblem every unit type has a distinct animation to help distinguish them, and it also helps the units stand out better in an otherwise muddy scene. With a high-res that kind of fidelity becomes a lot more expensive and unecessary, you can just make every unit have proper distinct shadows and contrast without making all of them special unique animated snowflakes. On the other hand, it does make every detail be under more scrutiny, so even little animations have to be more visually elaborate to match the resolution. tl;dr: I think your last animation is much better Ash. 
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Apr 17, 2017 10:41
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Ash Crimson posted:
I like this a lot more. The legs needed some sideways movement like they are moving their weight around, rather than just pogo-ing up and down.
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Apr 17, 2017 11:50
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If I am idle and I am carrying a huge heavy spear I'm gonna have that thing planted in the ground, not lift it up every time I breathe. It looks like hes hitting himself in the foot right now anyway. Chest also looks like it heaves TOO much, like hes gonna blow down straw pig's house. Rest looks great.
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Apr 17, 2017 23:21
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I like this a lot. Man, you've come a long way and it's been really cool to see how you've progressed. Regarding realism in sprites, maybe it's the era I grew up in, but pixel art is like instant suspension of disbelief for me. If a game is trying to look realistic, sure, I'll notice breaks from realism. But I'm used to tiny pixel people taking four steps forward, swinging a giant sword that appeared out of nowhere, and hitting an enemy that's 40 feet away. If you'd rather go for realism, sure, keep at it, but it reads totally fine to me as is. Just a data point. Anyway, here's some spore boys!  VVV Edit VVV: Thanks! And you're right, I need to take another go at some of that shading. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it but it kinda comes and goes. rinski fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Apr 21, 2017 |
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Apr 18, 2017 03:20
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Those are showing a significant technical improvement both in shading and general pixel tech, particularly the snails. Well done! There is still some pillow shading on the other guys but they are improved as well.
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Apr 18, 2017 08:40
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Not really pixel art or anything but this thread inspired me to make this for a video a while back
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Apr 19, 2017 10:21
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Just wanted to say thanks for the all the advice and comments i've gotten so far! I really appreciate it, I was worried i sort of uh, expended my pool of "goodwill" so to speak. On pixeljoint i'm getting comments about how i should focus more on the breathing, which is sort of counter productive to the advice i'm getting here. Some more units, I've reduced the movement of the spear, keeping it on the ground, as Polio suggested.  I'm not exactly happy with the last three, but i'm having to keep the clusters and armour/clothes relatively simplistic to make them easier to animate. I don't know if i can vary up the idle animations beyond changing how they hold the weapon be it up, down, on shoulder, etc; I'm sort of hoping the unit's appearance and colour scheme alone would differentiate itself from others. I'm currently using a Six-frame idle animation and would prefer to stick to that frame limit, if that's of any importance.
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Apr 21, 2017 16:35
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Ash Crimson posted:Just wanted to say thanks for the all the advice and comments i've gotten so far! I really appreciate it, I was worried i sort of uh, expended my pool of "goodwill" so to speak. Like everyone else had been saying, your work is looking real nice and you've come a long way. I do have some animation advice and a little nitpick that I think will help a little. I'm not always the best at explaining what I mean so apologies in advance if this is clear as mud. First, the nitpick. The spearman's hand is sliding up and down his spear which makes it seem like he's not really gripping it. Since the spear obscures most of the arm you could probably get away with just keeping the hand's position from frame 1 throughout the whole loop and leaving the rest of the arm as is. So, it looks like you've got 3 unique drawings to your idle loop, a "down" pose, an "up" pose and an inbetween. If I were to diagram out the frames of your animation, it would look like this (for simplicity's sake, A is the down pose, B is the up pose and i is the inbetween): pre:Whole body: [A] > [i] > [B] > [B] > [i] > [A] pre:Torso: [A] > [A] > [i] > [B] > [B] > [i] Hips: [A] > [i] > [B] > [B] > [i] > [A] Hardcordion fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Apr 21, 2017 |
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Apr 21, 2017 18:47
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Hardcordion posted:Very helpful advice. Thanks for the advice Hardcordion! I was a tad confused by what you meant in regards to the frames, my frame pattern is: 1,2,3,4,3,2 with one being the "lowest" point and four being the "highest". 2/3 are copies of each other, so it would: AIBCBI (C being the high point since it's a different frame). I tried to make a quick edit of what you had in mind, hopefully i didn't misunderstand what you said, i also fixed the spear hand, like you pointed out:  O = Old Version N = New Version I can't honestly say which one i think is better; the original one was more "smooth", but it wasn't a realistic or even normal cycle.
