Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

[thespaceinvader]

Sounds good. Don't forget, attack animations can be as long as you want (4 to 6 frames is a good guideline) but defence animations are two frames only - one preparing to take a hit, one getting hit.

[fmunoz]

Added a bit more of contrast and shadows.

[Bad_Dog]

I hope it's not too late in the process to mention a relatively nit-picky thing about the rat: to me (have had many rats for pets) it just doesn't look like a real rat, although it's certainly recognizable as a rodent, and only because a real rat has a much longer torso. Even hunched up and foreshortened, it doesn't look quite right to me.

Feel free to ignore if it doesn't work out for you!

-Ben

[Soralin]

For real-life size comparison:
There's also the Giant Rat, which can get over 90 cm long and weigh over 90 kg, but it's not actually a rat, or at least, no more than hamsters, gerbils and mice.

*Ahem* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephoartigasia_monesi

Josephoartigasia monesi is the largest known rodent, and lived approximately 4 to 2 million years ago in South America during the Pliocene to early Pleistocene.[1][2] The species may have weighed 1,000 kg (2,200 lb)

The skull of the holotype is 53 cm (21 in) long, and the remaining incisor is more than 30 cm (12 in) in length. The total estimated body length is 3 m (10 ft), with a height of 1.5 m (5 ft).

Although it doesn't look very stereotypically rat-like.

[Blarumyrran]

Most units have shortened torsos; why not rats.

[Jetrel]

It looks fine to me.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

It looks exactly what I think most people think rats look like. If that doesn't quite match reality, I don't see that as a problem from an artistic standpoint. Besides, it's another world, so just assume that rats are slightly shorter in the body there.

[Stern]

I believe that the base frame for the Giant Rat looks good. Wesnoth sprites are usually not to drawn to actual scale. I think we can let the base frame of the Giant Rat stay the way it is for now.
I have been working on a rough draft for the Giant Rat's attack animation. I decided that I would use 7 frames instead of 6. To make it run really smooth, I might have to add an eigth frame.
To keep the rat really easy to edit, I made the body, limbs, head, and tail brightly colored so that they are easy to distinguish.

Color Chart
Tail = White
Body = Red
Hind Legs = Green
Front Legs = Blue
Paws = Purple
Head = Yellow
Ears/Nose = Cyan

Attached to this post are two animations at different speeds. The fast animation will give you an idea of what the Giant Rat will look like in game, while the slower animation shows the placement of the body. Let me know where the animation itself needs adjustment. Afterwards, I will work on the color and textures.

EDIT: Oops... I forgot a frame. - Added the crouch to spring frame, second frame in the sequence.

[thespaceinvader]

Looks great. Awesome blocking, by the way. It's great to see that kind of careful work.

[Jetrel]

For the mockup, having it move across the frame looks good to test the motion; ingame, you should center the frames so it'll take advantage of the game's built-in motion (and thus look fine attacking to the south as well).

[Stern]

Status Update:

I made a little bit of progress on the Giant Rat's attack animation. My progress will be faster once spring break comes and I have some more free time. I still need to complete the coloring for the rest of the frames, but attached below is their current state. I am having a little bit of trouble on shading/coloring the fur properly. Is there any specific trick or method that works well to portray fur? I am also working on centering the frames to match the movements from Wesnoth's graphics engine.

[thespaceinvader]

Not that I know of - it's one thing that I need to work out at some point reasonably soon, actually, so I'll get back to you on that one.

But it's also worth bearing in mind that, unlike for the base frame, you don't necessarily need to be picture-perfect for attack frames, since they're all going to be moving quickly when they're played anyway - you can probably get away with looser shading and the suggestion of fur rather than making every frame explicit. But you'll need to experiment a bit.

[Jetrel]

What TSI said.

[Stern]

I finished the rest of the frames, I need to make some color adjustments to the shadows. What do you think of the animation?

[Issyl]

How fast is the time in-between those frames? It seems a little slow.