The Mugen Fighters Guild

Art & Entertainment => Graphics => Topic started by: The_None on November 15, 2015, 02:25:36 pm

Title: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on November 15, 2015, 02:25:36 pm
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.
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/dinkevol.png)
From left to right:
The workflow I'm trying to go for so far is to make/animate the raw vectors (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/spitest0.png) in PSP7, then I'd clean the sprites after exporting into raster format (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/spitest1.png) then I'd apply shading to them. With Beavis and Butt-head I was basically doing the same thing, sans shading. (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/bivisfromafter.png) (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.
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/blahanim1b.gif)
(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.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: DJ_HANNIBALROYCE on November 15, 2015, 02:36:50 pm
u r the best. cant wait to see the progress on this. and good luck with ur sprite adventures...uve come a looonnnggg wayyyy!
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on November 15, 2015, 07:00:20 pm
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 (http://www.deviantart.com/art/If-Hank-Hill-was-made-for-MUGEN-The-None-Inspired-561958957), 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:
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/illtellyawhat.png)
(Maybe I could've done that sprite in 720p resolution, oh well)
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: hatter on November 15, 2015, 07:15:45 pm
"George Foreman? That's not a real grill."

I like how Hank looks, you nailed the face alright :). Keep it up.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Demitri on November 16, 2015, 03:27:20 pm
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.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Iori720 on November 16, 2015, 09:14:53 pm
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.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on December 01, 2015, 09:24:36 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/walk0.png)
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.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: AlexSin on December 01, 2015, 09:59:23 pm
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).

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/rot_bod0fix.gif)
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).
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on June 03, 2016, 07:26:54 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/crapwalk03.gif)
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.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: AlexSin on June 03, 2016, 09:46:45 pm
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.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: AlexSin on June 05, 2016, 11:14:19 am
RUIYABI said:
Did you a Kung fu fiunn Old, And also update The_none Fiunn and Yaname (Helper) this http://fav.me/da56zyq
RUIYABI, do not request for anything to be made. I deleted your latest post.
This is a moderator warning.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on July 18, 2016, 09:45:30 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/crapj00.gif)
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
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: hatter on July 18, 2016, 10:11:40 pm
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:

(http://orig02.deviantart.net/5c70/f/2013/113/f/3/mini_tutorial__slowing_in__slowing_out_by_pix3m-d62qumf.gif)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on July 21, 2016, 10:24:16 am
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'
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/crapj01.gif)
I would not be surprised if animating some of the attacks would end up being a cake walk compared to jumping and even walking.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on July 21, 2016, 11:50:38 am
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;
(http://i.imgur.com/8of625h.gif)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: hatter on July 21, 2016, 03:46:38 pm
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:
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on July 22, 2016, 05:00:40 pm
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.

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/tst-s-c-lk0.gif) 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.
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/tst-c-lk0.gif)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.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: hatter on July 24, 2016, 11:17:59 pm
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
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Iori730 on July 25, 2016, 12:52:07 am
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:
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on August 07, 2016, 08:22:56 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/tst-s-f-lp1.gif)
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).
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/tst-s-f-hk0.gif)
This rough animation is unfinished as the hitting pose doesn't have the "stretch". Was trying to emulate Galford's kick (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/galfkick.gif) 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
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: hatter on August 07, 2016, 08:59:43 pm
Hey that's pretty good. I think the pelvis is fine, my only gripes are the head/torso position. Maybe lowering them would work?

Like so:


(http://imgur.com/AWjJQVk.gif)

EDIT: Whoops, didn't notice the "didn't add the stretch because unfinished portion", oh well, I added for you anyways.

EDIT 2: Forgot to say, but it seems I forgot to apply the same movement I put for the head and torso in frame 6 to the belt. Me and my brain. >_<
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on August 09, 2016, 10:26:30 pm
I'll go back to the Galford-ish kick later (and I have a feeling I may end up redoing lots of animations I'd do), for now....
Spoiler: had to spoiler the gifs as I have a feeling the page is about to have lots of the gifs (click to see content)
That's actually my second-esque attempt at doing a crouching jab as the first time had comically small range (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/tst-c-lp0.gif). While I used to have my doubts on the range of some of the attacks I did so far I did eventually compare them to say, CVS Kyo's light punches and realized the ranges were actually sorta comparable, so who knows. Still, some would find the lower body movement to be funny but what else I can do with the crouching stance I chose?
Spoiler: A silly (maybe it's just me) lookin' LP->LK->LP->HK aerial rave which I tried to base a bit off on Thanos's aerial basics. (click to see content)

And now for a more involved animation: a silly little roundhouse kick which for now would be planned as the far version of the standing light kick unless I may change my mind. It took some time to nail the side views right and part of me feels like there might be room for improvement, unless that's just the usual me.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty

Things are probably shaping up fabously (this will be a sweep btw)
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty

Just went back and revised the hitting pose of that kick. (Which I have a feeling I may end up doing a close hard kick rather than the "far" variant)
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on October 15, 2016, 07:59:15 pm
I hope nobody would mind that I bumped up my topic because no one else have replied, perhaps at least when I'd get enough things done (which is easier said than done given my incosistent motivation) I'd consider making a sprite projects thread regarding Dink, for now here's a bunch of GIFs I've bothered to do since the last time I posted in this thread:

Spoiler: Idle breathing. Forgot to crop the gif there (click to see content)
Spoiler: Collapse animation (click to see content)
Spoiler: Standing Far Hard Punch (click to see content)
Spoiler: Fireball throw (click to see content)
Spoiler: Crouching hard punch (click to see content)
Spoiler: Standing Close hard punch. Htibox magic will be involved (click to see content)
Spoiler: Jump hard slash (click to see content)
Spoiler: Dink's Knockdown Attack. Yes, THAT move will return in some form (click to see content)
Spoiler: Bow Super (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on October 15, 2016, 08:11:19 pm
That looks awesome! Can't wait!
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: AlexSin on October 15, 2016, 09:01:00 pm
You can bump your topic if you have new stuff to show.

Speaking of which, it's great!
When he shoots the arrow, his face should look more to the right/at the enemy, unless it's for comedy.
About the close s.SP, is the hitbox going to be bigger or are you going to add a magic effect? I feel you meant the former, but having a magic attack as a strong punch wouldn't be a bad idea in my opinion.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: hatter on October 17, 2016, 12:42:16 am
From the fact that Dink is kind of a joke character in his respective game, I'd say the face in the arrow animation was meant for comedic effect.

I just wanted to drop by and say that those animations look fabulous. I really love watching you progress, and can't wait to see this come to fruition. Keep up the great work man. ;)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on October 17, 2016, 09:06:04 am
Yeah man this batch of animations is surely the nicest one as of yet :)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on October 26, 2016, 12:06:25 am
About the close s.SP, is the hitbox going to be bigger or are you going to add a magic effect? I feel you meant the former, but having a magic attack as a strong punch wouldn't be a bad idea in my opinion.

