One thing about Trum's animation that I noticed compared to yours, Mares, is that the walking motion is very continuous and fluid. Your new animation is much better but what sticks out to me is how deliberate and isolated each step is. It looks more like a series of large, caveman-like steps rather than one fluid walk. I think part of it may be that his back is hunched a bit too much.

I have zero, and I mean zero, visual art skills, so I may be way off base here but those are my impressions. I think this thread is proving very educational, though. :)

I have a friend that does some 3D animation using lightWave. Mostly for TV News Promos and TV and Radio commercials. He showed me an option when rendering animation that makes it look more real, Motion Blur. It simulates the look that you get when you shoot a real object moving in film and video. In film and video you are not capturing a perfect slice of time, you are capturing all the motion that happened while the shutter was open. We even see this a lot with our own vision. We see blurred motion so often that when we don't see it our brains know something is wrong.

Some good links:

http://www.revisionfx.com/mblur/lenblur.mov
http://digilander.libero.it/F1Land/3...otionblur.html
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/cpl/projects/blur/
http://www.revisionfx.com/mblur/dinoBlur.mov

This software looks cool. I'm sure it could be utilized for adventure game animations.
http://www.lostmarble.com/

Of course I don't mind. I posted it here, didn't I?

I don't know how much time went into it (as I wrote, it was a while ago), but it took a while, yes. (It was faster than my earlier and uglier attemts at animating a walk, though.) If/when I get back to it, I'll probably add 12 frames more. Then I'd get one frame per frame. Right now, he moves every second frame without the animation changing which makes it slightly shaky.

The more natural your character looks, the more natural he has to move if it's not going to look strange. Have you seen Richard Longhurst and the Box that Ate Time? It's one of the first AGS games, with graphics that are... not pretty. The walk animation of the hero basically consists of flashing different colours on the right and left leg. It works (and even looks pretty cool) on those crude graphics, but with more realistic graphics it doesn't work. We can identify with a smiley, but a realistic human face with only one small detail a bit off looks strange.

Doing a walk can be very hard work (at least for a newbie like me) but it's very satisfying to see the character walk around in the game, so it's absolutely worth it trying to get past those randomly moving parts of the body.

Agreed. If/when I get back to it, I should work on the head. As you can see, that part is a simple cut and paste through all frames.

My current game has two non-human main characters. One of them is easy to animate, but the other one has been harder to get right. I've settled for a walk that, while not realistic (don't analyse how he's actually moving!), is fluid enough not to disturb. (I think. It'll be interesting to hear other people's comments when that time comes.) Their walks work well with two frames per frame, though. Probably since they're simpler.

Thanks for the inspiration, btw! I've not been in a state where I've been able to work on my game for the past two weeks, but today I really feel like getting started again.

You're right on all counts. His steps really are too large, and that's why the discrepancy between each frame is more noticable. Consider also that this walk cycle is made of 8 frames, while Trum's cycle, with steps far les drastic, is 12. I wish I had noticed your "caveman" comment before. The only attitude I thought this animation resembled was that of a badass biker, so that's why I made it into a Ben look-alike. ;) A caveman would've been far more original. :P But anyway, here's the animation I drew over the stickman (not cleaned up, or colored yet).

Stickman
http://img136.echo.cx/img136/9213/stickman8xl.gif

Biker

http://img254.echo.cx/img254/6871/hodacova8st.gif

Hard to believe it's made by the same person that made that first post.

Lol! Thanks! :P It's understandable, seeing as how I've spent so much more time and thought on this one, and am not even done yet. I'm still being slave to the low tech process of Paint, though! :D

I think it would be comical to compare the two animes.

http://img254.echo.cx/img254/6871/hodacova8st.gifhttp://img172.echo.cx/img172/2613/hodabig2uj.gif

lol! It looks like the biker dude is pissed and about to beat up our nerdy looking friend! :D

btw, at this size, I think he'd fit in rather well in a 680*400 resolution game?

I'd love to see that biker animation with double the framerate

I've been thinking about doing that.

I know you called the 'biker' a Ben from Full Throttle knock off, but he looks more like a 50's tough guy to me.

I agree. He reminded me a bit of Elvis.

Waaaah! They are about to COLLLIIIIIIDDDDEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!


- :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

Hmmm...Must be the hair-do. :P And possibly the leather jacket. However, do the baggy pants and boots really fit in with that image?

Hey, it's John Travolta!

Hehe, just kidding ;)

Great animation!

--Erwin

Nah. The nerdy one is trying to back away. :P

perhaps he's a 50's mechanic!

I dunno what he is. The way I've colored him, he looks like some mountain hick.

http://img254.echo.cx/img254/6871/hodacova8st.gif http://img138.echo.cx/img138/3362/hodabeli2ow.gif http://img138.echo.cx/img138/2903/bojeni9fd.gif

The style (black outlined, colored and shaded inside) reminds me of an experimental background I've made a while back, so the next test I try will be juxstaposing the animation agains this.

http://www.geocities.com/markabodija2/garazafin.JPG

Congratulations on a fantastic animation and background,,,

it is looking promising!

A suggestion for the background: Unless there are two suns, the light won't be showing on both sides of the window. It's either to the left, right, or front. Also, if the light is coming from outside, it is unlikely to be seen on the wall that the window is set in. But if you emphasize the wall (add thickness to it), the light would be visible on the side of the alcove that the window would be set in.

You might want to let the shelf create a triangle of shadow in the lightbeam of the lamp, along the wall.

Otherwise it looks great.

- :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

On the other hand, it currently works fairly well to show where the light is coming from. It's not light on the wall, but a ray of light shining in through the window. The light on the lawn-mover is odd, though, and some more shadowing on e.g. the speakers, the drums and the garden tools would be nice.