Animations?

More a question than a suggestion.
...A question suggestion.
...A .. Questggestion? Alright, anywhoo...

What's the plans for character animations?
Will you do be doing walking animations and whatnot? If so, wouldn't it be easier to start with that instead of going back and having to add on to everything?

I can do any kind of animating so long as there is an artist to provide the frames!

This is a worthy discussion, so I would like to get more in depth with it. But I'll caution you, animating things on the character can become a huge feat once clothing/worn items is involved.

For a character to walk with clothes on, we would need many, many different frames of those clothes. Example:

So if this is something the artists want to do, then it is possible. But one reason I have the characters "hop" when they walk, is to make things exponentially easier in terms of animating.

This goes for attacking as well, because the swinging of the arm would require different animations of shirts to be drawn.

Animating things that are independent from clothing are usually incredibly easier to do.... things like skills, effects, etc.

Bottom line is, if someone can draw it, I can implement it no problem.

Hydracol wrote:I can do any kind of animating so long as there is an artist to provide the frames!

This is a worthy discussion, so I would like to get more in depth with it. But I'll caution you, animating things on the character can become a huge feat once clothing/worn items is involved.

For a character to walk with clothes on, we would need many, many different frames of those clothes. Example:

So if this is something the artists want to do, then it is possible. But one reason I have the characters "hop" when they walk, is to make things exponentially easier in terms of animating.

This goes for attacking as well, because the swinging of the arm would require different animations of shirts to be drawn.

Animating things that are independent from clothing are usually incredibly easier to do.... things like skills, effects, etc.

Bottom line is, if someone can draw it, I can implement it no problem.

I think a walking animation (even if only legs moving) is a must. The hopping looks a tad ridiculous.

Well then yeah, a lot of redesigning in the art department needs to happen haha.

For now I'll use what we have until they can redraw the walking animations.

.

I can animate but I've never done it on such a sprite...I can try. And honestly I'm not sure you need quite so many frames for walking unless you're looking for a super smooth animation.

I'll get to all these things that I'm saying I'll get to once I'm done recoloring. And doing the geometric grass. And the Skill Icons. And interior floors. Er... I'll get to it.

Yeah let's save the walking animation for later. But other animations will be cool.

why not something simple like raise left leg and move right arm, raise right leg and move left arm? I see the image over top and looks like a lot of work XD (but they are only 3 images per view, up-down-left-right)

i take a image from @QueenC

He gallops lol



Lol jk this one's without the first frame. Look pretty nice

lol yes but they are not in order, that is the why in the other imgae looks like they are 200 but are only 3
let me put them in order



i think it will looks horrible (again XD)

@Hydracol now yes looks like he is running

^ Looks a bit stiff without other things, like hair/etc., moving with them, but it's a good start.

the shield will move left and right with the movement of the hand, the weapon will move up and down with the movement of the hand and with the head maybe a little of movement in the hair should work
(this comment makes me sound like a lazy person [and i am] XD)


i dont know how to make it a gif. image, i move 1 bit the head to the right in the second image (the one on the right... i am saying too many times the same words...)

i really like the image of Vivi (or normal black mage) in the signature of @Voo XD

He looks like he's stomping his legs up and down than walking. For anyone else who's going to attempt a walk cycle, refer to this, please:

Once we get a walking character mask, it'll be easy to animate all the equips over top the mask(s).

For anyone working on this, take note that each part that acts independently from another part will need to be treated completely separately (i.e. a new object/image). This goes for body parts, hair, and equips.

Meanwhile I watched a Video, how hydro started with the game by adding that tree stump, that house and a tree with a green background and explaining the Map system - reminding me muuuuch on RPG-Maker with only the difference that the background will be pained with chips, too, instead of a background coulor; maybe it is even the same publisher?

However, even more strange is that you tried to connect only the two feet-in-air-sprites.

@juraija already placed it in order how a walking animation is used in rpg-maker, too:
1. stand sprite
2. one feet in air sprite
3. stand sprite again
4. other feet in air sprite
5. = 1. back to stand sprite

So each second sprite is the stand-sprite.

Refering to @QueenC 's animation shema it would mean:
-contact
-high point 1
-contact
-high point 2
-contact

So the end result would be 3 walking stances per direction for each character resulting in a total of 12 Sprites for each character. Note that the contact-sprite would be used as the 'standing' sprite, too.

Feature 'moving hair' and 'moving epquipment':
This could be done by a high-point sprite with different hair used than the one with contact. I actually do not understand where the problem in a moving hair is, unless you want to make the hair customizeable. But then I would use the hair as different sprite overlaying the head and give the rule that all heads rise by x pixels each time in a high-point. Same would go for amor pieces and weapons that would depend on the rule that all hands of any character is at the same spot and a weapon moves synchronically to the hands always by x pixels up and down as additional sprite.

But if it would be that simple then you would not have had this discussion till now - did I miss something? Please enlighten me if I got something wrong here

The hard part about animating things is that a frame needs to be drawn for every movement. If the hair is merely moving up or down positionwise then it's very easy. But making a specific part of the hair move is the hard part. Same goes for everything else like clothing and weapons. It can be done but we do not have the power to do it now since we are only have a few staff on art

I'm working on it.

Countpain wrote:I'm working on it.

Friggin' love it - amazing job.

Countpain wrote:I'm working on it.

That's actually pretty darn good.

Thanks guys! How do you feel about the other creations I've made?

Countpain wrote:Thanks guys! How do you feel about the other creations I've made?

Great for alpha, but may need a tad touching up (and maybe scaling a bit bigger) for full release.