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Apr 21, 2017 20:04
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Ash Crimson posted:Thanks for the advice Hardcordion! Ah, that'll teach me for trying to eyeball the number for frames in a gif rather than waiting until I get home where I can import it into photoshop. It looks like you got the basic idea though. I'll have a closer look tonight. Hardcordion fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Apr 21, 2017 |
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Apr 21, 2017 20:31
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Doing some pixel art work for a friend's Twitch page. Made him an pixel art portrait and now working on a channel banner. Trying to gauge what a reasonable resolution to upscale from is, since the full 1920x480 seems excessive. The trouble is finding a balance between pixel sizes when compared to the avatar. Does this looks like it pairs well with the avatar? Or should I go with a bit more resolution still? Still at a scribble level of WIP, obviously:  Also for  sake, here's his portrait at 500x500: ...and a self portrait: 
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Apr 22, 2017 01:32
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Hey man these are cool illustrations! I just wanted to butt in and demonstrate the overlapping action thing further since I'm not really seeing it in these new ones. This is a character with no overlapping action. Notice how all his parts reach their final position at the same time. http://i.imgur.com/jMiAE4D.gifv This is a character with the same animation on each part, but with each one offset a few frames so that, for example, the guy's head reaches its final position a little bit after the torso does. And that same principle is applied to other body parts. http://i.imgur.com/2IIT4A1.gifv If done right, adding overlapping action should make the animation look smoother and more natural, not less so.
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Apr 22, 2017 16:52
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So I finally finished Jack B. Nimble! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPSFaT_-jAc It's available here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jack-b-nimble/id918891211?mt=8  I'm happy with how it has turned out, but I think I might take a little break for a while now
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Apr 26, 2017 22:12
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SMP posted:Does this looks like it pairs well with the avatar? Or should I go with a bit more resolution still? I think it looks good. I tend to find different pixel sizes within the same piece a bit jarring, but here, where it's two separate assets, it doesn't bother me. Maybe someone with a more discerning eye can offer better critique. Aneurexorcyst posted:So I finally finished Jack B. Nimble! Oh, cool! That looks great, and the music is really good. Congrats on a published project! Content: here's some dinosaur snail boys, the latest in my ongoing struggles to understand light and form. 
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Apr 30, 2017 23:10
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rinski posted:I think it looks good. I tend to find different pixel sizes within the same piece a bit jarring, but here, where it's two separate assets, it doesn't bother me. Maybe someone with a more discerning eye can offer better critique. I ended up scaling it up a little bit. I finished it up y'all can check it out here: https://www.twitch.tv/geeberry
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Apr 30, 2017 23:58
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SMP posted:I ended up scaling it up a little bit. I finished it up y'all can check it out here: https://www.twitch.tv/geeberry It looks good! One thing I'd suggest is maybe (?) shifting it to be left-aligned, because of how Twitch truncates images. For example, without chat hidden it looks like this:  Edit: looking at it more, I do kinda like how the avatar appears to be left-aligned and the banner appears to be right aligned in that view, so maybe it's good as-is. rinski fucked around with this message at 01:22 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 01:18
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Aneurexorcyst posted:So I finally finished Jack B. Nimble! Congrats! It's always cool to see things from the forums that get released for lots of other people to see.
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May 2, 2017 05:13
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Thanks guys - I'm so happy to have released a version I'm actually satisfied with. There are only a couple of niggles and bugs, but they're all engine side and out of my hands. I actually decided to go one better and launch on Steam Greenlight http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=877705287 Not to vote beg too much, but I'd very much appreciate any support you can provide. 
Aneurexorcyst fucked around with this message at 23:46 on May 2, 2017 |
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May 2, 2017 23:44
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Simon Roy is one of my favourite comic artists / writers. He recently did an excellent story called Habitat. He posted this great thumbnail of an unused vehicle design for Habitat so I did my best to interpret it into pixels.  Shout out to Brandon Graham as the capybara, Simon loves Soviet armour and military aesthetics so I made a little avatar of him as well. 
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May 17, 2017 00:19
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I'll probably tinker with it a bit more but boy am I ready to call this done for now.  This is cool. I really like the idea of a cute, colorful post-apocalypse full of capybaras.
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May 18, 2017 15:56
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Hi just dropping in to say I'm not dead, just super busy at work!       Some of these guys have show up in gifs over in the games thread and over on my dev diary thing on Tig  This fella is slowly taking shape, I'm still not happy with his arms and stuff and he took a heap of programmy stuff to get his walk animation to be robotic enough, so he's on the backburner.     Also there's this guy, more on him later..
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May 22, 2017 11:25
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Anybody into 2d sprite work should really check this out: https://www.patreon.com/saint11/posts?tag=tutorial  
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Jun 6, 2017 23:37
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Zaphod42 posted:Anybody into 2d sprite work should really check this out: https://www.patreon.com/saint11/posts?tag=tutorial Grabbed this off his page, does anyone know of tutorials for this style of 3D art? This is the style I've been trying to make for some VR prototypes. Using Blender preferably: 
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Jun 8, 2017 14:12
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Been playing with Aseprite.   e: v Yeah, I made it today after I heard the news. 
