You need enough frames to stop strobing, which is where the eye looses continuity of what objects are what. Usually you want each frame to partially overlap the last frames position.
For example, the bombs don't look right because your eye doesn't have enough frames to see each individual bombs movement.
So much awesome in this thread, great work everyone!
I've been working on a game with a pixel art aesthetic called Let Them Come. It's early on, art needs a lot more love, but I wanted to show you my progress so far.
It's a bit of a mix. That white environment light in the first gif is just a hand painted sprite but all dynamic lights from combat do indeed use normal maps.
Love this site! Just wanted to share this 1 bit pixel character i'm developing in my Gamesalad project! I just started learning but this online school im signed up with has been fantastic at answering my newbie questions lol School of Interactive Design
mannygill99 good to see progress but i would concentrate on your game , and not the box:) this is akin to a Band spending more time coming up with the bands name... when they have no songs. keep it up tho.!
Here is a pulled out lvl shot of one of the dungeons in SLain!
mannygill99 good to see progress but i would concentrate on your game , and not the box:) this is akin to a Band spending more time coming up with the bands name... when they have no songs. keep it up tho.!
Here is a pulled out lvl shot of one of the dungeons in SLain!
I love your style AtticusMars, it's all solid and depthy and niiice
Ashleighmills: Np! I found another good one but it's all in japanese :') You can still get the gist of it but it's a real shame as the guy has a lot to say! If you find it useful he has a whole load more on his blog when you click on the images
It goes into how he made this
Hey guys! Quick question for all of you pixel art masters. I recently got into doing pixel art and I'm working on walk cycles for a sprite that I made. Is there like a standard number of frames for a walk cycle, or is it more of an "until it looks right" kind of thing?
Hey guys! Quick question for all of you pixel art masters. I recently got into doing pixel art and I'm working on walk cycles for a sprite that I made. Is there like a standard number of frames for a walk cycle, or is it more of an "until it looks right" kind of thing?
Personally, I do either 4 or 8 frames for a walk cycle. It's usually enough and will get down the whole range of motion that you need.
I recently got into doing pixel art and I'm working on walk cycles for a sprite that I made. Is there like a standard number of frames for a walk cycle, or is it more of an "until it looks right" kind of thing?
There is a way to discover exactly how many frames you need, but it depends on the project specifications.
If that animation is for a game, you need to know the display framerate of the game.
It is usually 30fps or 60fps, but let's consider it's 30fps as an example.
In a 30fps game, 30 frames amount to one second of footage.
If the animation is frame-by-frame pixel art, that is a lot of unique drawings that the artist would have to make; therefore, the animation is usually reduced to being done "in twos", "in threes" or even "in fours".
When you're animating "in twos", a single animation frame (call it a "source frame") will be displayed for the duration of two display frames.
When the game has a 30fps display rate, animating 'in twos' means that 15 source frames combined should last one second of footage (15 is one-second's worth of display frames divided by two, from the "in twos").
In order to know how many frames you need for a particular action (a walk cycle for example), you first need to know the duration of the action in seconds.
This doesn't involve framerates, it's simply how long the action would last if your character were real and were doing the action in front of you.
You can find out durations by using a stopwatch with a "split" function: http://www.timeme.com/split-lap-timer.htm
Start the timer, then click split and just imagine the character walking (imagine it playing in your mind). When the action reaches the loop point, press split again and look at the length since the last split: that's the length of the action and it's probably short (one second or less etc.).
You can also use reference videos or any other means to discover the duration of the action you're going to animate.
Then knowing what's the amount of source frames that lasts one second (based on your choice of animating in ones, twos threes etc.), you can calculate the required amount of frames like this:
(action_duration) x (one_second_in_source_frames) = (total_source_frames_for_the_action)
If the duration is 0.78 seconds and you're animating "in threes" over a 30fps display rate, the expression becomes this:
0.78 x (30/3) = 7.8 (round it up to 8 frames)
So a walk cycle would last 8 frames.
Remember to tell your programmer that you are animating in ones \ twos \ threes \ etc. so the source frames should be delayed accordingly.
Games usually don't lock their display rates (it's not always a fixed value like 30 or 60), so the pixel art animation frames (the source frames) need to be delayed to last the desired action duration.
It's simpler if you're doing animation for a GIF. You can then specify exactly the source framerate you want.
If you liked working "in twos" under 30fps, you'll then animate with 15fps for a GIF.
yeah i really just eyeball all my walk cycles, set up a few key poses, space them out untill timing looks right. then get to tweening. Here are a few from my thread.
and a base runcycle. how they start and the finished one.
Thanks guys! If there were something like upvotes or rep points or karma on this forum, you would all be getting them. I love how helpful everyone here is!
I remembered that there's this free book by Ari Feldman on pixel art. Chapter 9 is entirely dedicated to animation, and includes an analysis of a walk and run cycles.
Hey guys! Quick question for all of you pixel art masters. I recently got into doing pixel art and I'm working on walk cycles for a sprite that I made. Is there like a standard number of frames for a walk cycle, or is it more of an "until it looks right" kind of thing?
Looking Good hawken, however i feel the 3d animation stuff is very disjointed (yeah even for me ha), cutting that smooth frame rate down to about 8 FPS would settle it into the scene more and keep more of that NES look you are going for. Still coming along nice tho YAR!
