CaPmon Sprite Revamping

Quanyails

On sabbatical!
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
The slashes on Stratagem have improved, Steampowered. Still needs to look a little lofty, though, but that's a work in progress.

As for Voodoom: It's a good start, though I think the legs should bend at least slightly in that loop. It makes the body above the torso look animated, but the feet as fixed. The right arm staggers a little back into its original position as the loop goes on. Maybe that frame should be cut entirely so it doesn't look like it freezes. The actual animation is quite good and subtle compared to in-game ones.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
@steampowered, i think strata's animation feels more like a real in-game animation speed. also maybe you should add another frame between the 'all-the-way raised' frame and the one that comes right before it, it seems jumpy
 

Quanyails

On sabbatical!
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Oh, I've somehow missed this update in everything else happening. You've somehow made the right arm's jerk upwards smoother... even if it still slides up. Perhaps (if you can), just move the right arm's animation up a pixel or two and have it still when you would otherwise have that jerking motion. The feet animation are good; but it was mentioned that they could be used as the secondary animation after a few loops of the bending arms. Have you tried that out, or can you? If not, the animation for the feet work fine.
 
My first attemp of animation:



I actually wanted Pyroak with Magmortar's hand gesture like this as rare animation:



But it means I will scratch another Pyroak's right hand, but I think I'll give a try.
 

Quanyails

On sabbatical!
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Not bad! The animation is smooth enough and fits the art style, although it could be a little more natural. The break between the loop is quite long for the duration of the entire animation, so shortening that might make it look less rigid when it goes back to its original pose. I do like the stomping foot, but coupling it with a twitch of the tail makes it look... ah, automated. Perhaps you could separate those two by a few frames?

A blinking animation can also add to the naturalness of the animation, among other small details which would require additional sprite parts to produce, yes. v.v
 
I hope you guys don't mind that I took a head start on Necturna.
(This is my first time attempting something like this, so criticism is welcome)



This is only a little draft, as you can see, the movement is kinda linear, and there is no 'rare' animation as of yet. (Oh, and the background is white, not transparent).

Speaking of which, I don't know what to do for a 'rare' animation. I'm thinking something with the tentacle, but I wasn't around during the Necturna creation process... Does it 'detach' or is it stuck on its head (that's what it looks like anyway)?
 

Quanyails

On sabbatical!
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Criticism, you say? Well, I'll provide it. :P Yes, it's very linear and stiff, but that just leaves room for improvement!

First, you'll need to clean up the image; you see all of those artifacts around it? Those have to be removed and the original colors have to be used. Are you saving it as another, lossy file type before converting it into a GIF? If so, choose a lossless one. As for the animation itself, try having more of a 'swing' in the change in location for the animation. If not, well, as long as it fits the standard. Also, it should rise or bob after it sinks, or else it looks frozen at the bottom.

Some additions to the sprite rather than just Necturna swinging her arms would be necessary to make it look natural. The dress could squash as Necturna hovers up and down like fabrics would (and 'sleeves', if possible); same with the vine dangling slightly. The vine is fixed to the head, for all we know, like some fruit ouroboros. A subtle motion of the head can make Necturna look, well, animated, instead of it being fixed.

One idea I have is to have the eyes on Necturna's 'dress' and vine move independently of herself. That would require additional manipulation of the sprite, but could be a nice touch.
 
Yeah, I know. I made this really quickly, I'll clean up the whiteness and artifacts tomorrow or Monday.
The fabric squashing and bobbing is a great idea, I'll see how I implement that. Maybe I'll have the vine's and dresses' eyes blink randomly, too, and have certain body parts bob randomly as well (like the vine, etc).

I'll see what I can do. As I said, it's the first time I've attempted a sprite, but I'm enjoying the process :)

EDIT: I've thought of an idea for a 'rare' animation. I'm thinking Necturna stops, hovers in midair, and raises her arms for a few secs, as if 'chanting' something (or saying 'Come at me bro!'). Though cleaning up the main animation/sprite takes priority, of course.

EDIT2: I figured out what was causing the artifacts. I'll try to remove them quickly.

EDIT3: Here's the sprite without the white background and without the artifacts. I haven't added any new animations yet... I'll get on that tomorrow (now I'm going to bed)

 
Not bad! The animation is smooth enough and fits the art style, although it could be a little more natural. The break between the loop is quite long for the duration of the entire animation, so shortening that might make it look less rigid when it goes back to its original pose. I do like the stomping foot, but coupling it with a twitch of the tail makes it look... ah, automated. Perhaps you could separate those two by a few frames?

A blinking animation can also add to the naturalness of the animation, among other small details which would require additional sprite parts to produce, yes. v.v
Thanks, I do think that the stomping animation looks awkward, I forgot about blinking, I'll add later

and here's Cyclohm:



A bit too flashy and shaky? I took the inspiration from Rotom animation
 

Quanyails

On sabbatical!
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
ThePhalanx: I will be awaiting that. Additionally, and a bit unfortunately, I've decided to experiment with GraphicsGale and happened to try animating Necturna herself. My results are a bit too jumpy to post without tweening. :P I look forward to your progress.

misterdarvus: It's flashy, but it's okay! You might want to clean up some of those flashes, though, if they're a bit grainy. The animation is very back-and-forth at the moment and simplistic. Put a little variation between the movement of the three heads rather than it all looping at the same time. I love what you did with the middle head and the mouth.