Well, I can say about that anim is that the Van Damme Street Fighter of all things crossed my mind when I was doing that animation, particularly that part when Guile flips off Bison on TV, and if I would feel like it I wouldn't mind having a closeup of Dink's biceps (tatoo not included) pop up when Dink would defeat his opponent with that move.

Speaking of magic of any sorts, his source game includes a wearable "weapon" in the form of Herb Boots, wearing which boosts up Dink's speed, both his movement velocities and animation speed (including his fist attack). I'll be already referencing this item by having his "run" animation being essentially the walking animation sped up (and his boots being colored blue). I was also thinking of giving him some kind of rekka that would also involve the magic boots, like the first part being a simple kick (with angle dependant on the button strength, LK kicking to the shin and hittling low and HK hitting mid and having more range than the LK) and the second part having him taking a step forward and kicking with another leg. The thing is that I did this forward command normal:
Spoiler: tentiative F+LK command normal (click to see content)
That may render that special move idea sort of redundant, unless I'd decide to retool this command move into some kind of overhead axe kick to make room for this sort of special. So far the planned movelists would look like this:
Spoiler: tentiative movelist (click to see content)

Dissapointingly for much of the week I didn't get myself to do much progress, so here's an animation for the Magic Rain cast super that embarrasingly enough took me much longer than it should have (including all of the time I've procastinated while trying to do this one). Hopefully I can get myself back on track soon because I'm really not sure how much of my time is really left.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on October 26, 2016, 02:25:06 am
He definitely needs to shoot em' the bird.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on November 03, 2016, 09:58:10 pm
Another animation that took me longer than I wished it could take (procastination be damned), this is for the "Bust" Lv.2+ super where a duckling would come out of Dink's backpack as he whips out and supported by Dink's arm acting as a sort of airfield (which would of course stay for a bit longer than how the gif makes it out to be) as it would take off to summon the infamous giant Mallard JPEG once it flies offscreen.
Spoiler: Bust Lv.2+ (click to see content)
Here's also the Rising Knee'n'Kick special. The rising knee I actually animated around two months ago but the kick part I took on yesterday. It marks as one of the first times I went on using one of these posing tools to pose a doll model and use what I've arranged as something to base a frame on (not quite completely accurately as I was too lazy to try exactly recreating the Doll's proportions to be similar to the ones the character has, which doesn't help that the program in question is a trial version with no ability to save poses/models, only images. Mostly trying to follow the pose for the lower body in this case). The "hit" pose served as a key frame I started the axe kick animation on and went on from the frame in both directions. I dunno if one of the legs wouldn't look too jarring compared to the rest of the animation but you'll be the judge I'd guess.
Spoiler: Rising Double (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on November 03, 2016, 10:50:16 pm
hah, Dink's got the moves for sure!
Suggesting a 'falls on butt' ender of the kick follow-up to his knee attack, in case it's blocked. Go full joke character!
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Momotaro on November 04, 2016, 05:33:53 pm
Wow, this is really well done.
I hardly understand how it's animated (spriter pro or something)
But it looks awesome, the idea reminds me of Rumble Fish sprite segments
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on November 05, 2016, 12:20:53 am
This is all done with the magic of Paint Shop Pro 7's vector capabilities. As this isn't quite an animation program per se, I pretty much did it frame by frame per file with no generated inbetweening to rely on. Still, being able to reuse the vectors from other frames as well as edit the vectors themselves when I see fit (from doing subtle edits to the face vector for facial expressions to tweaking the body vectors to get an angle I haven't portrayed in a frame before) among a number things proved to be more than useful, even if my ocasional artistic deficencies would get into the way, maybe it's just me tho'. Maybe one day I'll explain it better in words.

The kick follow-up would lift Dink a bit as he delivers the kick so it's not like it would be possible for fail a proper landing for this. That being said...
Spoiler: WEEEEE (click to see content)
That (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/weeemm.png) move is definately coming back as an air command normal. Also went for using a posing tool to base the frame on, we'll see how jarring this would look like proportions-wise when stacked against his other sprites, maybe it's just me tho'.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Momotaro on November 05, 2016, 12:41:21 am
Thanks, I thing I got it.
I never really used vectors.
So this gives you possibility to rotate and deform your body limbs without Quality/color loss.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on November 14, 2016, 08:32:54 pm
Sort of like that, yeah.

After yet another unfortunate bit of procastination, I went ahead and did this:
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Ignore the sword getting cut off at the top of the gif as I was too stupid to reposition the vectors in the canvas to be at around the bottom rather than the center (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/starwar09oops.png) (when I'd get around actually getting to the "clean and shade the sprites" phase I'll deal with the problem). For the final pose I tried following the pose held by Luke Skywalker in the poster of A New Hope, but I sort of mucked that up as usual. For the sword basic attacks I'll also be reusing the first frames of that animation in reverse so he'd seathe his sword back into the back after ground sword basic attacks (he'll regain control as soon as he'd start seathing, just that simply letting him completely tucking the sword back to his backpack would grant him a little bit of powerbar boost, sort of like how letting Vergil sheath his sword kicks up the Style meter a bit)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: inktrebuchet on November 14, 2016, 11:14:55 pm
I don't know how I have missed so much in this thread!

These animations are looking really great, much smoother than most. Really nice, I cant wait to see your next ones.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on November 17, 2016, 10:05:56 pm
So here I was doing the first part of a kick rekka I've considered for the bust groove. I actually did two variants of the first kick that varies with an angle (therefore range and guard level) depending on the button used in the command e.g. QCF+LK starts a rekka with a low kick while QCF+MK is a mid-kick, both of which is seen in the gif. Whenever I'd do a similar variable for the second kick time would tell if I can come up with anything else other than 'take a step with the extended leg and roundhouse mid kick with another leg' I've considered for the second kick. Whenever some magic fairy dust would come out of the feet as he'd hit with the move, that's still in the consideration.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty

Just did the second part of the Rekka, have a gif below with the QCF+LK->QCF+K
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty

I also just did the silly little overhead F+LP command normal
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on November 26, 2016, 04:29:22 pm
Another bump due to the lack of responses.

On one hand, I am almost done with one of the movesets that I would soon proceed to start cleaning up the sprites, attempt shading them and code one of the two movesets, but on the other hand my motivation still remains incosistent, with the animation below taking me around 5 days to do (including two days I ended up not making any progress at all), so personally I doubt I'd get a public beta ready for around this year's chirstmas, that's just my bad luck with productivity I'd guess. At least there may be a chance that I'd get one half if not the entire character done around early 2017, especially if I'd end up steping up my productivity.

