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T_N's long and rocky road (Read 197174 times)

Started by The_None, November 15, 2015, 02:25:36 pm
T_N's long and rocky road
#1  November 15, 2015, 02:25:36 pm
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Or alternatively "why The_None has slowed down with mugen releases a lot lately"

For quite some time I've been hoping I would one day produce a decent looking original-sprited character on a more advance style than the Mike Judge one, and for at least a number of years I was hoping I would completely overhaul one of the first characters I've released, just so I can do something that would show how far I've come throrough my mugen tenure.

From left to right:
  • 2004 - the first sprite of Dink Smallwood I've released back in Most_Mysterious days
  • 2007 - another attempt at spriting the character, this time I took a closer look and made the design more faithful to how he actually looked. If you remember my last version of Omega Tiger Woods you may have seen this sprite cameo in one intro.
  • 2014 - this was few months after I outdid myself by making and releasing that Beavis character, was hoping I would go even further by expanding on the techniques I've utilized with Beavis (vector programs). For proportions I basically took the sprite of young Joseph Joestar and posed the vectors a bit to get more of a stance I'd like to get. That being said I was not able to get the shading right and I was especially not too happy with the face. I didn't get very far there as I was hoping to get the basic fundamentals right (proportions, anatomy, perspective etc.) before I'd proceed further. With the workflow I was going there is to do/animate the basic raw vectors, then add polish and detail to the sprite and then proceed with the shading.
  • 2015 - Completely redid the vectors from scratch, this time using a figure of an Andrew Loomis book for base. Once again, I wanted to make sure I get the basics right, I just did the shading to practice shading (to no avail, as you can see. Was trying to emulate CVS lightning but I messed it up). Same technique as the previous sprite. It's rather unfinished actually which explains the separation lines on his torso. I still wasn't too happy with how the face came out there either.
  • 2015 - Whoah how did The_None learn to sprite so good all of sudden? The answer is: I didn't. I showed the previous sprite to Balthazar and he was nice enough to remake the sprite to his abilities, so I - like a incerasingly lazy guy I am - basically redrew the vectors based on his sprite. By then I have realized that lineart is king (which explains why Capcom sprites even in their basic unshaded lineart form look much better than a lot of things I've did) and learned the lesson that I shoudl have put more effort into the vectors themselves.
The workflow I'm trying to go for so far is to make/animate the raw vectors in PSP7, then I'd clean the sprites after exporting into raster format then I'd apply shading to them. With Beavis and Butt-head I was basically doing the same thing, sans shading. (Yes I did not made the vectors for the upper torso, it was added in later for the raster phase)
You are probably expecting me to already start working on the character, however.... well, there's this thing called me still having trouble with a number of basics. I remain unsure would I be able to properly portray characters and objects at different angles, and right now I'm sort of stuck trying to make a crouching pose that looks/animates right on a basic level. I had no idea how I would make the upper body properly "hunch" and something may be irking me about legs, maybe it's just me and I should move on for making more animations, I dunno.

(Keep in mind these are raw/uncleaned vectors, which explain things like the hole in his chest)
As for how I'm faring at doing horizontal rotations, I did a few gifs of my attempts (including one of a character that isn't Dink)
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
There may be other things I would've said but forgot about at the moment, whatever the case I'd shudder to think of how long it would take me until I'd get actually good at spriting, maybe perhaps some of you guys can help me out in this regard.
Last Edit: November 15, 2015, 02:36:33 pm by The_None
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#2  November 15, 2015, 02:36:50 pm
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u r the best. cant wait to see the progress on this. and good luck with ur sprite adventures...uve come a looonnnggg wayyyy!
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Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#3  November 15, 2015, 07:00:20 pm
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Not related to Mr. Smallwood (yet) and I'm not sure am I that easily distracted or do I happen to simply have lots of ideas, but when I stumbled upon that, part of me wanted to have my own try at the character just to show that fellow how it's done, and so here it is:

(Maybe I could've done that sprite in 720p resolution, oh well)
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#4  November 15, 2015, 07:15:45 pm
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"George Foreman? That's not a real grill."

I like how Hank looks, you nailed the face alright :). Keep it up.
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Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#5  November 16, 2015, 03:27:20 pm
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I thought you magically got uber amazing on the last sprite :P still, the improvement is definitely visible. Good luck on the project.

Your process is insane (to me) but that Hank is on point.
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#6  November 16, 2015, 09:14:53 pm
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that first sprite you drew it or?  that sprite looks real good, right on. Really nice turn arounds of Lucario and the other guy, nice inspiration man.
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#7  December 01, 2015, 09:24:36 pm
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Being slightly distracted the previous week aside, yesterday I tried doing a single frame for a walk animations and I can't shake this feeling there may be something rather wrong with this side view but I can't point a finger exactly where. Is the shoulder too broad/thin? Is the neck wrong? Anything else I may be missing? I'd just rather be sure in what areas I need to fix before I'd proceed further with the animation.
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#8  December 01, 2015, 09:59:23 pm
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Feedback:
- if his right leg goes forward, then his right arm-forearm-hand should go backwards;
- he could be a bit more relaxed (the shoulder could be placed more down).