Edit: Uhm... well, my tendency to experiment got me making a separate animation of Necturna. It's fluid and squishy but rather rough in pixels. Is it usable? XD

 
@misterdarvus: The body looks good, but the legs look kinda wierd, like if he was sliding a little bit back and forth... I'd say keep the legs static, and make the animation a tiny bit slower, and then voilá.

EDIT: @Quanyails It looks good, but I think a little TOO squishy (and a little rough)... though I really like the dress opening bit!
 
There are some absolutely beautiful animated sprites in this topic!

@misterdarvus: I love how Cyclohm's claws and tail flash like that, but it seems like the flash on the left-most head carries down a bit too much onto the actual eye? I find it a bit distracting. Otherwise, that's a wonderful sprite :)
 
Why thank you, Sulticune!
Anyways, I don't know if this counts as threadhogging, but here's my second Necturna draft:



Necturna now does a little circle in mid-air, nods her head, and does a second, smaller circle afterwards. If you look closely, you can see the vine's eyes blink very quickly, Necturna herself blinks once slowly, and the dress does one big slow blink.

Next I think I'll work on the fabric bobbing, and then finally the rare animation.
 

Quanyails

On sabbatical!
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Still needs a little fluidity in the 'dress'; the head, body, and vine are getting there, but the dress is still rigid. Perhaps have it rock slightly if billowing is difficult. I like the actual eyes' blink on Necturna, though the eyes on the dress look like they're zipping closed from one side, rather than from the peaks of each eye. As for my animation... eh, yes, it's squishy, but I'd rather not change that (because of how much time I've spent on that already). Sorry!

Birkal suggested I make a backward swaying motion alongside the biting rare animation, and so I did. Paintseagull noticed some teeth that were wiggling rather than in relatively stable spots, and I fixed that. Anything else before I put in blinks and then get to recoloring it as a shiny?



Edit: Fixed little bits and pieces and added blinking. Not sure if I want to make those supplementary eyes blink, actually. I think having them still stare is neat (and not stating this out of laziness).
 
Yeah, I agree the dress is still rigid. I'll work on that when I get a break. And yours looks good, the 'squishing' has kinda grown on me :) so keep it as is.

One tiny little nitpick I see is that once the animation is done, Necturna 'freezes' for a fraction of a sec, and it makes the loop point look kinda obvious. It could be a little more fluid, but apart from that (it's not a big issue anyway) your sprite looks great!
 
Just a quick note since there's no sign of it, you need to do matching backs with these sprites. People will be seeing the back just as much as the front while playing so don't neglect them.

PS: beautiful animation Quan, that's the standard people should try to match.
 
Don't worry Wyverii, I'm sure that if I don't, Quanyails will make back sprites :)

Anyways, I've finished my Necturna complete with moving fabric and rare animation, but all gif assemblers I've tried have stopped working for some reason. I'm gonna keep trying, but it's been stressing me out.

EDIT: Nevermind! I got it working. Up in a sec.



Looking much better and less rigid than before, though I might extend the 'rare' animation as I find it a little short. Other than that, I think I'll start work on the shiny soon, or maybe the backsprite first. Oh and Quanyails, Wyverii's right, your sprite is amazing. I find it better the longer I look at it!
 

Quanyails

On sabbatical!
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Daaah, you guys. I appreciate those compliments. I just hope I can achieve the same on the backsprites...

Speaking of, ThePhalanx, if you need it, I've composed Necturna's backsprite parts (with minor edits). Thankfully, there's less worry on the teeth and stuff on the dress, but that doesn't mean there's none. I still have to figure out how to match it up with the front sprite.



Anyone have advice on recoloring the front sprite for the shiny? I'd rather not go through each frame and replace each color manually.

As for your animation, ThePhalanx: It's getting better and better! The rare animation's pretty nice, and it's looking more natural and such. Only qualm I have is that there's a small period where there the only movement is Necturna's circling. Perhaps you can shorten that? :P
 
Wow Quan, the backsprite pieces will help A TON. I made that small circling period to show the dress's eyes blinking, but looking back on it, I might get rid of that amd have them blink at some other point. I'll polish off the main animation when I can, and then I'll work on the backsprite. I think I'll do that before the shiny sprites... Tomorrow though. Enough from me for today :)

EDIT: And yeah, recoloring. Doing it all manually will be a pain, but probably necessary, unfortunately.
 

Quanyails

On sabbatical!
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus


Backsprite rough draft.

So, uh, I guess I'll have to recolor those frames individually. (Unless someone wants to do it for me, but I don't think there are any takers.)
 
Well I'm currently in school, so expect no backsprite from me for at least a couple of hours.

Looking great as always Quan. :)
 
I'm no seasoned animator, but I thought I'd at least give this a shot. The Tomohawk one I made shows the most promise comparatively (and, incidentally, is the only one that hasn't been done already by better animators), but I'd like to check to ensure it fits standards, is about the same 'kind of movement' a BW sprite would have, etc., before I smooth out the lines and tweak the flightframes.

Excuse the nontransparent background please, I don't know how to transparentize a GraphicsGale image, since I just recently got the program, and do plan to fix it if this is worth working on further.



Anyone who wants to edit or steal this is welcome to if they like the idea behind it or something like that.

What I notice with this is that apart from the obvious unfinished quality that comes with a piece being, well, unfinished, the flight circle is too soon/sudden for a rare animation and the non-rare animation is sort of dull, and certain frames don't tie together right, but I'm not sure why exactly they don't. Please do say whatever else you notice wrong (if you want to, of course).

Ideally what I'm TRYING to emulate is a sort of quickstepping agility. It kind of.. isn't working. :P
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top