Whatever the case, here's the anim I did recently.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: TMC55 on November 27, 2016, 07:05:23 am
I'm really loving the progress on Dink Smallwood so far, you;re spriting skills is incredible. Can't wait to see a demo video of how he'll play.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on November 27, 2016, 09:24:17 am
I hope the clean-up of the sprites will go easy. And those animations keep getting better! They have some weight to their movements. Good luck, mate.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on November 27, 2016, 10:35:52 pm
Suprisingly I did this one in a single day
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Once I'll do a couple of more miscelanous animations I'd guess I may end up going to clean the around 400-ish frames I did so far. Wish me luck.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Janis L.C.V. on November 27, 2016, 11:12:29 pm
I wish you more luck than a four-leaf clover can offer. I've been eyeing this project for a while and I'm loving how much life Dink is showing off with these sprites.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on December 05, 2016, 08:02:39 pm
Took the same shading vectors I did for the "2015" sprite from the first page (yes, I did that with those as well, thanks "Soft Light" Layer Blend Mode", and I'm especially glad I'll be able to finetune the shading with raster pixels under the same blend mode as well) and applied to the cleaned idle stance....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/firstshad.png)
Now don't get me wrong, I'm in fact still in the process of cleaning the sprites (as of this post/edit I've cleaned the basic movements and every single gethit I've animated so far as well as one of the standing normals and three of the special moves. Also keep in mind I don't always manage to give my attention towards cleaning as well, silly me) but I felt like showing something off. Have a comparsion between my sprite and Balthazar's below. No doubt my own may need a bit of retouching there and there, maybe it's just me tho'.
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/firstshadcomparsion.gif)
....And come to think of it considering me going for the colored outlines maybe I should color the lines of the mouth, nose and eye outlines as well, you'd be the judge.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Spat856 on December 05, 2016, 11:32:59 pm
Took the same shading vectors I did for the "2015" sprite from the first page (yes, I did that with those as well, thanks "Soft Light" Layer Blend Mode", and I'm especially glad I'll be able to finetune the shading with raster pixels under the same blend mode as well) and applied to the cleaned idle stance....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/firstshad.png)
Now don't get me wrong, I'm in fact still in the process of cleaning the sprites (as of this post/edit I've cleaned the basic movements and every single gethit I've animated so far as well as one of the standing normals and three of the special moves. Also keep in mind I don't always manage to give my attention towards cleaning as well, silly me) but I felt like showing something off. Have a comparsion between my sprite and Balthazar's below. No doubt my own may need a bit of retouching there and there, maybe it's just me tho'.
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/firstshadcomparsion.gif)
....And come to think of it considering me going for the colored outlines maybe I should color the lines of the mouth, nose and eye outlines as well, you'd be the judge.
I like them both but if I were to choose I would personally want Balthazar's shading. It cleans up the sprite giving it a bit of a official and crisp feel to him. Kind of makes him look like he could belong to the MvC universe.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on December 14, 2016, 10:23:32 pm
I am well aware that my shading isn't near the level of Balthazar's, I just showed off his shading just for comparsion.

S'anyway, I actually did clean up almost everything I did the sprites for so far around four days ago and roughly coded almost everything even, thus I tried to see how I can fare with shading animations like the roundhouse normal, except.... well, speaking of not being as good as Balthazar....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/animshad01.gif)
Maybe it's just my inexperience with the method I'm trying to do (Which also involves a vector layer in a special soft light blending mode (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/szadvec.png), altho I did in few places apply some per pixel as well) but my usual esteem gets in the way as usual when it comes to this animation. Either I should stop worrying about how I make things look and be okay with doing something really rough or I should really look for someone to shade the sprites for me as I have no idea how I'd get things done at this point.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Momotaro on December 14, 2016, 10:49:13 pm
Impressive work!
Perhaps the thorax "inflation" is a little bit too extreme? IDM
I would reduce it of 2 pixels (width)

I'm really impressed by you guys making stuffs from scratch, particularly idle stance.
It can become a nighmare :D
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: hatter on December 15, 2016, 01:30:24 am
^ To be fair, the exaggeration somewhat gives it a cartoony flair that makes it stand out, think Darkstalkers.


(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/animshad01.gif) >>> (http://imgur.com/WrOSRQ6.gif)

I fiddled around with your animation a bit, some things were a bit jumpy, like the bandana on his arm, and the top part of his torso went up a bit too much. You'll notice that I also changed the inflation of the torso to be a lil bit smaller than in terms of how wide it is. Also the chest lines were a bit all over the place so I made them a tad more uniform.

This is by far my favorite animation by you, and I think I learned a new thing today, so thanks for that.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on December 17, 2016, 08:33:55 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/animshad02c.gif)
For there I redrew shading for each frame in a separate soft light layer and.....Well, I dunno... maybe I'd find someone else to shade the sprites for me or I would just proceed on this project with no shading at all, because unless you'd be able to convince me otherwise, shading I don't think is something I can really pull off.

Have a shaded walking animation here as well
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/animshad03.gif)

Spoiler: Here's also the crouch, some jump frames, and the butt stomp. I'd really like some feedback here, folks (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on December 22, 2016, 06:07:35 pm
Have another batch of shading attempts down below due to the lack of replies.  I've decided that for now I'll shade some random animations I did (and not even entire animations thrororugh, just simply from the reverse to the point of getting to the key frame like those below) for now rather than anything in order to see for myself how I'll far with shading some of the poses, some of which ended up being more trickier than I've anticipated to the point that I really could use some help.
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd014.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd015.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd016.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd021.png)
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd017.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd018.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd019.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd020.png)
Given the slow and anyways incosistent rate shading everything I did animationwise so far may take quite a while, to the point that I'll say this right now that I'd be extremely lucky if I'd be able to get one half (as in, without the Slash moveset, I'll save that for the future update) of Dink ready by around late January or something.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on December 22, 2016, 07:18:19 pm
Looks awesome.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on December 25, 2016, 01:10:28 am
Have some more shading
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd026.png)
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd024.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd022.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd023.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd025.png)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on January 02, 2017, 11:16:07 pm
So I come back to shading after a week and man I already have a feeling I forgot a couple of whattodoes when it comes to lightsources (mostly the lower body part on the first two frames here, and yes I went on shading the standing hard punch in reverse, from the last frame up until the hit frame and then going from the begining to the hit). Maybe it's just me not having much experience with shading from the angles I probably haven't done.
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd028.png)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: TrinitroRoy on January 03, 2017, 02:35:49 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd024.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd022.png)
I find this funnier than I should!
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on January 03, 2017, 03:43:59 pm
His butt needs to be better lit!
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on January 03, 2017, 07:25:43 pm
I would go back to some of the earlier frames and try fixing what I did by the time I'd be done with shading everything I've done so far (either that or I would get someone else to look over the shading and fix some weirder stuff in them), but for now....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd029.png)
Either I have absolutely no idea how to apply proper lightsource to his lower body down there or lineart-wise the frame is so fundamentally flawed and nobody told me something looked wrong there back when I put out the vector draft of the animation this is part of (this is the second frame of the unarmed crouching hard punch (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/tst-c-hp0.gif), by the way.)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on January 03, 2017, 10:33:45 pm
Dang those legs were pretty hard to make look good and I blame the anatomy in part.
I did some edits  to your sprite. Now don't go planning a full shading overhaul, just keep the edits in mind for later sprites ;)
(http://i.imgur.com/vFIck14.gif)
'B' sprite is my edit.
I hope this helps.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on January 04, 2017, 06:08:29 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd030.png)
Another day, another frame that proved to be a pain in the ass to shade. In fact I was sure the stomach area would need some shadows with how Dink is supposed to be hunced in that frame but I wasn't sure how to do the shadows in a way that would look right there.

