Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Dwarves

Production of artwork for the game by regular contributors takes place here.

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Sleepwalker
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Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Dwarves

Post by Sleepwalker »

This topic will now contain any work done on mainline animation commissions done by me! The beginning of the work on the Horseman can be found at page 8.

Dwarves page 11.


---------------------Original Post---------------------

As the name of the topic says this will be the place where I post the work done for the saurian animations. Yes, I've been chosen to do these and I will do my best.

Jetrel advised me to start with the running animations as such ones has never been done before. As this is uncharted ground we need to be thorough in testing the animations in game to see if they look good. As my WML skillz are pretty limited some help with this would be appreciated.

OK here's my first draft blocking out the SW S SE run. Went a little bit overboard with 12 frames here but the result looks nice. Question is if you guys think the same. I am a little worried that the angle might be tad too high. Tail angle and swing could be improved too maybe.
Attachments
skirmrunSE1.gif
skirmrunSE1.gif (3.25 KiB) Viewed 23613 times
skirmrunSE2.gif
skirmrunSE2.gif (3.25 KiB) Viewed 23613 times
skirmrunSEsheet1.png
skirmrunSEsheet1.png (10.42 KiB) Viewed 23613 times
Last edited by Sleepwalker on August 26th, 2012, 7:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by thespaceinvader »

A couple of things strike me: first, being able to see the transition into the standing frame would be valuable. Second, I wonder whether using a more digitigrade run would be possible - both Jet's (as I understand it) and my idea of the saurians' movement is raptor-like. I doubt that would e easy to translate into sprite scale though, but it might be worth a shot.

In general, the kinematics here look good though, and the overall movement is nice. I'd want to try to make his body look a little less thick though, particularly in the frames where the near leg is raised.
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by Sleepwalker »

OK thanks. Here's a standing transition gif. As i see it transition from standing fram looks good, but it would benefit from a stop animation when he arrives at the destination. The commission doesn't say this is required :P . But I will probably do it anyway. My highest priority is doing the ones that is on the list first, then we'll see.

I didn't animate it digitigrade because judging by the skirmishers existing frames he doesn't seem to have a long enough foot to be moving that way, but yeah i forgot to look at the portraits :augh: . I'll would have to change the sprite anatomy if you want it moving that way. For example look at one of his spear toss frames... Standing with his leg up in very much the same way a hunched human would. I'd like some input on this.

I'll thin his limbs when shading.
Attachments
skirmisher-attack-ranged-2.png
skirmisher-attack-ranged-2.png (822 Bytes) Viewed 23586 times
skirmrunSE3.gif
skirmrunSE3.gif (7.05 KiB) Viewed 23586 times
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by thespaceinvader »

Eh, i'd be inclined to leave it then - the sprites simply aren't as digitigrade as the portraits. This kind of distinction happens quite a lot anyway.
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by Sleepwalker »

Well I'll start on the NE N NW run then.

EDIT:

And here it is, roughly blocked out. :) I'll see if Jetrel approves as well before shading, TSI. Hmm, might make it a tiny bit larger, looks like the unit size is smaller than the SE running one.
Attachments
skirmrunNEsheet1.png
skirmrunNEsheet1.png (9.01 KiB) Viewed 23552 times
skirmrunNE2.gif
skirmrunNE2.gif (2.93 KiB) Viewed 23552 times
skirmrunNE1.gif
skirmrunNE1.gif (2.93 KiB) Viewed 23552 times
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by Boucman »

I have trouble "understanding" the south east run... more precisely he seems to be using his spear as an oar which is a bit disturbing...

I'm not sure if it's really a problem, but I can't figure (when looking at the animation) if he is using the spear as an oar or running on all four with a ribbon attached on his right hand.

I "know" the answer but my eyes don't manage to figure it out.

is it worth tinkering with, or is it just me ?
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by thespaceinvader »

NW looks excellent =) But the spear is on the opposite side from the SW base frame. It's not a problem, merely an observation.
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by Thrawn »

@Boucman: Once you pointed it out, I noticed it, but I didn't see it when I first saw it.

@Sleepwalker: to fix Boucman's, all you have to do is change *slightly* the trajectory of the spear moving from side to side, by raising the arc towards the viewer's perspective. If I'm unclear, I apologize (i'd do a mock up, but time is limited).
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by Sleepwalker »

Boucman: Hmm, I understand how it could be seen with the oar thing, but there's no way i can see him running on all four. I'm sure it will be much clearer once it's shaded. Either way, I made a small adjustment as Thrawn suggests. Adjusted the tail too.

TSI: It could mean a problem. Then the NE baseframe and all other animations would have to take the spear arm into account if you want to have good transition to the running animation. So i changed it.

Made a bob animation and the NE baseframe.

EDIT: NE base tweak
Attachments
skirmisher-ne.png
skirmisher-ne.png (4.2 KiB) Viewed 23372 times
skirmisherBob1.gif
skirmisherBob1.gif (2.27 KiB) Viewed 23381 times
skirmrunSE4.gif
skirmrunSE4.gif (3.19 KiB) Viewed 23381 times
skirmrunNE4.gif
skirmrunNE4.gif (3.13 KiB) Viewed 23381 times
skirmrunNE3.gif
skirmrunNE3.gif (3.13 KiB) Viewed 23381 times
Last edited by Sleepwalker on June 16th, 2010, 7:26 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by Sleepwalker »

Had to make another post to upload the bob animation archive, first step in animation should be standing frame then skirmisher-bob1 etc.
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SkirmisherBob.rar
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by thespaceinvader »

The bob looks great, but the altered N run looks a little worse i think - the motion of the spear is just too much. You wouldn't wave it in front of your face like that whilst running i don;t think. You'd move it off to the side as in the original animation.
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by Sleepwalker »

TSI: Sigh, your right. Changed again, harder angle to animate properly this one. Also, good luck in Australia. :wink:

NE bob finished. Same deal, archive contains stand and bob frames.
Attachments
SkirmisherNEBob.rar
(25.64 KiB) Downloaded 947 times
skirmrunNE5.gif
skirmrunNE5.gif (3.67 KiB) Viewed 23340 times
skirmisherNEBob1.gif
skirmisherNEBob1.gif (2.7 KiB) Viewed 23340 times
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by thespaceinvader »

again, the bob looks very nice. great work =) Run cycle looks better, too =)
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by Jetrel »

:shock: Wow, I didn't expect all this this fast! Nice.
  • NE Base Frame - looks great, none of the potential problems I was worried about have reared their head.
  • SE Bob anim - Looks great.
  • NE Bob anim - teensy bit of pillow-shading on the tail, otherwise all the kinematics are fine.
Regarding the run animations, all of the kinematics for the leg/tail/body motion are great. The one issue, as boucman pointed out, is the wildness of the spear swinging - but I think the problem is not quite the direction the spear swings in, so much as the magnitude of the arc. I think they're swinging in way too big of an arc. (TSI's comments about the NE one's direction was apt, though, and following it was an improvement.)

Looking from top-down, you're swinging that in almost a 90° or bigger, arc. We want maybe 45-60°.

It's very important that they do swing, though - I'm glad you did that.



Since I'm quite curious how well these will integrate in-game, could you post a .zip of the blocked running frames? If you do have WML as well, I'd like that too, although it's no chore for me to make it myself. Splitting the images out of a .gif is the only step that's quite awkward for me.
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Re: Saurian Animation Commission WIP

Post by Jetrel »

A fix for that tail frame I was talking about.
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