2D anim DR. RAVEN DARKTALON BLOOD (penny arcade)

warby

first of all big time kudos to the penny arcade guys i just love everythign they do gabe posted this really cool cliche heavy metal artwork of dr raven dark talon blood the other day:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2006/06/09







i am not saddisfyed with the run anim yet



and all together for easy copy pasting and showing

http://riviera.heaven.nexusirc.at/warby/pics.php?file=wip/dr_raven_Dark_talon_blood_anim_test.gif



so i want to make a little CODENAME GORDON-ish prototype (think 2d devil may cry) and show it to gabe and tycho and hope they allow me to finish it )

so if somebody is intereseted in joining this project everything animators 2d-level-designers coder musik soundeffeckts everythign is needed

creditz:
artwork by gabe
animations by warby

Wells

looks pretty cool, but his one leg on his jump doesn't seem to want to behave. Sort of limply skips with him.

warby

yeah i see what you mean ill fix it bbut that leg also misb behaves in the shoot and idle anim even tough thers no key frames it drifts for a couple of frames and jumps back i have yet to figure out why

Zcubed

Good stuff, I love Penny Arcade!

Sectaurs already said it, but the back leg looks a little weak on the jump animation. Maybe the knee needs to come up higher so that it matches his other leg?

CheapAlert

the muzzleflashes rock

Problem with your run animation is that the pelvic origin is only going up and down rather than along with the rest of the body making it look like a zero-g floater or someone stuck on a swing.

rooster

very cool project man! hope to see you at the finish line

Zergxes

The run holds a bit long with the R leg extended back. Nice stuff.

deadsoul

what software are you using to create those anims ?
do you have permision ? have you sought it yet ?
i'd imagine doing a game based on their IP without permision would cause problems ?
i'd love to work on it , don't know how much time i could devote to it ( doing 12 hour crunch days at work )

Manic

i imagine gabe and tycho would love it. Gabe might even help out with some art work.

having said that, the sooner you ask, the sooner you know.

ebagg

Looks great, although I think the gun firing isnt fast enough, the recoil is a tad much imho.

deadsoul

yeah i imagine they would be delighted , unless we got to a nearly complete stage before asking
they'd probably want input
and a cut of the steam distribution payments

warby

i defnitly want to polish tha anims abit more befor i show it to them and ask for permission to make a little mini game

its all made in maya ... in the way i "BELIEVE" the southpark people do their animations

deadsoul

oh nice
so its texture quads \ polygons
it it bone based anims or vertex morphs ?
using for example the halflife source tools ?
if you did that it would be easy to have him animating really quick in an engine

fmnoor

I absolutely love the subtle 3d effect you have for his guns.

You might want to invest in http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0571202...5Fencoding=UTF8

Has some great information on run/walk cycles

warby

we hhave a copy of that in the office ... and i totaly read it

Geezus

I can't tell you how often I turn to The Animator's Survival Kit. What a wonderful resource.

Squirmy

nicely done warby. Im diggin the cartoony feel of it. The stiff cape looks strange though.

hawken

you might want to nail his feet down...

Ramucho

you rock sir!
It'd be cool if you explained your workflow on that guy a little bit.
Keep going

Manic

oh, on the run cycle, i think the front leg should cover the skull codpiece/belt buckle, at the moment it looks like its going behind it.

warby

so the workflow is as followed:

1)i copy pasted gabes art work form the webpage into photoshop 2)croped out the DOC
3)put him in a new file that was 512 x512 large him floating in the middle with a wide border.
4)put the texture on a cube in maya with default uv mapping
5)moved the cube away from the center of the scene
6) i used the create polygone tool to trace over each element that i wanted to animate
7) selected each enw object and the cube behind it and made a planar projection.
8) i build a skeleton but sort of 2d ish since he is just a bunch of sprites
9) i saw and realized that just sprites is not gonna work out and highly tesselated each element and bumpt it out a bit to make it sort of 3d like a little hill
10)the upper arms and legs are actualy real full 3d models that i made right after the bumping
11) somequick smooth and ridged rigging ( not final)
12) animating

thomasp

in the idle pose, the spine movement seems weird. is he leaning sideways? the spine should bend slightly forwards/backwards, imo. also make the movement of the left arm more visible. check your silhouette.

in the shoot, i can't see any anticipation. the way his arms fold into shoot position, it looks like he's a robot. also, his upper chest doesn't rotate but maybe that's a choice of style. anyway it seems the arms move not at similar speeds right now. he should be bringing the gun into firing position quickly, aim a short while and then get pushed back. also his pelvis should move when he's pushed back by the recoil. and then the spine has to stabilize him, of course. the movement of the things hanging from the belt is quite extreme and distracting.

in the walk, the leg movement is weird. somehow it looks like your IK is broken and the legs are moving all over the place. richard william's book sure will help you with this. also, the upper body only bends over only to one side during foot planting, making the thing seem very unbalanced.

in the jump he should really push himself from the ground. bring the legs up with force and then when he's about to reach the top, let him raise the arms to keep balance for the landing. the timing looks wrong to me, too. very slow in the beginning, too rapid in the end. give him a few frames after landing to snap back to the default stance. and it looks like the feet rotate strangely on impact.

generally offset the spine and head from the body/pelvis motion. it looks very stiff to me right now. avoid very rapid "1-framers'" - or animate him like that all the way but don't mix with almost-slow-motion.
and don't forget to animate the shoulders! oh and that cape needs work, 3-bone setup or something like that. right now it's even jittering sometimes. lastly, plant the goddam feet.

i'd like to see more animation posted around here. posts like this just made me realize how boring it is to stare at some bumpy zbrush model. thanks for that.

warby

im not using ik because i dont know how its all forward kinematic

the cape allready has 25 bones the hair has like 10 but i really didnt have the time to aimate em ( yet )

everythign else i will work on as soon as i find time

PeterK

Very fun style, I love the feeling of the character. My only criticism is the flow of the cape. Even if it's a stylistic decision, I think a move dynamic cape would add a lot to the character.

Anyway, Great work, thanks for showing it!