Given how many sprites are similarly tough to properly apply shading to and how many I have to do overall (as of this post I've shaded around 161 out of 358, and that's not counting few more animations I'd like to do but didn't start like a dizzy and aerial blocking but from december I went on focusing on shading), this may take a while.....
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on January 04, 2017, 07:00:22 pm
I can't remember or recall, but when shading, you start out by filling it with the dark colors, right?
It's way more natural to 'add light' rather then 'add shadows'. Something I learned over the years!
With things like the hunched pose, it's usually fine to leave a large portion simply dark and unshaded.
Then any limbs that do catch light, pop out even more.
The shading in the sprite above looks pretty good, personally I would just get rid of the blob of light on his crotch.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on January 06, 2017, 12:17:48 am
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd031.png)
And these frames that are tough to shade properly start coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't sto(...)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on January 06, 2017, 10:01:57 am
Well considering you think that's a hard-to-shade one, you did pretty good. The only thing that I'd personally leave out are the blobs of light on the rear foot and calf. Because the leg is in the rear and all. Also, the blob of light on his front leg's toes I'd get rid of. Unless there was a light pointing at him from the front, there shouldn't be any light catching those toes. Otherwise; totally passable shading!
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on January 06, 2017, 03:40:39 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/risingdouble1.gif)
Kept stumbling upon tough to shade sprites so I went ahead did a full gif of the rising double (minus the landing). The speed of the gif is intentionaly slow for you convienience so you'd have an easier time spotting the incostistencies (if there are any)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Nexus Games on January 06, 2017, 04:53:43 pm
during the last frame when his leg is in the air the bent leg has a line that does not look right if that's supposed to be a fold because the rest of the frames don't have that until the last frame when his leg is in the air before it comes down.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on January 06, 2017, 10:34:25 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd033.png)
I'm not sure should the blob of light around his crotch even has to be here, but.....
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on January 07, 2017, 01:18:22 pm
Unless you want to convey an erection, the light blob on the crotch can be left out ;)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on January 08, 2017, 12:47:37 am
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/firebolt02.gif)
I'd guess I'll consider making a thread in the projects board soon considering how far I've progressed with this character

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd035.png)

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/switchpunch1.gif)
I think I overdid it with this "make things shaded darker when facing away from the 'front'" thing
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on January 15, 2017, 07:51:11 pm
Bump due to lack of replies
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd037.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd038.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/shd040.png)
I especially have no clue how to shade that sword
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: hatter on January 15, 2017, 08:04:08 pm
A year ago, I worked on a CPS3 rendition of Seijuro Hiko from Rurouni Kenshin for Dan Mt, and an animation of Cloud Strife in the CPS3 style for Zemilia. My reference for the swords was Leo's amazingly well-sprited blade. From what I memorized from it, I did this to your sword (second frame):

(http://imgur.com/87LARze.gif)

Made the blade sharper as well, and added a new color on the top part, and changed some outlines here and there. I'm actually not sure if the blade wasn't meant to look like how it did in the first frame, so if it isn't, feel free to ignore the sharpening.

I'd say more things about it, but I'm not really sure what to tell you. The way the lighting was handled on Dink doesn't give an OOMPH feeling to me (sorry if this offends, its not the intention), and I'm not sure if you are willing to go back and rework it all; I don't blame you for that either, because sprite projects are hard shit m8. Maybe I can give a shot at giving an easier way to handle the lighting on him for a future reference if you want to go back and possibly rework the frames later on?

The biggest plus of all the sprites you made are the animation IMHO. They look so well done, lighting problems aside. :2thumbsup:
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on January 19, 2017, 11:11:35 pm
I had a feeling I could do shading much better in some places - especially the face - that would be something I wish I'd been told about around 6 weeks ago when I started shading the spriteset so far to begin with (or even as soon as in the very first post of this thread given I already had a single sprite shaded, even if the shading is mostly based on Balthazar's sprite) so I'd guess for now I should just worry about getting the lightsource right and perhaps try better by the time I'd get around starting another originaly sprited character, if I'd still feel like it (and that's a very big IF)

For now though:
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/animshad04.gif)
(When he's facing left he'd be actually facing left ingame, which would explain the lightsource temporarily slightly shifting to the left there)

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/tst-f-lk2.gif)

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/tst-f-lp1.gif)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on January 24, 2017, 09:23:37 pm
Topic bump and man shading aerial gethits is especially hard
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/animshad05b.gif)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on February 05, 2017, 12:39:27 am
The good news is that I've roughly shaded almost anything I did frame-wise at around a week ago.
The bad news is that I still have to actually do a few more animations before I'd declare Dink to be release-worthy, like a Mortal Kombat-inspired dizzy animation whose rough cut you'll see below.
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/finishhim00.gif)
I'd guess I shall fire up one of these 3d posers again for reference, it could  as well be just my self-esteem speaking tho'

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/dizzytest02.gif)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on February 21, 2017, 09:53:48 pm
I'm still alive so is this project, it's just that I'm waiting for one guy to supply me with effects but as it looks like the person in question would be very busy in a foreseeable future I'd guess I'll try making effects by myself. Keep in mind tho' that even after first releasing the character I'll still be working on the character, including spritewise (to do the second movelist I mentioned later in the topic) so he would still have a chance to get his future work utilized into the character in an update. And besides there are still a few animations I'd like to do before I call it ready. On the subject of those.....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/haithar.gif)
I have absolutely no idea what am I doing with the shading there.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on March 05, 2017, 07:19:44 pm
Those who remember the old Most_Mysterious incarnation of Dink smallwood, remember that part in his stance when he pulled something out of nowhere and smoked it?
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/mmdinkidle.gif)
Well this is about to return
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/doap.gif)
Wish it didn't take me two weeks of mostly procastination to do this, but that's me these days I'd guess.....
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: inktrebuchet on March 06, 2017, 04:06:13 am
That's a huge improvement! keep it up man, I love seeing these.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: TMC55 on March 13, 2017, 01:47:42 am
I'm loving that stance, it's definitely a major improvement compared to the first one. Awesome work man, can't wait to see him in action.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Memo on March 13, 2017, 05:58:47 am
Those who remember the old Most_Mysterious incarnation of Dink smallwood, remember that part in his stance when he pulled something out of nowhere and smoked it?
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/mmdinkidle.gif)
Well this is about to return
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/doap.gif)
Wish it didn't take me two weeks of mostly procastination to do this, but that's me these days I'd guess.....
Does that splif he's blazing give him any extra abilities lol like time
Slows down or something?
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on March 13, 2017, 11:45:37 pm
Does that splif he's blazing give him any extra abilities lol like time
Slows down or something?
As much as he's acquainted with various sorts of magic, this is just a randomized part of his idle animation. Maybe.

Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Took me too long for my personal taste to finish this animation considering I started it around like a month ago. I'd guess I'll focus on doing non-sprite animated stuff (like attempting to do few effects where recycling from the old M_M version wouldn't suffice), I think sprite/animation-wise I have done almost enough work (including some bits I haven't posted into that thread) for at least "part 1" of the project.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on March 14, 2017, 12:44:51 am
Nice to see Dink being remade.
Will other M_M characters resurface?
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on March 18, 2017, 06:34:20 pm
Will other M_M characters resurface?
Well I did on at least one point consider re-doing Fiunn (in fact sometimes working on Dink felt so daunting part of me wanted to go doing Fiunn instead, given the scope) and around 7 years ago I had a shot of respriting Franko that didn't go beyond a single sprite, which it went out like this:
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Given the plans I have for 2017 and later tho' (including at around one/two more original sprited characters, as well as doing the second movelist for Dink) and how long I've been doing Mugen content in general (to the point I'm not sure would I still keep up with doing Mugen content for how long given my desire to move onto other things) though I'm not sure if remakes of other M_M characters would happen, maybe it's just me and my uncertainy tho'. We'll see if my foreseeable future would allow it.

Some days I get a bit of a dillemma on whenever shall I do few more animations or should I work on effects and/or finishing stuff coding-wise, but yesterday and today I went ahead and added a third part to that rekka sequence.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Still hoping I can get the character (well, one planned half of him) ready at around the end of march, but a lot of times as of lately I wasn't able to stick with my dates so I'd guess I'll stay silent on when the public 'beta' can be expected.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on March 18, 2017, 06:53:34 pm
Hey man, that rekka is looking good now, it really seems you're improving animation-wise!
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on March 21, 2017, 10:40:40 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/fxinpr3.png)
An attempt for special effects that took me around like three (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/firstafef00.gif) different (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/firstafef01.gif) times (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/firstafef02.gif) and by the way it's totally happening.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: AlexSin on March 21, 2017, 11:58:14 pm
That's hot. ;)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on March 24, 2017, 08:35:35 pm
You know how artists for some games like SFA do their rolling animations in a way that they basically do the single frame and simply copypaste said frame and rotate by 90 degrees, leaving shading intact? Well....
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
I'm not one of those folks.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Staubhold on March 24, 2017, 08:38:19 pm
ROFL!! Loooks like he has a lot of fun rolling around. Great stuff The_None!
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on March 24, 2017, 08:57:30 pm
great Dinkspin ;) and nice work on going the extra mile for the adjusted shading on each frame!
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on April 09, 2017, 09:41:23 pm
Sword angle test
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/sworotest0.gif)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/sworotest1.gif)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/sworotest2.gif)
Maybe it's just me but part of me feels like I should've probably made a 3D model of that sword so I wouldn't mess the pespective that much trying to potray the sword in all of these different angles. Anybody knows a good tutorial on how to draw things in different angles/perspective by chance?
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on April 22, 2017, 05:46:01 pm
I'm not sure shall I just do a Sprite Project thread for progress on Dink's Slash style stuff while using this thread for other purposes or just keep posting in Dink gifs like how Diepod uses his graphics board thread for everything he does but whatever the case, have a few rough cuts of slash basic anims because told you I'm not done with the character yet.

Spoiler: Standing "Light" Slash (click to see content)
Spoiler: Standing Heavy Slash (click to see content)
Spoiler: Standing close Light Slash (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Staubhold on April 22, 2017, 05:50:46 pm
Will Dink put his sword after each attack into his backpack while in Slash style? I thought he would have another stance with the sword in his hands for Slash style...
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on May 01, 2017, 08:08:18 pm
Yes. I'll reiterate that the Slash style would be more themed around the use of weapons, so in addition to sword attacks one can also expect Dink to make some use of axes, bombs and the bow (which in Slash style would be like a weaker version of the bow super that requires no super stock but has to be charged for more damage/velocity).

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/tst-s-c-hs0c.gif)
Part of me isn't quite satisfied with how long it took me to animate this standing close hard slash yet how lacking in impact it looks or something, apparently the follow-through is so wrong part of me feels like completely redoing the animation (or perhaps even partly ripping off the jumping (hard) slash animation I did (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/tst-jumpslash0.gif))
I would try doing something about the animation (or just move on to other animations I have a better idea how to do), but given some recent events....

Spoiler: I did.... this (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on May 08, 2017, 10:16:44 pm
Yet another bump after the lack of replies, I'm starting to slowly doubt this forum being the place I'd ever get any feasible feedback. I'll admit that at times the lack of feedback I got with the few times I tried spriting in the past before Beavis is part of why rarely ever my spriting experiments in 2007-2012 usually didn't go anywhere beyond a single unfinished sprite.
Spoiler: Jump "Light Slash" (click to see content)

Spoiler: Crouching Slash (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: inktrebuchet on May 08, 2017, 10:35:25 pm
I'm impressed with that foreshortening in your sword angle test. It's looking great so far.

I really like how you have his facial expressions in every animation. I always forget that part when I'm making stuff but it adds so much to the character!
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: AlexSin on May 08, 2017, 11:09:37 pm
I've seen this floating around, you could watch this and get some tips on animation ;)


Be careful because I think some actions you made have the flaws the guy in the video points out.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on May 10, 2017, 09:47:10 pm
I've seen the video quite a while ago, and as much as I'd admit there are few animations I'd work on further (standing close light slash) if not outright redoing (standing light "kick"), It would be helpful if you'd point me out what anims happen to be that flawed. If it happens to be the case with quite a number of anims I did plenty of months ago, then.... well.... sure I would always remake these but I'd nonetheless still wish I would have gotten sufficient feedback for these back when these anims were in their raw rendered vector phase.

With that said have these for now:
Spoiler: Crouching slash with recovery frames (click to see content)
Spoiler: Alexandra-style standing "suppercut" command normal (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: AlexSin on May 11, 2017, 12:32:56 pm
The crouching light punch would be one of the cases described in the video regarding the attacks and the character's balance, but it's not really important since it could add to Dink's silliness (no offence meant).
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on May 15, 2017, 11:10:09 pm
Yeah the anim came out like that with a combination of a little bit of that and a little bit of me having no idea what I was doing anatomy-wise, and perhaps I would think about redoing this anim a bit now that I might have an idea on how to do it more properly if the crouching slash is of any indication.