About this, I would suggest you put the straps on both sides (not just one like you have it) because of mirroring issues (you can see it in the animation).
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#9  June 03, 2016, 07:26:54 pm
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You know how rusty I am (and always was) with spriting in general and how long I haven't animated a humanoid character since the last time I tried when it took me quite a while to even think about how his walk cycle to be, to the point that I've even forgot about Sin's shoulder feedback. Now that I read it tho' it's still noted so maybe one day I'll try applying this to see how it would look with that. I still think something about his proportions may seem a bit off, maybe it's just me tho'

And yes, this is still a rough cut, which explains this yellow axis thing where his feet are.
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#10  June 03, 2016, 09:46:45 pm
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Well, that yellow axis is useful; both feet are on the same axis, but that makes one of the legs (in this case the background leg, ie his left leg) longer than the foreground one; I think you have to raise the background leg some pixels upward, also to give a 3D plane perspective.
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#11  June 05, 2016, 11:14:19 am
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RUIYABI said:
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RUIYABI, do not request for anything to be made. I deleted your latest post.
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Last Edit: June 05, 2016, 03:47:43 pm by Sin-
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#12  July 18, 2016, 09:45:30 pm
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As you can see with the fact alone of how long it took me until I posted (which was a laziness issue, I did it at a rate around one frame per few days or something), I'm not very good at doing jump animations. I did a mistake of trying to add a frame in the middle of it after I did around 8 frames in order. I'm contemplating about redoing the jump animation like there's a chance I could do it better (I just need to figure out how I'd be able to "bend" the torso forward or something to make it look less stiff)

Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Last Edit: July 18, 2016, 09:50:02 pm by The_None
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#13  July 18, 2016, 10:11:40 pm
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It looks cool, but maybe you want to make it so the motion looks faster. The jump is supposed to be a fast action, the way e.g. the legs move makes it look very slow.

Give this a look, and you'll see what I mean:

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Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#14  July 21, 2016, 10:24:16 am
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The speed would not be indicative how the actual animation speed I'd use these frames for, I only made it that slow for the viewers to make it easier for them to catch up any issues.

Anyway, I ended up redoing the jump animation, I dunno if it's better than my previous attempt tho'

I would not be surprised if animating some of the attacks would end up being a cake walk compared to jumping and even walking.
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#15  July 21, 2016, 11:50:38 am
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Oh My Gawd dude, I've missed this topic for 8 months now :gonk:  I feel so dumb.
Anyway, the new jump is totally fine, to convince you even more, I put it in motion;
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#16  July 21, 2016, 03:46:38 pm
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The speed would not be indicative how the actual animation speed I'd use these frames for, I only made it that slow for the viewers to make it easier for them to catch up any issues.

Hmm, I should have noticed that earlier in regards to the speed.

Either way, the new jump feels more natural than your first attempt, good work. :yes:
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Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#17  July 22, 2016, 05:00:40 pm
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Quote
<@Insanius> You'll get the proportions right every time by doing line skeletons first
As good as the advice may be, ironically that one have inspired me to do a single sprite of a certain literal skeleton out of youknowwhat
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Soon I'll return to regularly trying to do more rough animations of Dink unless something else would distract me.

Here's a close light "kick", based on the basic knee attack of Jotaro's/Thanos's
I'd guess doing (some) kind of attacks are a bit trickier to do than I thought. I may be considering redoing it into something that may have a bit more "punch" to that.
A crouching light kick also modeled on Thanos's. I dunno, either I should reconsider how I'd animate things or I may as well accept that animation may not be my strongest suit. Or maybe I shall stop worrying when this would be the only way I'd get anywhere at all. I'd certainly have to extend the range of that kick tho', right now it's comically small.
Last Edit: July 24, 2016, 09:42:03 pm by The_None
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#18  July 24, 2016, 11:17:59 pm
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For the light kick, wouldn't it be sensical to somewhat bend Dink's upper back a bit, as if he were arching forward? I'm not certain that anyone would be able to keep balance like how Dink is.

Low kick looks pretty great, tho the foot that he's attacking with needs a bit of adjustment, heel-wise. As bad as I am at human anatomy, I'm certain that the heel shouldn't look like that.

Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
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Last Edit: July 25, 2016, 12:55:15 am by Hatter
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#19  July 25, 2016, 12:52:07 am
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That kicks pretty good, he got his proportions working and it doesn't look awkard or anything; He  keeps his grin and delivers a fast light kick, looks to me just fine. :muttrox: :mcbuttrox: If you observe a lot of  characters from Capcom/SNk or others, a lot of them don't have exact natural positions anyways. This ones good and he should move on to other attacks, as there is so many other moves to design and animate. 

I agree on the foot, just slightly off(the triangular section), i think he can just erase that part and its solid.
Also Hatter, your spoiler is fucked, lol

:rofl:
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#20  August 07, 2016, 08:22:56 pm
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Alternatively 'close' and 'far' variants of a standing light punch. As easy as doing these were for me, methinks I may have to increase the range of these punches a bit, the far LP is rather short and the close punch is outright throw-range (sure, I would just program the hitboxes of the close attacks to be around closer to far attacks' length, but still).

This rough animation is unfinished as the hitting pose doesn't have the "stretch". Was trying to emulate Galford's kick there but didn't quite had the chops to pull that off.  I'd guess I may have to further practice perspective for the torso and especially think of something to do with the pelvis. Something tells me I may end up redoing the hitting pose/frame if not the entire animation.
I'd guess I'll try moving forward and doing more animations, going back and fix some of the earlier animations the way I can by the time I'd do at around at least half of what I want to do.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty