Misc Frames/Sprites

[Federalist marshal]

I feel that the Dwarvish Steelclad's defend frame doesn't animate very well, so I made a new one, which I hope is better than the current one.

I changed the shield position, and slightly moved his axe and head.

I'm not sure if this works, but perhaps it's worth a try.

[jdsampayo]

I think the shield is not in a correct position, it doesn't defend anything important, maybe you could add another frame where the shield cover the head and/or the upper body

and it seems like you cut out part of the right boot

[Jetrel]

Take that very frame, and modify it to make the shield point directly at us (south). Then, make a second frame, which is all the same motions, but twice as far (in this one, the shield should be facing southeast - the idea is that he's swinging the shield around).

We want to have 2-frame defense animations for practically everything - what I'm saying is that what you've made (mostly) works as a frame 1, and you could easily extend the work to make a second frame - which would have the shield and stuff far enough out to solve all the problems jdsampayo rightly flagged.

[Federalist marshal]

Will this work then?

[Jetrel]

Yes indeed.

[jdsampayo]

They are pretty good,

but the axe in the second image needs an edit, it is a minor issue but the perspective doesn't work, you could fix it hardly rotating the axe in the same perspective than the shield (like the way the dwarf lord defends), or in a more easy but not much elegant way, putting the axe behind the dwarf head

well its only my point of view, maybe I'm wrong , after all you are doing the work, you decide.

[Federalist marshal]

well its only my point of view, maybe I'm wrong , after all you are doing the work, you decide.

That would work, but I don't really see how the current version would work.

Yes indeed.

Ok, then...Now what?

[Sangel]

Ok, then...Now what?

Are there other shield-bearing units you could apply this technique to? The Dwarvish Fighter line, Elvish Fighter line, and Spearmen line spring to mind - some of the units belonging to them probably have single-frame defensive animations that you could turn into two-frame animations using the same principles you've successfully applied here.

[Federalist marshal]

Are there other shield-bearing units you could apply this technique to? The Dwarvish Fighter line, Elvish Fighter line, and Spearmen line spring to mind - some of the units belonging to them probably have single-frame defensive animations that you could turn into two-frame animations using the same principles you've successfully applied here.

Seems like a reasonable idea, although I tried to redo the steelclad defend frames because I thought it didn't really animate well. Does anyone have a currently unsatisfactory defend frame for me to work on, then?

[Jetrel]

Are there other shield-bearing units you could apply this technique to? The Dwarvish Fighter line, Elvish Fighter line, and Spearmen line spring to mind - some of the units belonging to them probably have single-frame defensive animations that you could turn into two-frame animations using the same principles you've successfully applied here.

Seems like a reasonable idea, although I tried to redo the steelclad defend frames because I thought it didn't really animate well. Does anyone have a currently unsatisfactory defend frame for me to work on, then?

Sure - try and do this to the dwarven fighter.

[Jetrel]

This steelclad animation has been committed.

I have to ask, though - for pete's sake, please keep sprites like this as clean, pixel art. It's really, really aggravating to have to clean something up after the fact - which I did here - I practically had to trace over the entire thing (some bucket fills, but ... honestly - none of this should have been necessary).


Of course, you probably didn't do that because you don't know what you did wrong; so I'll try and illustrate that:
1] Never introduce any new colors into the edit. This will break team color, and may later break automated recolors of body parts.
2] Never use the brush tool*, it causes the above. Use the pencil tool.
3] Make sure that any "transformations" (e.g. selecting something and sliding it around, or rotating something) use "none" or "nearest neighbor" interpolation. You can find these in the preferences of your graphics program, in fact I made a tutorial on it. These are worse for regular art, because they make jagged transitions, but they're better for pixel art, because they produce no blurring or new colors.
http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/Scaling_Digital_Images
4] Don't introduce any new transparency values that weren't there before. Pretty much all of the sprite is normally going to be opaque - keep it that way.




* there are exceptions to this rule, like wayfarer, but if you do this, you really need to know what you're doing. As a general rule, don't.

[Jetrel]

Silly me didn't attach the cleaned-up frames in the last post - here they are, as well as equivalent images for the dwarven lord, which I've also committed.

[Sangel]

Good luck finding enough exposed flesh to strike a blow on those two!

[Federalist marshal]

I have to ask, though - for pete's sake, please keep sprites like this as clean, pixel art. It's really, really aggravating to have to clean something up after the fact - which I did here - I practically had to trace over the entire thing (some bucket fills, but ... honestly - none of this should have been necessary).

Oh dear, I didn't know. If I didn't do it right with this fighter frame, let me correct it this time; that way I can figure out what I did wrong.

As for the fighter frame, I only made one, which I intended to be shown directly after the current one.

[jdsampayo]

IMO the shield needs some rotation