artisticdude's Art

[melinath]

Generally good motion, but it needs to be bigger. The swing should start higher and go lower; it kinda already does, but you do the motion in two frames when it should be one. That is to say, the first swing frame should have the sword where it is in the second swing frame.

[thespaceinvader]

I suspect you've accidentally dropped in an extra frame of blank spacee in when putting the gif together. And otherwise, yeah, melinath's right. Your guy is swinging his sword almost entirely fromt he elbow. Work fromt he whole arm. Have him raising his sword right above his head, and striking right down to the floor. It's horrible technique from a real life fighting point of view, but it looks good. And that's the vital thing here.

[artisticdude]

Okay, thanks for all the critique, I tried my best to follow it. I attempted a frame where he raises his arm above his shoulder, but it ended up looking like he punches himself in the eye before bringing his sword down. I'm having trouble deciding how rigid the armor would be and how much it would react to the movement of his arm going up like that.

PS: Bummer! The TC is messed up. I'm going to need to fix it again. Oh well, it's good practice.

[Mirion147]

He should lean back a little while his arm is above his head.

[melinath]

You don't need the intermediate lifting frame, but he should definitely rear up and then step (it looks good in-game.) Like TSI said, try the motion in real life to try and understand what happens in the animation.

[thespaceinvader]

Two problems still strike me: firstly, the swing shoudl be wider - the sword currently doesn't come that far out from his body. It should. Secondly, the whole of his torso is completely immobile. Just try to perform a motion like that - if you do it in a remotely natural way, your upper body will rotate to counterbalance the motion of your arm. it;s things like this that take an animation from workable to good.

[artisticdude]

Two problems still strike me: firstly, the swing shoudl be wider - the sword currently doesn't come that far out from his body. It should. Secondly, the whole of his torso is completely immobile. Just try to perform a motion like that - if you do it in a remotely natural way, your upper body will rotate to counterbalance the motion of your arm.

I get what you're saying about the arm needing to come out farther from the body, I'll work on that. As for the stationary torso, I don't see how he could move his upper body very much in a full plate of armor. I'll try to see if I can make him rotate his body, would that be okay? His flexibility would probably be very little compared to, say, a peasant, who doesn't wear any armor, so he'd have to turn his entire torso. At least, that's my reasoning. If I'm wrong, please tell me so (I've never worn armor before, so I have a limited amount of knowledge on this subject).

You don't need the intermediate lifting frame, but he should definitely rear up and then step (it looks good in-game.)

Sure, I'll remove that extra frame. I knew it looked rather jerky. I've given him a different frame for when he lifts his sword above his shoulder, which I posted below. Now it looks like he's using his sword as a cell phone instead of boxing himself in the eye. But maybe that's how it's supposed to look. What do you guys think?

[thespaceinvader]

Armour is nowhere near as motion-restricting as people think. If it were, it would get you killed a lot more easily than it would stop it.

Although you're right, he probably would have to turn his entire torso. That's what i've been saying

[artisticdude]

Although you're right, he probably would have to turn his entire torso. That's what i've been saying

Oh, yeah. Sorry, I missed the point entirely.

I tried to follow everyones' suggestions, and here's the result.

[Mirion147]

I still think he should lean back, but it's not really necessary. Looks good, nice job .

[artisticdude]

I still think he should lean back

Gahh! (I like this expression. It expresses exasperation, total disbelief at the user's stupidity, frustration, a lousy work ethic, senility, et. etc.) I knew I was missing something. I know you said it doesn't need it, but I'm going for the best possible animation. Anyone else have any opinions as to whether or not he should lean back?

[melinath]

One thing that you can do is "block" the animation with basic colors to get the motion down before you fill it in.
1. This will separate you more from the pixels and let you be less constrained by the current sprite.
2. It's faster, so you can test things out.

Keep in mind it's all about how it looks. Here's roughly what I was trying to describe earlier, in block form (suggestion and also demo of the process.)

[artisticdude]

Okay, I can take a hint. I stink at animating. But practice makes perfect. I decided to go with your demo, here's the first frame. Any suggestions before I move on to the next? I think I'll post frame by frame so you can compare the current one with the one(s) before it. Is that okay?

[melinath]

To be fair, I should mention that I've never actually completed an animation - well, except for a one-frame crappy magic-casting frame for the woodsman... I've just been listening for a while. After people give the same advice in ten different threads, it starts sinking in a bit. First frame looks generally good to me.

[Redeth]

Artisticdude, your perseverance is most commendable! At this point I'd advice you to focus on a couple of key frames rather than trying to pull off a complex multiple-frames animation.

Also, as silly as it may sound, try to think as if you were the actual unit you're animating, rather than seeing it as a robot or a simple sprite that moves around pixel-swords effortlessly.

Good luck and keep at it!