Most of mine are locked to about 10-12 fps
here is a gif from Slain! at the entrance to the Petra tower.
Replies
This is my 1st attempt:
This is my 2nd attempt (MH4U Chameleos armour), after reading about pixel art:
These were created in Grafx2, they are ships for a would-be spaceship game:
You can check out the rest of the ships here:
http://www.behance.net/gallery/25237457/Space-Jungle-X-ships
Also there are some planets and symbols for the same project:
of which the rest of you can see here:
http://www.behance.net/gallery/25236139/Space-Jungle-X-planets-symbols
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YWGkTyt-tjg/VWFBGAFltSI/AAAAAAAAAuQ/e64acgf8Pk8/s1600/bombs.gif
how many frames do you people use for explosions/ torch?
sorry bout that^
For example, the bombs don't look right because your eye doesn't have enough frames to see each individual bombs movement.
I like the first link looks good
check out my construct 2 game i created all the animations
[ame]
[ame]
file:///Users/jenniferdevoid/Desktop/bad-ben.gif
The first link is awesome dude keep it up
I've been working on a game with a pixel art aesthetic called Let Them Come. It's early on, art needs a lot more love, but I wanted to show you my progress so far.
Very early video preview by youtuber @ForkH:
https://youtu.be/9if1rjfl7R4
Development updates:
https://twitter.com/Klemen_Lozar
Let me know your thoughts, thanks!
Love this site! Just wanted to share this 1 bit pixel character i'm developing in my Gamesalad project! I just started learning but this online school im signed up with has been fantastic at answering my newbie questions lol School of Interactive Design
This is Bad Ben. Hope you like!
mannygill99 good to see progress but i would concentrate on your game , and not the box:) this is akin to a Band spending more time coming up with the bands name... when they have no songs. keep it up tho.!
Here is a pulled out lvl shot of one of the dungeons in SLain!
nice
Like Muzz said, you need to upload the image from your hard disk to an online storage that you can link to here in your posts.
This is explained in this thread: How to insert images into text field
Kewl
V Interesting
V BADASS reminds me of resident evil
testing out post.
and open for critique. p.s. thanks for the earlier tips muzz
(modular NPC system)
(Plants, backgrounds & some spot effects get added in game. This is a tilemap)
(A map from the game)
Here's some pixel art I've been working on lately!
More information about our game on Indiedb : http://www.indiedb.com/games/newhomeland
And Doc67 nice style.!
Xpost from my thread
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=153201
We also just did a new gameplay trailer, and big news is the CVB who used to play with Celtic Frost is doing the music.!
[ame]
some new gifs of the frost axe sword.
Something i'm working on :
Crits Welcome !
here is some \m/onday Metal Slain!
Personally, I do either 4 or 8 frames for a walk cycle. It's usually enough and will get down the whole range of motion that you need.
Just some weird jumping bullshit, just art jamming!
If that animation is for a game, you need to know the display framerate of the game.
It is usually 30fps or 60fps, but let's consider it's 30fps as an example.
In a 30fps game, 30 frames amount to one second of footage.
If the animation is frame-by-frame pixel art, that is a lot of unique drawings that the artist would have to make; therefore, the animation is usually reduced to being done "in twos", "in threes" or even "in fours".
When you're animating "in twos", a single animation frame (call it a "source frame") will be displayed for the duration of two display frames.
When the game has a 30fps display rate, animating 'in twos' means that 15 source frames combined should last one second of footage (15 is one-second's worth of display frames divided by two, from the "in twos").
In order to know how many frames you need for a particular action (a walk cycle for example), you first need to know the duration of the action in seconds.
This doesn't involve framerates, it's simply how long the action would last if your character were real and were doing the action in front of you.
You can find out durations by using a stopwatch with a "split" function: http://www.timeme.com/split-lap-timer.htm
Start the timer, then click split and just imagine the character walking (imagine it playing in your mind). When the action reaches the loop point, press split again and look at the length since the last split: that's the length of the action and it's probably short (one second or less etc.).
You can also use reference videos or any other means to discover the duration of the action you're going to animate.
Then knowing what's the amount of source frames that lasts one second (based on your choice of animating in ones, twos threes etc.), you can calculate the required amount of frames like this:
(action_duration) x (one_second_in_source_frames) = (total_source_frames_for_the_action)
If the duration is 0.78 seconds and you're animating "in threes" over a 30fps display rate, the expression becomes this:
0.78 x (30/3) = 7.8 (round it up to 8 frames)
So a walk cycle would last 8 frames.
Remember to tell your programmer that you are animating in ones \ twos \ threes \ etc. so the source frames should be delayed accordingly.
Games usually don't lock their display rates (it's not always a fixed value like 30 or 60), so the pixel art animation frames (the source frames) need to be delayed to last the desired action duration.
If you liked working "in twos" under 30fps, you'll then animate with 15fps for a GIF.
I've posted this little running guy earlier, maybe it can be useful as a ref!
and a base runcycle. how they start and the finished one.
A week of vacation means a week of prototyping.
http://www.widgetworx.com/book/
8
6 for run
I use photoshop and tiled for backgrounds btw.
Here's a video of my latest progress!
[ame]
Most of mine are locked to about 10-12 fps
here is a gif from Slain! at the entrance to the Petra tower.