New animations

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ChaosRider
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Re: New animations

Post by ChaosRider »

Right hand is wrong, http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ufHWxVXtXL0/T ... 122_lg.gif , problem is in fingers :], thumb is on the wrong side.
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Max
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Re: New animations

Post by Max »

looking at the portrait i wouldn't expect to see a hand at all. but it certainly looks like one in the base image so it probably was the artists intention.
it would be nice if the spikes around his necks were more visible in the north facing unit. that way it would be clearer which direction the unit is facing...

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Picka79
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Re: New animations

Post by Picka79 »

Hello!

Thank you for your advices!

First, I replaced the hand which was missed. I hope it's better. About the thumb, I think it's in the good side because his palm looks at his body.
nightgaunt-n-1.png
nightgaunt-n-1.png (2.08 KiB) Viewed 8966 times
Then, I read Max's message and I tried to add spikes.
nightgaunt-n-1+spike.png
nightgaunt-n-1+spike.png (2.05 KiB) Viewed 8966 times
I'm waiting for your opinion ^^!
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beetlenaut
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Re: New animations

Post by beetlenaut »

The hand looks better, but it's still hard to read. Maybe you should just move the thumb to the other side so the hand is facing away. The sprite doesn't have to be in exactly the same pose for both facings. I think it looked a little better without the spikes myself, but Max is right that it is a little hard to tell which way it is facing without them.
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em3
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Re: New animations

Post by em3 »

I like the spikes. The "+spike" has also a better looking hand.
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Picka79
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Re: New animations

Post by Picka79 »

Hello-agaaaain!
nightgaunt-n-1bis.png
nightgaunt-n-1bis.png (2.12 KiB) Viewed 8932 times
I tried to improve but it's difficult... If you think it's always not good, I believe we're going to need a better artist than me because I have difficulties to manipulate the shadows and orientation :doh:

EDIT : if you prefer, I can add the spikes!
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beetlenaut
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Re: New animations

Post by beetlenaut »

I think the hand looks fine now.
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Picka79
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Re: New animations

Post by Picka79 »

You prefer with or without spikes? I need to know before creating the standing anim ^^
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Zerovirus
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Re: New animations

Post by Zerovirus »

Picka79 wrote:And now the attack :
nightgaunt-s-attack.gif
(Sorry for the speed of the gif)

All the pictures are here :
nightgaunt.7z
It's a pretty nice start, but what you're missing is windup. Right now what you have happening is a very distributed flow- in every frame of the animation, the limbs move approximately the same amount. This makes the action seem gradual and controlled, rather than a fast whiplash, and as a result the slashing doesn't feel like it has quite as much oomph.

Try animating the nightgaunt with more stretching and exaggeration; try having it wind up its arms behind its head before it even begins moving towards its target, and then have the entire 'nightgaunt body goes from upright to nearly horizontal' and 'arms go from stretched away from the target to slashing through the target' in an instantaneous frame. Duplicate the frame RIGHT before the slash a few times to create the effect that the Nightgaunt is basically 'winding up' or 'charging' its attack; the pause gives the viewer time to anticipate the coming impact.

Done appropriately, the animation could convey far more momentum than it's conveying right now. By having the nightgaunt go from 'standing upright' to 'horizontal, pointing towards the target' in several frames, you make the shift seem gradual and the nightgaunt feels like it's not putting energy behind its moves. I get that you were probably trying to go for an ethereal-feeling thing, like an intangible killer, but animations often can't afford to be that subtle on this scale.
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Jetrel
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Re: New animations

Post by Jetrel »

I've attached a edit of your latest work - thanks for taking this on. :)

The rationale to the edit is - I tweaked the arms so they're more obviously arched forward. I also leaned the torso forward slightly (virtually all humans hunch forward much more than we assume in our idealized anatomical understanding). Finally, the mask (which is vaguely like a kabuki/hockey mask) does not have a back, so I've opened that up to reveal what's underneath (which is just the dark material the ghost's body is conceptually made of).

Please do not tweak this edit further, or second-guess things I've done; please just treat it as final and move on to animating this unit. Thanks again for taking this on.
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homunculus
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Re: New animations

Post by homunculus »

The tentacle by Blarumyrran has no animations yet as far as I know.

Did attack animation.
Could not do opaque motion blur because opaque motion blur of that size looked too crazy.
Was puzzled about the timing, but in the end 140ms/frame or maybe a bit slower seems reasonable to me.

Art workshop post about the same animation, in case someone has not seen it and wants some extra info: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 03#p570203

Am I on the right track with it? Anything disturbing?
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goblinThing
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Re: New animations

Post by goblinThing »

It needs another frame directly after the one where it is shaped like this:

\_n
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beetlenaut
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Re: New animations

Post by beetlenaut »

The strike lacks some power because it looks like the tentacle is holding back. In frame 4 it stretches out far to strike, but in the next frame it is curved again. It needs a frame where it is stretched as far as possible to the south, and almost straight. goblinThing may be saying it also needs one more recovery frame, in which case I agree. You might be right about a fully-opaque strike being too much, but I think it should be more opaque than it is.
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homunculus
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Re: New animations

Post by homunculus »

Answers to goblinThing and beetlenaut:
Previous update:
Done.

I have no hard feelings if someone else improves it further, though (I am well aware that things look different on LCD than on my CRT monitor that is on its last legs, and see about the sweep radius in the motion blur spoiler below).
About the motion blur:
For people who might want to use it as a custom unit in their UMC in an older version of Wsnoth:
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Jetrel
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Re: New animations

Post by Jetrel »

Man that looks nice. :D Way to go!
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