Standing and idle animations?

[thespaceinvader]

Turning the whole body to face camera would not be unprecedented - the skeleton and ogre (or is it young ogre?) both do it IIRC.

[Mica]

Have his head look down, and maybe move a leg over either way.

[Jetrel]

I'm no sprite artist so sorry if this isn't valid, but in my opinion ,and from what I am gathering from what Jetryl has said above, more then just his hands need to move. For example; if he took a step forward(or to his side) and practiced swinging it like he's physicking himself up for a fight, or something, might be more along the lines of getting the 3D idea. Again I'm no artist thats just how I'm interpreting what Jetryl has already said. I could be wrong.

You're right. Something else has to move - wich could be the head.
But I wouldn't move the feet - I've seen no idle animation where a unit just "walked around". What I could do is turning the head to us (like the peasant) and/or move/enlarge the upper body part (I don't know the word in english).

The torso would move. In fact, if you move any part of the body, you're pretty much guaranteed to generate some kinematic response in the torso, unless you're moving nothing other than your fingers. The torso is the keystone in the center - it feels the pull of everything.

That animation you just made is good, and will be salvable if you add torso movement. Key thing, here, though - you have to add logical torso movement. Each torso movement must have a specific cause, and must be in response to a body movement - you cannot just randomly move the torso around in a few frames, and hope it'll be right. When he does something, calculate how that motion would change his center of balance, and adjust the torso to counteract that - just like one kid has to move around on a seesaw to balance a the other kid.

This is actually pretty easy to do - and this animation isn't too far off from being useable in-game.

One other tweak - don't change the amount of his club sticking out the end of his hand - keep the "tail" there. Also, the position of his hand should be a little to the left from where it is now, just during the "tapping" frames.

[zookeeper]

Well, he should probably hunch forwards a bit, just like the thug does in his idle animation (even though he does it towards the camera). Then to accompany that, he probably needs to bend his left knee forwards a pixel or two, and extend his right. His torso shouldn't need to move more than about 2-3 pixels, but you should not move the whole torso as one block but instead try to push individual pixels or lines of pixels around to create the bending/turning motion.

[eisfrei]

Turning the whole body to face camera would not be unprecedented - the skeleton and ogre (or is it young ogre?) both do it IIRC.

Have his head look down, and maybe move a leg over either way.

I tried to let him look down. Now I have something between looking down and towards us. Does it look good.?
@Jetryl: Thank you for your precise explanations. I tried my best ... But I've never really seen a unit move is torso that much, how you explained it, in a idle animation.
I added the tail of his weapon.
I moved his right hand (with the weapon) nearer to his body (in the tapping frame), if that is what you've meant.
@zookepper: I know what you mean, but I couldn't get it look like hunching/bending forward. sorry...

Here are 2 new animation. First one without torso movement. Second one with.

Ruffian Idle No Torso-movement

Ruffian-Animation.gif (7.4 KiB) Viewed 4243 times

Ruffian Idle With Torso-movement

Ruffian-Animation-c.gif (7.19 KiB) Viewed 4178 times

[Jozrael]

Just to reinforce what Jetryl is saying, the first one looks almost cartoonish while the second one looks awesome.

[Mica]

Legs seem stiff, to me it seems like they'd move a little bit. It looks awkward because the legs do nothing - I think that a minor movement would occur.

[Jetrel]

That torso movement you made is a nice little baby step in the right direction. Exaggerate that. Make it stronger, bigger.

@Jetryl: Thank you for your precise explanations. I tried my best ... But I've never really seen a unit move is torso that much, how you explained it, in a idle animation.

A] Don't repeat their mistakes. Some of them don't have enough motion.
B] Look more closely. A number of them do (consider the human swordsman idle anim - his torso gets pulled back and forth by the weight of his swinging sword). When something like this is done, it "fades into the background" - even if it's strong and exaggerated, it becomes less visually jarring, and is curiously "less noticeable" because it ends up looking correct. Physical motion that is not kinematically correct is the kind that bugs the eye.

[thespaceinvader]

For instance with this animation - it really shows that his left arm doesn't move at all. His toro doesn't really move, just his head and collar. If his torso turns, his legs need to shift to accommodate the weight change, and you'll make the tapping movement more realistic if you move the free hand down a pixel as he hits it, making sure to shift the elbow as you do so.

[Steinhauser]

This one was my favourite idea, so I tried animating the new adept.

Having never done this before, I've probably made any number of mistakes.

But if you like this one I could do something similar with the female.

[AI]

My only real issue is how the sleeves suddenly glide over his arms, besides that it look great.

[Mica]

The arms look stiff, like they have no elbows, the skin color doesn't match Wesnoth's skin color, and like AI said, the sleeves just glide over the arms.

[woodmouse]

That's really good! But I think it could be better if the sleeves would be like... staying or something. Because that moves too much, I think...

[eisfrei]

For instance with this animation - it really shows that his left arm doesn't move at all. His toro doesn't really move, just his head and collar. If his torso turns, his legs need to shift to accommodate the weight change, and you'll make the tapping movement more realistic if you move the free hand down a pixel as he hits it, making sure to shift the elbow as you do so.

His left hand first moves higher and then to the left. But your right with his legs. I tried to move them...
I added the movement with his freehand (moved his fingers down) - but I don't think it really looks better.
@jetryl:I repixelt his torso in the second frame, but I don't know where to add more movement, because his torso is covered by his weapon, hand and arm. The Swordsman is really the best example how to do it...

Ruffian Idle

Ruffian-Animation-d.gif (7.2 KiB) Viewed 4011 times

By the way, thank you all for helping me

[thespaceinvader]

TO my eye, the little movement of the knee makes this a lot better - it looks like the torso's really moving. It goes to show that it's amazing what a little extra will do.