Anim timings in these gifs are definately not quite final to how I'd do when I'd put these into Mugen:
Spoiler: aerial slash knockdown attack (stand blowback would still be the finger in Slash mode tho') (click to see content)
Spoiler: a silly bomb toss animation I have put relatively little effort into (click to see content)
Spoiler: the looped first part of the fire sword special (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on May 25, 2017, 10:21:19 pm
Man I really need to step up at my dialy animation progress rate
Spoiler: The full sequence of the QCB+HP->LP->LP->HP (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on May 26, 2017, 10:04:27 am
Keep it up :)
Haohmaru ain't got shit on Dink!
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on May 28, 2017, 12:40:00 am
I hope I can keep up the pace despite some circumstances I won't bother bringing up there.
Spoiler: Axe hit/throw (click to see content)
Spoiler: a single frame of the spining kick super (click to see content)
Spoiler: have a further sequence of said spinning kick super (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on June 14, 2017, 10:02:50 pm
Mostly redid what would be the close standing light slash based on Insanius's idea.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: AlexSin on June 14, 2017, 10:25:08 pm
How many hits?
You're probably aware, but just in case: one of the legs seems to be shrinking in size.

That's a funny attack. :D
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on June 15, 2017, 10:09:17 pm
I've intended for this normal to hit once but it does look a bit like it could hit twice if only for how fast the motion was.
Before I'll go on and try fixing one of the legs.....
Spoiler: Two variants of the Style Switch Attack (click to see content)
Spoiler: Mostly redone Jump Hard Slash (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on June 16, 2017, 07:55:00 pm
I have an idea. Why not have it when if Dink gets hit during an attack involving his sword, he drops it. And he can't use sword-based attacks until he picks it back up.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on June 18, 2017, 12:14:38 am
Spoiler: Part of the slash mode's lv.2 super (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on June 18, 2017, 01:14:33 am
Is that a folding chair?
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on June 22, 2017, 09:02:55 pm
That's actually supposed to be a pig grain bag. I've since made some steps to make the bag look more like it supposed to thanks to the help from one Helios.

Before I'll show you the fixed gif and really before I'd get around doing a few more animations I've recently slowly begun shading what I've done before, and there's no doubts I've likely forgot what the hell was I doing shading wise. This can be especially visible in legs, waist and where else I had no idea I've been making mistakes for months even.
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc210617.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc220617.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc220617b.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc220617c.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc230617.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc230617b.png)
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Perhaps given how time consuming shading all of the new 200-and-counting frames can be I'd guess I would perhaps just try to shade everything the way I know and after all of that go back to review and fix where I did wrong, except that I have a feeling going back and fixing may take quite some time in itself as well.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on June 29, 2017, 11:14:24 pm
So, one good news and at least two bad news...
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc290617a.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc290617b.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc290617c.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc290617d.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc290617e.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc290617f.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/misc290617g.png)
I ended up shading everything I did so far as of this post. That's around 200 frames in around 9 days. On the other hand, you can probably see that my shading can be quite dodgy in a lot of places, but that's what whappens when I decide that I'd just shade everything the way I know and perhaps later review everything and fix some of what I can, except that I wouldn't be surprised if trying to fix every sprite would end up being pretty time-consuming in itself.

But secondly, I still have quite a few animations to do (which would also mean more cleaning and shading in the future)
Still, depending on what kind of ideas I have and how it would take me to execute them (I'm still trying to pick an idea for a Lv.3 slash mode super to stick with, as well as the slash variant of the style switch super and some more intro/winposes, among things) perhaps there may be some slim chance that I would get the Part II update ready by around late august to mid-September. But then again at times I just keep jinxing it with release windows, don't I?
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on June 29, 2017, 11:50:41 pm
Why not the counter hyper from the old version? As the style switch he could throw the sword off-screen.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Helios. on June 30, 2017, 09:45:47 pm
Oh, if I knew you were going to use it like that I might have rotated and aligned it better.  Glad that my limited knowledge of spriting could be of some use.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on July 02, 2017, 10:12:09 pm
Spoiler: Hey pig piggy pig pig pig yada (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on July 08, 2017, 08:34:31 pm
Spoiler: do the duck walk (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on July 15, 2017, 08:09:34 pm
Spoiler: Yes I'm still there (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on July 16, 2017, 02:45:46 am
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/discodance.gif)

I swear you can play any song with that animation and it would fit
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on July 21, 2017, 11:23:45 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/320ptest.png)
Out of a slightly skewered priorities I've resized the vectors by half, cleaned and tried for a different aproach to shading (assume everything to be at the darkest shade by default, add in lights, and use the middle level to smooth some things out). And while the head may have been proven to be tad too small for the scale (unless it's just me), I certainly liked the way shading turned out to the point I'd wish I would have gone by that aproach to begin with. Oh well, maybe it's just me.

Spoiler: HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER (click to see content)
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on July 22, 2017, 02:37:38 am
Who is this mysterious duck man? Could he be the successor to Magic Geese?
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: inktrebuchet on July 22, 2017, 02:52:08 am
The shading on the new challenger looks pretty close. I think adding some light below his chest as he leans could help it out.

This reference could help. I always try to find good reference when I'm not sure about shading.
(http://i.imgur.com/H55Chji.gif)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on July 31, 2017, 11:55:03 pm
Now that I did what I wanted to do with Dink (altho' I would eventually go back to Dink if I'd feel like fixing all of the shading in the sprites I did among things), I may as well use this topic to post ocasional single sprites I'd do for practice (therefore, that I show off a character in this thread does not neccersarily mean this would be a full project), and perhaps making sprite project threads for the full character projects I would do (something I have a feeling should have done with Dink or at least his major update to begin with, oh well). So without further ado.....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/fran01.png)
While I would do a bit more to the sprite, I hope so far the sprite doesn't feel too lazy despite me using the vectors I did for Dink (the lower torso and the head) and TuQuack (the upper body) with the modifications I did so far. Also I think I may have been overly careful with lighting him as my attempt to give him the light source exclusively from the top ended up making him not very well lit, maybe it's just me tho'. Also the colors used there may not be final
Spoiler: And for a little bit of bonus.... (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on August 01, 2017, 12:10:07 am
Welcome back, Franko.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on August 06, 2017, 09:33:04 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/watchforyourbikes.png)
Took me a while to think up of who shall I do for a graphical practice next so I felt I may as well attempt a NES Punch-Out edit.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on August 21, 2017, 09:29:14 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/agitatingskeleton00.png)
After the two weeks of lack of ideas to pick and me generally feeling really down, I ended up revisiting the Revenant, this time I modified the pose a bit (if I'd feel like animating him the idle stance would be sort of silly Mortal Kombat esque, particularly Kano's MK3 stance but a bit more hunched to the front side for the lack of my better wording) and tried shading him the same way I did the Franko sprite, and..... well.... I have a feeling I may have forgotten how to properly apply the lightsources, maybe it's just me tho'
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Balthazar on August 23, 2017, 09:30:39 pm
HMM the left and right shoulder guards' shading does look a bit asymmetrical even though they have the same pose. And the body armor may be catching too much light especially if he's supposed to be hunched over a bit. I did some shade edits (only to the armor) that you you may consider:
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/agitatingskeleton00.png) >   (http://i.imgur.com/za83ncD.png)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on August 30, 2017, 11:41:44 pm
I knew I had a feeling that the way I'd do metalic shading would have needed some work.

