Thief Animation

[Turuk]

Ok now what... if its finished, than I can start working on xbowman death animation.
Preview coming soon.

I would wait for some input from someone who can commit it before you decide if it is finished or not. But that certainly does not stop you from working on the next animation.

[thespaceinvader]

I don't want to discourage you from helping out. It's great that you're so willing to contribute your time =)

But I have to tell you that this is not presently mainline quality. The frames are not clean, chunks are missing out of his legs, shorts and arms throughout, and portions of the animation simply don't make sense - the knife flips around halfway through the windup for no particular reason, for instance.

Please don't take this the wrong way. We really appreciate your willingness to volunteer your time here. But there is a very high standard to meet, and this isn't there yet.

Compare yours: (turuk's animation, since yours isn't animated up)
to this:
or this:

The former isn't quite up to mainline quality yet, jetryl is working on it. The latter is in mainline. Get right up close with the frames and really look at what's happening in them, compared with yours. If you really put the time into this animation, you might be able to get it there. But some of the frames will need near-complete redrawing, and most will need fairly major fixes.

[bonehead11]

Ok I cleaned it a little,corrected arms and legs,I hope... mine animation still sucks I know, but Im going to make it better, going to add some frames so it would look more smoothly and prettier, and make some whole remake of some.
Its maybe worse,yes because I did the animation on fast note, so try to critisize the frames.And try to tell where I could add some frames or remove.

And thanks for helping.

Hope it is better. Here it is.

[thespaceinvader]

An idea strikes: if you recognise that you are making mistakes by working too fast... Work more slowly. Make sure everything is as utterly perfect as you personally can get it before you post it for critique, then people will only be critiquing problems you haven't seen, rather than telling you things you already know about...

[Turuk]

corrected arms and legs

Hope it is better. Here it is.

Are you sure you corrected the arms and legs to make it better? TSI raises a good point about working slowly so you do not make mistakes, as yet again the thief's left leg clearly comes unattached a few frames into the animation.

[Thrawn]

bonehead: It's looking better and better--people seem to forget to say this though, as there are still a few mistakes^_^

yeah--the frame before he actually strikes (the "swoosh" is the one where his left leg is detached from his body.

[Turuk]

yeah--the frame before he actually strikes (the "swoosh" is the one where his left leg is detached from his body.)

This is the same error that was fixed before, and I realized why. Bonehead, we do not mean to discourage you, but I looked at your last finished animation and this one frame by frame. You removed the prep frame for him to jump so now he appears to go from striking the enemy to hanging in the air to back on the ground. You did darken the shadow but without any idea of whether he is going up or down, it is confusing (as the shadow would get darker and bigger as he came down, but then there is no up frame). Beyond that I noticed that you fiddled with the animation speeds to try to make up for this.

This is one of those things where you have to make the frames convey the action, and cannot use the animation speed to cover it up. You will save yourself a great deal of time and frustration in the long run.

[bonehead11]

Ok as said earlier I worked more slowly, readed all comments looked at flaws, I added new frames, edited old frames, some major,some minor, I can say that It looks better than previous but still I think its not really good...oh well,here it is.And yet again I thank all for critique, points how to make it better etc.

PS: Its not on transparent backroung, but mine frames, wich were used in animation are.

[Simons Mith]

And immediately there's a massive improvement. Hang in there And for preview purposes, the slower gif animation is helpful too; it lets us see the movement flow while still being able to spot niggles with specific frames.

[Max]

messed around a bit with your animation:

repairanimation.gif (7.27 KiB) Viewed 2924 times

[Turuk]

Interesting. One of the aspects of this animation that does tend to stand out is the movement of the knife. It looks a bit awkward, as if he is rotating the knife to slash as he raises his arm. Most likely he would flip the knife in one quick movement to a horizontal position, then draw it back and slash forward, so rotating it in each frame seems a bit odd.

[thespaceinvader]

Indeed. Pick a knife angle - either underhand or overhand - and stick with it. Flicking it between the two in the middle of the wind up looks strange. I'd suggest an overhand strike, personally - the backstab animation i've been working on will be using an underhand strike, and keeping the two as distinct as possible would be useful.

[bonehead11]

Pick a knife angle - either underhand or overhand - and stick with it. Flicking it between the two in the middle of the wind up looks strange. I'd suggest an overhand strike, personally - the backstab animation i've been working on will be using an underhand strike, and keeping the two as distinct as possible would be useful.

Mine intention was always an overhead strike.

So I tried to change the angle of the dagger hope its better.And I will upload slow motion video as requested.

And I have done 2 gifs one has more frames and the other less,I dont know wich is better, sometimes less is better.

[Turuk]

He's still flipping the knife up as he brings it back, only now it is last minute at shoulder level, so it still appears odd. Ok, if he was going to make an overhand slash forward and his initial position is one where the knife is resting in his left hand, blade pointed outwards, he would not keep it that way as he draws it back. If you take a knife and try that, it's awkward. Realistically, when he pulls the knife back to strike in an overhand manner, the point of the blade points in the direction his arm is moving. So there is no need to flip the knife up or rotate it from out to half in to all the way in to facing backwards. It would move there naturally.

[bonehead11]

He's still flipping the knife up as he brings it back, only now it is last minute at shoulder level, so it still appears odd. Ok, if he was going to make an overhand slash forward and his initial position is one where the knife is resting in his left hand, blade pointed outwards, he would not keep it that way as he draws it back. If you take a knife and try that, it's awkward. Realistically, when he pulls the knife back to strike in an overhand manner, the point of the blade points in the direction his arm is moving. So there is no need to flip the knife up or rotate it from out to half in to all the way in to facing backwards. It would move there naturally.

Ok I removed the frame of rotating the dagger in wind up... I dont know now it looks kinda awkward...