Orc animations

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Girgistian
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Orc animations

Post by Girgistian »

After a long time of absence, I've been considering a comeback to the Wesnoth community, though with less charitable intentions this time. Are you guys still making money with the mobile version? That is, are you still paying for animation sets for the troops?

My current employment is coming to an end in the next few days and I've still got my wacom, so... you got any unfinished orcs left?
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Jetrel
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Re: Orc animations

Post by Jetrel »

Indeed we do. You can honestly "name your poison"; all 3 major lines are lacking walk/stand animations (and far and away, it's run we're really concerned with - run anims are pretty much *the* thing our free contributors can't do, because it's an expert-level job). So, grunt, archer, or assassin.

Going rate is negotiable but is about $400/unit to "finish all animations to the NE and SE".

- attack melee (current grunt anims are pretty good)
- attack ranged (varies wildly in needed frame count; orc archers are currently satisfactory here).
- defense (etc, our current 2-frame standard)
- stand (6+ frames)
- run (8-12 frames)

You'll note death, recruit, and idle animations aren't included. They're something free-contributors do well.
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Girgistian
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Re: Orc animations

Post by Girgistian »

Great, I'll get to work in a few days and post when I've got some results.
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Jetrel
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Re: Orc animations

Post by Jetrel »

Awesome! :mrgreen:
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Girgistian
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Re: Orc animations

Post by Girgistian »

Had to do a lot of learning and re-learning, so took me a while to get the movement going.

I didn't want to rush with this, so here's a base for the movement - do tell me if you want modifications, or if I should just go ahead and flesh it out.
Look at that little orc skip!
assassin-0.1.gif
assassin-0.1.gif (7.91 KiB) Viewed 20478 times
EDIT: Can't sleep. Must draw. Here's a candidate for the north-facing assassin. Sketch for NE/NW running animation's next, unless I start finishing the previous run first.
assassin-north.png
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EDIT 2: Still can't sleep.
assassin-run-north.gif
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Sleepwalker
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Re: Orc animations

Post by Sleepwalker »

Hey, nice to see you again, I'm making a return as well.

North sprite is looking good, as for the base movement:


First off i recommend sketching it out with the pencil tool rather than a brush as it gets less blurry and saves a little bit of cleanup.

The consensus is that the unit running should be viewed from about a 60 degree angle, right now it seems like your animation is viewed a bit more ahead (or behind with NE) of the unit. Like around 30 degrees. Also the vertical angle seems a tad low. It's good to follow certain lines to make it more clear where to move certain bodyparts in a 3d space... like if you look here you see Jetrel using one to line up the direction of moving.

Movement wise of the two i think you got it better done with the NE running one. The other looks a bit more flat lacking volume. They are both pretty blurry/wobbly as is though. Its hard to give more crit until the angles are fixed and its a bit more refined.

Hmm, one thing that might need clearing up... on the original baseframe is the groin tasset stiff or made solely of cloth? As it is so small it doesn't make a big difference knowing but all the little details count into the whole. :wink:
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Jetrel
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Re: Orc animations

Post by Jetrel »

Mostly going to echo what sleepwalker said. The angle is the big thing that needs to be fixed, everything else is good enough to go forward with. Unfortunately, as you're no doubt disappointed about - that's a flaw that requires a full redraw.

Animation hurts. :augh:
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Girgistian
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Re: Orc animations

Post by Girgistian »

Ah, worry not sirs, I've been looking to redraw it, and as of now I've got the time once more. My absence hasn't by any means been for disappointment (as I knew for a fact that learning a whole new type of motion would take more than one shot, hence merely sketches of the motion), but due to being busy with other things.

Oh and thanks for the feedback, it'd be hard to pinpoint the repairs without it.

EDIT: There we go. It's rough and the second "jump" needs to be more fluid (an issue which I'll fix of course), but it'll give you the general movement and the new angle. Aside from cleaning it up, does it seem sufficient for colouring?
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Sleepwalker
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Re: Orc animations

Post by Sleepwalker »

It's looking better now for sure, though there's still a few more things to bring up:

The scale is not the same as the base sprite, but don't worry it's just a small thing; The torso part should be shortened about ~4 pixels. And the shoulders perhaps widened 2 pixels or so.

His farthest away leg is moving less a distance than the front leg, it should relatively move just as much as the other.

I'd like to see the sword arm be held out a bit more from his body. This advice could be disregarded possibly...

Doing this would make it good to continue with I think. One thing that could improve the animation further would to give more momentum for the leg and arm movement (spending more time in the stretched limbs parts and being faster when actually on the ground) but it's probably good enough as it is now.
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Jetrel
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Re: Orc animations

Post by Jetrel »

You might want to bring the elbows out just a tad - also the dagger-holding arm seems to swing a little too far towards the opposite shoulder (the base intent there is good, just a tad too far).

Otherwise what sleepwalker said - and it's a marked improvement.
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Girgistian
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Re: Orc animations

Post by Girgistian »

Sure, I'll look into these things, though I'll be adding the colour as well to see how it works out after all this time. It might take a few attempts, so don't stand on your toes waiting for it. :D
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Re: Orc animations

Post by Jetrel »

Girgistian wrote:, though I'll be adding the colour as well
I suggest doing like sleepwalker, and using two colors for the initial draft - a bright highlight, and a dark fill. The reason this is good is it's enough to establish 3d-volume; enough to give a sense of the 3d shape. Once you've got that right, the rest is details.

Don't try and whole-hog all the colors at once - I can't, I don't, and it's generally a recipe for a stilted animation that doesn't quite move right.
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