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/kaw.png)
I wouldn't actually consider this piece quite complete considering I'd like to mess around quite more with the arms for the more proper folded arms (to say nothing of fixing the shading) to say nothing of fixing the shading but it's been so long since I've updated the thread myself that I felt like sharing anything at all, and perhaps I would even consider digging up some of my past attempts to share in this thread.

And man I'm not sure did my standards rose up really high to the point I don't feel like getting any confidence I'd ever put out anything I would be satisfied with or do I happen to be suffering from the combination of being down, having lack of ideas and somehow at the same time having too many ideas. I actually wrote down around at least 67 characters I've considered spriting for a graphical practice yet I sometimes still have a bit of trouble chosing who I'd do for a day (and I struggled with picking a single idea before, which by the way explains the way Magic Geese came the way he did, I would have made both a simply Magic-themed Geese and a Shadow The Hedgehog as separate characters if I've had my way, but I'd guess there isn't anything that is allowed to go my way these days, is it). And don't suggest me to do comissions, as I don't feel I'm good enough to produce things of a quality in a reasonable timeframe, as if my sluggish pace I ended up working on Dink and the sparse updates of this thread since Dink's release wasn't already indicative enough of that.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on September 05, 2017, 11:45:09 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/ginattempt0.png)
Tried upscaling the Ninja from Guardian Heroes as a warm-up for the idea I've once considered - doing characters from other Treasure games while trying to emulate the (upscaled) GH style, but with how that came out I'm not actually not sure would I have the courage to pull that off. Maybe it's me but I think I may have failed to grasp the lightning angle despite trying my best to follow the original sprite's shading, emulating that shading is quite tricky anyways with how stylized it is anyway.

There's also the case of me using to be a bit clueless of what more detail shall I add at this scale but I did actually stumble upon Ginjirou's concept sketch somewhere some time after when I've already traced the original sprite with vectors, so me possibly going back to redo this sprite is not out of question. Who knows.

Hopefully it wouldn't take me too long to pick who shall I sprite next.....
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on September 09, 2017, 06:58:53 pm
I would have made both a simply Magic-themed Geese and a Shadow The Hedgehog as separate characters <<but I ended up sort of merging these two ideas together>>
Speaking of Magic Geese.....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/youowemethesedamnemeralds.png)
If I only had a bit more time and motivation to actually practice spriting before I started actually working on Magic Geese his taunt would have certainly been that. Perhaps for the more cartoonish things (that need to be shaded) I should have tried assuming the sprite to be lit by default and add in the shadows rather than what I did there with assuming the base to be unlit and add in lights, but I'd guess the way I did may have given a little bit of attempted consistency with the CVS shading or something
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on September 17, 2017, 02:08:08 am
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/randimess.png)
It took me quite a while since I've posted there because while I did this around few years ago there's something that makes me doubt I did a good job on upscaling another Guardian Heroes character (Randy M. Green (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/bs_randy.png) in this case). I'm especially concerned about hsi face as I'm not quite sure did I do a good enough job with it, would really like some feedback or even just some sign that I did somehow fine enough with the face before I'd move on trying to pull off the style with characters outside of GH. Or I would just go on to try another style, I dunno.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on September 17, 2017, 02:37:14 am
What the drang heck is this?
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/iamakickinyourbutt.gif)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on September 17, 2017, 10:44:12 pm
Man I was so hopefull that I'd finally get an iformative reply or something (not like I can expect much given this forum) but all I got was someone webcrawling and digging up a sprite I did around 9 years ago. Still, I would elaborate on what's the deal with this sprite.

One of a number of characters I did back on my Most_Mysterious days that I've never released (nor even revealed until I did the more recent sprite) was a shoe with square eyes and a disembodied boxing glove. The character was actually one of my earlier 3DSMax experiments, in that I took the Shoe model off a Jedi Outcast model (Kyle Kattarn if my memory doesn't fool me), applied a basic wooden texture to it, and added in the meshes for the square eyes, a grin (for few frames) and a silly red cel-shaded model that tried to pass off as a boxing glove but ended up looking more like a poorly modeled foam finger. As for the more recent sprite itself, I've traced over one of my own shoes for a reference, with the rest being drawn from scratch.

On retrospect I should've envisioned it more as an anthropomorphic Boot rather than a Shoe as such shoe would pose a problem of either being too short or too wide. I'd guess I was always learning.

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/kdogard00.png)
I had a nice front reference for the Kendogu then I've attempted a 3/4 view of it. Then I tried to do a from-top shading on it. Still wondering did I mess up somewhere, as cool as it turned out.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on September 17, 2017, 11:11:08 pm
I found it by copying the link from one of the sprites you posted.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: hatter on September 18, 2017, 12:30:33 am
Man I was so hopeful that I'd finally get an informative reply or something (not like I can expect much given this forum)

I'll try to give you one, at least based on my observations.

From what I've seen, there always seems to be an unfinished sort of look to your sprites. Like... I dunno if this would be a good way to describe it, but they seem to always be in the "on the way to clean up" stage rather than the "hey look bitches, I'm refined as fuck, stick your tongue out" kinda stage?

Like, lets take a look at the top sprite of this page, The Ninja dude from Guardian Heroes, and just to make it more specific his face, because I don't want to go through the entire sprite.

Like, in comparison with his original sprites which I had to look up bc I never even heard of this game, it lacks detail in almost everything. Considering that you upscaled it from a smaller sprite, you need a bit more detail and refinement on that to make it look readable.

So I did this by referencing his official art and his in game portraits:

(https://imgur.com/eDRPOcX.gif)

(just a heads up, I'm not all that, so maybe I messed up a thing or two. Or I'm being too harsh on myself. But its probably the first)

See how adding a bit more detail to a sprite of that scale makes it more readable and better-looking? I feel like most of your sprites need that a lot, and theyll be greato.

Somebody always posts this round here, its pretty informative: It has a special section of terms to know and things to avoid (http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299). There is also Kiwi RGB's 2D Will Never Die site, which is a haven for good stuff in pixel art.

And I dunno how much this next part will help you, but maybe look up a spriter's stream (like Diepod and AbyssWolf) and just see how someone who's good at pixel art does things? It kinda helped me, maybe it'll help you?

I wish I can say more, but that's really all I can get my brain to think of and its currently pulsating in pain because I don't use it often. Hopefully it helps even if by a percent.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Crazyboy88 on January 16, 2018, 06:15:07 pm
How's it going? It's been 4 months since the last post, and why did Zorak know about Franko?
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on May 06, 2018, 09:56:30 pm
To put a long story short, as much as I hoped to continue on the graphics practice I ended up losing my motivation to continue on due to a myriad of factors - including how much I was unimpressed with how my GH upscales came out - to the point that I've at first thought I wouldn't ever feel like spriting agiain until I ended up doing that one character I did for this year's april fools (http://mugenguild.com/forum/index.php?msg=2400679). Even after that however for weeks I had a hard time picking who I'd sprite for a practice next (despite making up a text list for potential ideas and amassing around 80 entries), so I figured I would have picked up what I started many months ago (see below) and that still took me plenty of weeks before I managed to get myself to churn out the today's result. I have a feeling sorting out some personal issues may be in order.

