Walking Animation

Zizka

Member
Hello,
I'd like to get feedback for the walking animation. It's missing something to me. I'm not happy with it.
The idea was to do something similar as Paper Mario walking animation:
1489871844_output_MzFjSH.gif

This is my version:
ezgif.com-gif-maker (3).gif

(nevermind the artifacts in the background).

I'm not sure why the Paper Mario animation works so well and mine doesn't... This is the 16th version I've tried.

Weirdly enough, I still feel my second take is the one the most interesting to look at so far. It could be because I drew each individual frame of the feet as opposed to simply moving the same image frame by frame...

ezgif.com-gif-maker (2).gif
 
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Deleted member 13992

Guest
I love where the second take is going! Honestly I don't think the Paper Mario one is even that impressive. Both boots are oddly 'behind' Mario, which looks worse than what you're doing in my opinion.

I'm not an animation expert, though I think part of the reason your first take looks weird is that you've applied stretch and squash to the head but not the body.

I would maybe recommend (as a test) separating different elements in your second take into individual movable images. Like the arm, upper body, lower body, chest plate, head, and moving them individually slightly offset form each-other, in sync with the jogging. Without stretch for starters. Then if you can get a little bit of "swing" on those individual elements looking good, maybe think about stretching them.

I'm not sure though. I'm not an animator, and am still learning everything. I found this video pretty useful, by the way:
 

Mk.2

Member
Before reading, I thought you were asking for advice on the Mario sprite because some improvements sprung to mind immediately. However, I'd say the reason it appears less stiff than your version is because the leg part of the animation is much faster, making it appear more cartoonish while hiding how stiff the motion actually is.
 

Khao

Member
There's a few things that make the Paper Mario walk work. Mostly two things.

The fast cycle gives it a kida goofy playful vibe. The motion is extremely basic and is genuinely not very good technically-speaking, but at that speed, it ends up abstracting the action in a Marvin the Martian kind of way. This is also enhanced by the shape of the boots. They're really round, little more that blobs. That actually helps with readability when moving that fast. Your character's boot-shaped boots might be slightly harder to follow if you pushed the speed that far. Having them so pointy makes them a bit more distracting. Think about it like this, the motion is like an extreme simplification of walking. The parts that move should be equally simplified. I'd argue that your second take doesn't work better because you animated the boots frame-by frame, but because they're less detailed. Also the fact that they're slightly larger helps too.

So simplify the boots as much as you can, and make them move faster.

The other thing is the hat. Adds some much needed motion in the opposite part of the character and makes the up/down cycle feel way more responsive. I think you had the right idea with giving the character the tiny star antenna, but I don't think the wobbly helmet works very well. Because 1: it's a helmet, 2: literally no other part of the character wobbles like that, and 3: it kinda feels disconnected from the movement itself, like it's not really reacting to the motion. But I think you should go back to the star antenna and really focus on making it move with the character as one. Otherwise add a different kind of... "loose" accessory to the character to give it some extra life. Perhaps make the backpack bounce with the movement as well? Or instead of making the helment wobble, try making it just sliiiiiiiiiightly lag behind the rest of the body just so it feels a bit less stiff.

Don't go overboard though, cause that'll just break the simplicity of the action. Keep it simple. Add as little detail as possible to the boots, and keep them round if you can. Make them go fast. Then make one, maybe two things bounce.
 

Zizka

Member
@Khao
I just saw your message as I was coming to show my progress so don't feel like I'm disregarding your feedback. The animation as it is right now is still perfectible so I'll see how I can edit it further based on your suggestions.

EDIT: I really like the bouncing backpack idea!!!!

Alright so 5 hours later, a new version. I'd say I'm much happier with this version than the previous one although it's not quite *it* yet.

Before:


After (v. 18)
ezgif.com-resize.gif
It's still not quite right but I feel like I'm getting closer...

I would maybe recommend (as a test) separating different elements in your second take into individual movable images. Like the arm, upper body, lower body, chest plate, head, and moving them individually slightly offset form each-other, in sync with the jogging.
I did just that. I did do some stretching but it was mostly for practice. The helmet seems fine to me but there's something still off about the antenna bouncing... hrm...
 

Xer0botXer0

Senpai
The feet seem flat as they are going west, while the rest of the body is maybe 20 degrees towards the south.. So I assume one would see more of the front boot when the boots are ahead and less of the back when they're at rear.
There's also a weird frame when the feet meet, or a frame missing.

The feet also seem disproportional to the rest of the body..

The light reflection on the bouncing glass helmet isn't a sticker is it ? That may be a difficult one unless there's a distinguished light source like a moon in the background or something to acknowledge as a reason for the light..


Some tricks, try mirroring the image to see how it looks from a different angle; change background color to see how it appears under a different light.

Oh! maybe rotate the shoulder that's visible a little or the suite with the steps.
 
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Zizka

Member
I think you’re 100% right regarding the perspective of the feet. I’m having trouble picturing in my mind how the boots would look like at that angle however.

Regarding the proportion of the feet, can you expand? You mean the boots should be bigger? How big do you reckon?
 

Zizka

Member
Ok, so I redid a good part of the animation. I added some backpack movement, made the bob of the head more subtle, redid the smoke, re-angled the legs and the arms.

I tried to redo the light spot but I couldn't come up with anything I was happy with so I kept the old design.

Before:


After:
Walking_19.gif
 
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Deleted member 13992

Guest
you're absolutely getting there!

I would also suggest it might be good to see it in the context of the game before getting too into details. sometimes when moving/jumping around, some things will be visible, others might not be.
 
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Zizka

Member
Ha ha! I'll take that as a compliment. I was actually inspired by Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz, at 3:09:

I'm now working on the *back* version of the walking animation. I think I'm off a good start but I'm having trouble figuring on the boot going forward would look like (I've slowed down the animation to give you guys an opportunity to look at the sequence):
ezgif.com-crop.gif

So I think the boot at the back where you see the sole looks decent but there's something wrong in the perspective when it goes forward.

Could someone point out how I should approach this for it to look right?
 

Zizka

Member
This is difficult.

Back_Walking_5.gif
I still haven't animated the antenna yet.

I feel like the angle of the boots is better. I added a bit of rotation to the head as opposed to the front version.

There's something off with the smoke because for some reason I have 14 frames for the front animation while I have 12 frames for the back animation. I need to figure out where the missing frames went.
 

Zizka

Member
I've decided to go for four direction movement instead.

South_Walk_7.gif

I feel that as it stands, the movement still gives the impression that the character is moving towards the viewer as opposed to moving south. I've tried to incline the helmet and legs to convey movement south but something is missing I think...
 
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Deleted member 13992

Guest
The direction is not too bad I think. Look at Don't Starve, they do a pretty good job at "flat" characters despite it being a roughly top-down view.

Hard to say for sure without the environment.
 

Zizka

Member
Gotcha. I'm still working on the background, not satisfied with the floor. Once I am, I'll try the animation on the background.

Meanwhile, I'm having trouble with the last direction, the direction North. The issue I'm having is animating the arm in the right perspective.



The left foot is ok as far as I'm concerned. It could be better but it's good enough. Meaning the right foot will be ok as I essentially mirror the animation.


krita_HK4dKLTmuk.png
1st frame, furthest back.

krita_OKyznGZogf.png
2nd frame. Not as good as the first frame but I'd say I'm ok with it.

krita_xUJKtly371.png
3rd frame. The thumb is off, not sure how to fix it.

krita_ZKgWgHLiUU.png
4th frame. Maybe the transition from 3rd to 4th is overdone, not sure. Thumb is better and the fingers are ok I think.


5th frame. This is where I'm at the moment. This one is not right I don't think.

So any help or input would help to get this fixed.
 

Attachments

Zizka

Member
Thanks!

Put more hours into this. I feel like it's getting closer to the intended result (arm wise) but I'm not quite there yet:
 

Zizka

Member
Right now I'm working with 32x32 tiles and I'm thinking of having the character about two tiles high. To give you an idea, below are the background elements I've worked on so far. You can see the character outline in comparison to the table for example.

Map 04.png

Alright, this is what I have at the moment. I'm pretty happy with it. The size of the arm going forward might be off a bit however, what do you guys think? Do you think it looks right?
 
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Zizka

Member
So I've revisited this once again since I had to color it. I've added more frames, changed the helmet some and other few things.

This took ages and ages. I had tons of layers (unnamed) and had to constantly select them with the cursor to find the one I needed. With a lot of layers on top of another, I could just pick the one on top.

Anyways, needless to say I'm losing a lot of time with my workflow and because I don't master my tool yet. I'm doing things by hand I could likely do with a knowledgeable use of Krita.



Then:
Walking_16.gif

One mistake I've done is to start at such a high resolution. In-game, what you see above is shrunk to 40%. Tons of details I've spent time on vanishing. Oh well, lesson learned!
 
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curato

Member
Always better to have too much rather than too little. You can always use the larger art for the menu screen or store page or advertising even if you going commercial.
 
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