Standing and idle animations?

[Major]

I've slowed the anim down and made a zip file with all the pngs.

Zombie Idle Anim.gif (12.27 KiB) Viewed 2554 times

Zombie-idle-anim.zip

(43.04 KiB) Downloaded 122 times

[Redeth]

There's an odd trembling during the first few frames of the animation, especially of his right arm (while he searches for the "food" with his left one), and a slight unjustified displacement of his upper body over his knees in the final frames. Overall it's too "shaky", even for a zombie that is... Perhaps you could do away with a couple of offending frames in order to smooth it out, and play with different speeds for different parts of the animation (slow the chewing for instance). Otherwise, good.

Regarding the master-at-arms, he's not really performing a full bow or a reverencial gesture. He just takes his hat off out of respect, places his sword over his heart, and nods with his head, eyes closed, dedicating a few moments of silence to his fallen foe.

Experimentation goes on...

[Major]

Hows this?

Zombie Idle Anim.gif (12.27 KiB) Viewed 2526 times

How do you change the speed of the replace on the individual frames in GIMP?

[Redeth]

Better. Torso shifting over knees: fixed.

Shaky arm still wants to dance the hula-hula tho'

How do you change the speed of the replace on the individual frames in GIMP?

No idea, I've never used GIMP.

[thespaceinvader]

Open the layers dialogue box (I think the default hotkey is ctrl+L)- you'll see that each layer has a time in milliseconds in its name. Edit that, and save tha animation again.

And you're continuing to make the old mistake from the Basic_Animation_Tutorial of only moving the active element. it's very noticeable that the entire body stays completely still for the whole animation.

Also, it looks worrying like he's pulling that head out of his... rear...

[Major]

Fixed the arm and will go back and put some movement in his tunic.
The bag could be on his belt or something. It's no worse than a thief pulling a bag the size of his own torso out of a tiny pocket in his leggings.

Zombie Idle Anim.gif (12.27 KiB) Viewed 2508 times

[Boucman]

quick reply to confirm that vicotry anim do exist... they are played simultaneously with the death animations

we also have "draw" an "sheath" animations for drawing/sheathing weapons.

i'm not monitoring this thread very closely, so once the frames are ready, please open a FR an assign it to me (or contact me on IRC) i'll integrate an test the first victory anim so it can be used as a template for others

[Major]

I have introduced some movement into the tunic.
On that note though the example in the tutorial, Naga Myridom or what ever it is, its head, breast plate and helmet do not change, they just move. Like my zombies tunic.

Zombie Idle Anim-2.gif (12.28 KiB) Viewed 2500 times

[Redeth]

I have introduced some movement into the tunic.

Some "random movement just because" won't work, it was actually better without the tunic moving. It could benefit from some rotating of the head or torso but, being a zombie, the awkward stillness somehow suits him.

The arm doesn't shake anymore and that's good, but notice that there's no reason for it to separate that much from his body, nor to linger in that extended position that long.

Keep practicing, pick another unit if you get bored, you'll do fine.

[Major]

The arm going out to the side is a balance thing, he has just shifted his weight but being a zombie he is kinda stiff so he puts his arm out to the side to aid his balance.
What else should I improve on?

[Mirion147]

In my very humble opinion. I think it's a little strange that the top two pixels of his head don't move at all while the rest of his face moves while he's chewing. And I'd say remove the movement of the tunic while he's swallowing, 'cause it doesn't really make sense. Unless his whole throat is bulging while he swallows.

[Major]

I'll see what I can do about the top of his head, but if I'm going to have motion in the tunic he might as well have something like the swallowing motion, it adds cartoony humor, added to the fact that he just swallowed something half againg as big as his fist. That would make your throat bulge.

EDIT: I have introduced some movement to the head. The ears also move now.

Zombie Idle Anim-2.gif (12.26 KiB) Viewed 2452 times

[thespaceinvader]

I'm starting to like this quite a lot (you've done the head and torso movement very well, now, and it works nicely). However, now that the big things are dealt with, smaller things are starting to bug me - the movement of his legs is more or less random. Try the motion out yourself - do you wriggle your feet about like that, or do they stay more or less still, and your body move about above them? In which directions?

Keep it up - I'll have a word with Jetrel next time i see him, and see if the concept is OK as a WC idle anim, since the execution is getting there.

[Trilby]

I thought I'd introduce myself along with a show of a WIP.

I've spent some time working in GIMP previously, however this is my first attempt at a relatively complex sprite animation (certainly more so than smilies), so I decided to work with more of a simple figure from the mainline trunk. I'm not sure how useful further peasant animations are, probably not compared to actual factions, but I've grown quite found of "Snufkin" over the past few days.

Of course the unit is missing a host of arms to finish off the 9 frames and will probably need a linking frame from the current standing sprite, as well as some cleaning/refining on the bow. Before proceeding with it, I'd like to get some feedback on the motion in general. My main concern really, is that the action may be too mundane for an idle animation, yet too pronounced for a standing animation, particularly if all he is doing is looking round. Certainly the poses are available, now, to expand the action in a variety of ways, such as signaling over his shoulder or putting a arrow to his bow.

Gladly welcome your thoughts on the work so far. Oh... and greetings.

[beetlenaut]

Trilby, what you have so far looks great for a first try! So, welcome aboard, and glad to have you.

It's a bit mundane, but appropriate for a woodsman I suppose, and better than no animation. Maybe it would be improved if he crouched a little as he looked around. It would give more of an impression of looking to sneak up on his dinner.