Major's Anims.

[Major]

I've made the alterations, but I can't get it to stop looking like he's a piece of elastic that's stretching.
EDIT: Also this is just to show the stretching, all the other issues have been addressed, but I just edited the origional GIF to include the new frame.

[thespaceinvader]

That's good This sort of stretch-and-squash stuff really adds to the feel of aliveness and action in an animation. It's similar to trying to animate a bouncing ball - the instinct is to keep it perfectly circular the whole time, but that will feel stiff and static because it deforms all through the motion.

[LordBob]

Still, the stretching is very much present. If Major isn't satisfied with the result, I'd suggest two thingd :

- Trying to move the upper body slightly less while exaggerating the forward movement of the spear. This way, you don't have every part of the sprite moving together in a single translation, which IMHO is patrly causing the "stretch" feeling
- The stretch feeling, in my opinion, is also caused by everything moving together with the back foot as a clear reference point. If you move said foot ever so slightly during the animation, I think the result might look a ton better because the viewer's eye will lose that troubling reference point.

[homunculus]

and something like this, maybe, if the body is supposed to lean forward.[...]i massively overdid it, it seems, now the body seems to get shorter ) :
edit: corrected the gross perspective exaggeration of leaning forward.
the body should appear longest on the screen if it is parallel to the screen, and in this case the belt should be a horizontal line on the screen.

Spearman Attack Anim.gif (3.17 KiB) Viewed 4340 times

it is a quick sketch, but as far as i can tell, no bodypart becomes seriously deformed now.

[Major]

Is this better or worse?

[mnewton1]

What I think might be the problem is the lack of movement in the waist. Especially in frames 8, 9, and 10. I'm not an artist so feel free to ignore this

[Major]

Actualy, you and homunculus may have a point there.

[thespaceinvader]

Worse. He doesn't move properly, some bits of him are staying still whilst others are moving.

[Boucman]

it will be less visible in-game since he will be sliding at the same time, though..

[thespaceinvader]

Not a great deal actually, given the length of the animation. But some. I still prefer the top one on this page.

[Major]

Ok, so is there some improvements to be made on it or is it finished? The one at the top of the page I mean. Should I put in motion-blur and shadows?

[thespaceinvader]

Please.

[Major]

Here's the shadows and blur, should I put the javelin quiver back on now?

[thespaceinvader]

That would be good, yeah.

[Reepurr]

This is utterly great, but if you look at his waist, the armour there doesn't seem to rotate with the legs. Problem?