Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Dwarves

[Sleepwalker]

I think I fixed the plate stretch and i made the visor move a bit as suggested, though it's most probably pointless as you won't be able to tell any difference in-game when the sprite is moving. It does look prettier on the forums though.

Also made the legs move during the bob animation. IMO these are all done now.

So jealous.

Jealous at me spending hours redrawing the same pixels hundreds of times at different places. Don't be.

[Jetrel]

I'm at a loss for words.

[zookeeper]

Here's a few late comments which I posted in the wrong thread.

[Sleepwalker]

Ah, yeah. Very well zookeeper, you have some good points there... Thanks. I addressed the things that was said and here's the new version. I reduced the circling of the spear too as it got to be a bit much once the horse movement was toned down. As TSI suggested I also made the rein hand move a little. All the changes are minor so it shouldn't be much of a hassle for Neoskel to copy...
I Also made the south attack.

Actually, to make work much easier for others to do the horse animations I could post the .psd files too. There the sprite frames are broken up in layers already. I mean, what would be the point to withhold them anyway? to have proof I made them? Well my posts here are proof enough I think. Or what do you say?

[thespaceinvader]

The spear definitely needs to come further out in the south attack, or it's going to look like the horse is headbutting the target. The point of the spear should be further toward the bottom of the frame on the strike.

I'd also say that the spear's return just isn't smooth on the south strike. it jitters about a lot.

[Jetrel]

One idea for the bob might be having the horse's head move side-to-side (at the opposite phase of the rider). Not sure if it'd look better, but it'd be relatively easy to try.

Anyways, these are looking quite nice!

[Sleepwalker]

Hi it's been a long time once again... I have no excuse except that RL for me has had some big changes going on and there will be more to come. It has required most of my attention... Funny how guilt makes it harder to post eh.

Anyway the frame heavy stuff has been finished now - all attacks and gallops. I did make the south spear attack have a little more reach now (2 pixels), but to make it reach even farther would mean stretching the sprite proportions or volume. Something that the other anims doesn't do... Or one would have to change the angle that you view the unit.

If the horses bob head movement is OK I'd rather leave it as it is. I tried doing quick edits to see how it would look moving the head from side to side instead but I didn't like it. Even tried a circle motion but it looked drunk or dizzy lol. If I felt like wasting time I could try some angle change or sub pixel movement on the head, but I'd rather do the other anims first.

*Edit* OK I packed together all the animation PSD's for you. Deleted all unused garbage layers in them and made folders for each frame too so everything is nice and tidy like. Hope it makes adapting them to other horse units easier.

[Jetrel]

Nice.

The lack(?) of a NE bob isn't enough to hold back a commit, IMO - I'll just plop in a still for that for the time being, since AFAICT, nearly everything else is in. As for the bob animations, I wouldn't worry too much. They're easy to experiment with, and at least in my work to clone some of these over to other horse units, I can put them off (loosely, I'm considering killing some free time porting this to the lancer).

Excellent work, as always.

[Sleepwalker]

thanks

2 defend anims coming up. Hmm I'm wondering if the horse should do a paddle motion with its front legs at the top of the staggering... Would be easy to do but increase frames of course so I dunno.

Just one bob and 2 death animations left then. But I am very much doubting that 4 frames for a horse mounted unit could be enough. It would be way too much jerky if the horse should fall on it's side... So I am proposing to increase the frame standard for mounted unit deaths. I'll see what I can limit it to to make it look good.

[Jetrel]

2 defend anims coming up. Hmm I'm wondering if the horse should do a paddle motion with its front legs at the top of the staggering... Would be easy to do but increase frames of course so I dunno.

FWIW, though we do want to insist on 2-framers for all human-sized units, I don't have a problem with bending the rules and making a different macro for big creatures.

[Sleepwalker]

FWIW, though we do want to insist on 2-framers for all human-sized units, I don't have a problem with bending the rules and making a different macro for big creatures.

Ah nvm then, it is probably better with consistency than such minor eye-candy.

Hmm I managed to make a 5-frame death animation... With no bounce. Again the first frame can be for "wounded" and the last is a still corpse. If you really want me to I could reduce to 4 I guess. But it would become very jerky.

I forgot the .psd files for the defend anim. So here they are + the one death.

[beetlenaut]

Shouldn't the rider (or at least his upper body) hit the ground after the horse? Otherwise, the rider has to fall faster, which makes it look odd. It looks like the horse+rider is one, inflexible object.

[Sleepwalker]

Yeah you are right... Thanks. But it it would require an extra frame I think, or shorten the time for the horse to fall. I will see what to do.

[artisticdude]

Shouldn't the rider (or at least his upper body) hit the ground after the horse?

It looks to me like that already happens in the animation? I see the rider's entire body (except maybe his right foot) hitting the ground only in frame 5, whereas the horse's body -with the exception of its head- is fully in contact with the ground in frame 4. IMO the animation is fine as it currently stands, otherwise it'll look like either the horse is made of lead or the rider is wearing anti-grav armor.

[Sleepwalker]

I kept the old frame count but edited the overall movement a bit... I reckon it's better now. Good enough..?