Olive! fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Jun 10, 2017 |
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Jun 10, 2017 18:17
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RIP
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Jun 10, 2017 18:57
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Spending my Saturday sick, drinking soup, and drawing monsters. I roll hard.  Edit: one more.  InevitableCheese posted:Grabbed this off his page, does anyone know of tutorials for this style of 3D art? This is the style I've been trying to make for some VR prototypes. Using Blender preferably: I'd be interested in learning about that too. I really enjoy the look of early PS1-era 3D. I also feel like it was one of the shortest-lived aesthetics in gaming, because technology started evolving so fast. rinski fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Jun 11, 2017 |
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Jun 10, 2017 23:33
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It's just pixel art applied as a texture on some simple 3D models. All pixel art techniques apply, especially lighting (that scene is unlit/fullbright and you'll be painting in a lot of your lighting) and color techniques. Take an object, model it as simple as possible (focus on simple silhouettes) and uv unwrap it and paint. Try to keep uv edges constrained to x/y grids so your straight lines won't be stepped. Later you'll get much more clever with UV layout with overlapping uvs and reusing swatches of texture and such, but that's later once you understand the style a bit better.
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Jun 11, 2017 03:23
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Some small things  Today's pixel daily was to do a tekken character at 64x64, so I picked one at random and bit off more than I could chew. legs are my nightmare  back to drawing kitchen appliances for more power
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Jun 11, 2017 03:25
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Hello friends, here are some shapes for the thread.     VVV Edit VVV: Thanks, Seshoho Cian & Zaphod42! rinski fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Jun 30, 2017 |
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Jun 24, 2017 10:56
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 I made an idle animation for her as well, not happy with her right arm or the shadows, the movements are just kinda there to have movement.  fake edit: and her blink goes too fast! Introduced trying to figure out and make that sudden jump somewhere between the last and second frames; her hand goes from her head and out a little sudden probably because I put the blink frame in between. edit: I didn't like it, so I fixed it I think, tearing should be better.  I feel either her cowl needs to also subtly move (hard at 64x64), and/or her right arm needs to move left not right. How do you do a breathing animation at this size without it seeming like a fighting game? Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Jun 25, 2017 |
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Jun 25, 2017 04:12
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rinski posted:Hello friends, here are some shapes for the thread. i love all of your friends, very good friends
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Jun 25, 2017 16:57
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This is massively awesome
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Jun 25, 2017 21:13
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Tried to re-do two final fantasy 7 enemies but only giving myself a small period of time between 1-3 hours on each (spent longest on the MP/Soldier): Original images of both here for comparison:   I wanted to keep the polyagonal look of them, since i consider it to be an integral part of their design, so i went over them, blocked in the colour and then tried to put my own spin on it. Although i did also change the shape of some of the limbs, body parts, clothing etc. Went a bit crazy on the shading for the Soldier/MP so toned it down for the bandit. Ash Crimson fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Jun 29, 2017 |
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Jun 29, 2017 13:41
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That could be a interesting project for rotoscoped pixel animation. Though I would be too lazy to try animating at that scale, I would drop the resolution to make it more manageable. I took an old unfinished drawing that kept frustrating me and re-did it into something hopefully post-worthy. 
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Jun 29, 2017 14:22
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Scut posted:I took an old unfinished drawing that kept frustrating me and re-did it into something hopefully post-worthy. Dang. I've been staring at this for a while, trying to osmose your monster anatomy skills. The palette and shading are really good.
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Jun 29, 2017 18:52
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I tried out a whole ton of variations before anything felt kinda right. I'd say I stink at anatomy but at least with monsters it's easier to make something that seems plausible. With humans, any mis-proportion jumps out at the viewer. The palette is mostly C64 hi-colour mode, with some additions and changes for my own taste and convenience.
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Jun 29, 2017 19:28
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Did a couple more, but i think i hosed up the shading and colouring: Redid the Soldier one. Not too happy with the sword-soldier, leaf monster and Palmer (fat dude) but ran out of time (2 hours per one i'm giving myself). It's amateurish, but i wanted to test myself, plus i usually just concentrate on updating/redoing the same old small sprites, so wanted to try something out of my comfort zone. Don't worry about being harsh in the CC, i know they're pretty below standard for now (might go over them again at some point, if i ever decide to submit them to a pixel-art gallery such as Pixeljoint.)
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Jul 1, 2017 20:56
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Touching. This monster was created for the sole purpose of giving the perfect thumbs up, only to give it to the tiny snail engineer who made him. Ash Crimson posted:Don't worry about being harsh in the CC, i know they're pretty below standard for now (might go over them again at some point, if i ever decide to submit them to a pixel-art gallery such as Pixeljoint.) I mean, as quick comps these look fine. They definitely scan as their FF7 counterparts to me. I don't really know enough to offer much technical advice, but some of the contrast seems a bit high in odd spots. I think it works as an accent (like on Palmer's tie), but calls somewhat unnecessary attention to that top right soldier's knee pads. Likewise, I think the sniper might come off better if you toned down the highlights on his skin, so his goggles were the brightest part of the sprite.
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Jul 2, 2017 16:02
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These are great. Somehow when I played FF7 as a kid I never really noticed how loving weird the enemy designs can be.    
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Jul 2, 2017 16:14
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