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/thenailszad0.png)
Another OC that I don't expect to make into a full standalone Mugen character in a foreseeable future but nonetheless would be certainly be a part of one of the settings I've envisioned alongside the Kendogu fellow I did many months ago. (http://mugenguild.com/forum/index.php?msg=2375265) I've at first took one of these Andrew Loomis models and drew what would be an outfit on top of the front view, and after a week of trying to figure out what more I could do to the design (for most of which I barely did much) I just went ahead to pose the vectors into a stance. I ended up having to adjust the arms and legs a bit after how the proportions made the 'character' look a bit lanky compared to the usually more stylized 2D fighter characters. I tried using stances of Zantetsu's and Talbain's for a mild inspiration for the stance, and if I'd somehow feel like going back to my earlier sprites I wouldn't mind doing some more to the pose, I just wanted to finally have something for this thread after many months of inactivity.

I haven't sprited and shaded in a long time and if you'd ask me it really shows.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: inktrebuchet on May 07, 2018, 09:18:04 pm
I always enjoy seeing your work in this section. I like that the styles a little different from what I usually see.

Are you using a mouse or tablet to make these sprites?
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on May 12, 2018, 11:33:27 pm
I'm a mouse user. I may have considered getting a tablet a few times before but so far I may be doing mostly relatively fine, especially given that nowadays I work with vectors so setting up the curves and stuff isn't that much of an issue, or that may as well just be me babbling.

Sorry for having you wait so long for a simple answer but sometimes I prefer to come back to the topic when I'd get anything new to show off. On the subject of....

....allow me to shock the world on this one
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/shockingtheworld1.png)
For this one I started with first tracing vectors on top of the front view of an Andrew Loomis model (that I also used for my previous sprite) and then fiddling with the vectors to turn the ideal male into a chubby one. (As much as I did a decent job chubbifying the model, I realized that the guy sort of looks a bit slimmer than the real thing that actually existed. The ShockMaster is the name, look him up if you somehow haven't heard about him) Then I tried my best to turn the model into the 3/4 perspective and posed it into the stance. For the shading I tried to do the similar way I/Balth did with Dink, and I have a feeling I would perhaps try seeking another shading style that I'd be able to nail, maybe it's just the combination of me not shading things in a while and simply me not being used to shade this sort of bodytype.

I have even went far enough to add in a little bit of glitter to his helmet, something I don't expect to carry over whenever I'd feel like actually making The Shockmaster into the full character, but nonetheless....
Spoiler: Unshaded and unglittered version in case someone more competent than me at shading would take on doing that one in hopes I'd be able to learn from one (click to see content)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: inktrebuchet on May 13, 2018, 03:34:08 pm
Nothing wrong with using a mouse. I use both a tablet and mouse now. Getting a tablet helped me with animations, it really changed everything for me. I was going to say if you had a tablet, to try out the method in my signature. I know it’s not for everyone but it’s worth experimenting with. (It’s best used for animations.)


If I get some free time I’ll play with that unshaded sprite.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on May 15, 2018, 12:05:49 am
So here's one of the most pointless things I've ever done....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/bbdanreshade0.png)
I just took a Body Blows character (the left is the original sprite, right is what I did), sort of clumsily redrew it (I started this literally two hours before I went to sleep) and tried to give it a more 'streamlined' shading style so to speak. Kind of like, if I took a SF2 sprite and tried to give it SFA shading, sort of.

The face was certainly quite an area where I was like "I have no idea what I was doing" then again I'd guess same can be said of most of my sprite.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Afterthought on June 01, 2018, 09:44:40 pm
....allow me to shock the world on this one
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/shockingtheworld1.png)

I wasn't going to comment on any of this until I saw this one sprite. I can't believe you managed to botch this one. It must sting a little.

In all seriousness you've got some latent spriting potential and I'm definitely gonna follow your stuff. (Big fan of your other work by the way.)

Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on July 04, 2018, 01:33:30 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/haventsdinyears0.png)
Inspired by Card Sagas Wars - or at least what was left of it - recently resurfacing, I felt like taking my stab once again at doing a small super deformed sprite and taking my UMMBCM (an abandoned fullgame whose cast comprised mostly of self-inserts of the authors involved) character for a subject, with the previous redesign attempts included in the image for a good measure. For today's take I took some cues from Ahruon's more recent sprites (the ones from his Tumblr and stuff) rather than strictly following the NGPC style, hence I ended up messing up his right hand among things. And yes, the 2018 Double M is supposed to wear an oversized T-shirt.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on September 16, 2018, 08:36:58 pm
A warm-up before I'd attempt to sprite people or anybody around as complex....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/blunightmare0.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/walkman0.png)
I just hope doing two months worth of work on that fullgame project with the simplistic sprite style I've recently released the beta of (http://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/wsmip-budokai-beta-01-184752.0.html) didn't hurt my spriting abilities too much. Then again, maybe it didn't, given I also did few of the stages for the project myself that came out surprisingly okay-ish.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: AlexSin on September 17, 2018, 11:14:25 am
The body of the blue guy seems more square-ish than its original look in the video.

Also I tried making that character you wanted to revamp in CSW myself:
(https://orig00.deviantart.net/b60f/f/2018/260/1/a/tncsw_by_god_of_death_alex-dcn2rza.png)
Process:
(https://orig00.deviantart.net/4ce9/f/2018/260/9/f/tncsw_by_god_of_death_alex-dcn2rzc.gif)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on October 06, 2018, 09:18:55 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/avgnstn.png)
James Rolfe and Mike getting into Mugen with a video prompted me to do another attempt at the NES-esque reendition of The Fuckin' Nerd himself. Tried to sort of follow the NES palette limit but when I got around adding him the Power Glove I ended up having to break the 4-color limit to give it a unique outline color to make it easier to stand out from his shirt. Oh well.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on February 25, 2019, 11:19:39 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/stupidfish0.png)
I tried to give the DopeFish (strange why I somehow didn't think up of re-releasing him since my site went out of the "under construction" stage years ago) the 3/4 view (the middle sprite, the front and side views are what he had in Commander Keen IV sprites to begin with) and..... well, either I tried to bite way more than I could chew or maybe it's just me not doing pixel graphics in a looong while.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on March 20, 2019, 10:44:32 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/heyjonny.gif)
As an experiment I actually took a 3D model (Johnny Cage from iOS MKX), edited the diffuse textures myself into much simpler ones that mostly use solid colors, rendered the model in Blender with the material being shadeless and unfiltered, painted in his face and the shading by myself. With that said as I was doing this it became quite apparent fast that I haven't done graphics in a loooong while and it really shows, maybe it's just me tho'
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on April 05, 2019, 10:47:38 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/santosshaded0.png)
Yup, took a crack at spriting Santos from Trio The Punch, and part of me feels like I forgot how to apply the lightning (from top angle rather than top and side), especially on the face (altho' I'd guess that may as well be his backwards cap complicating a few things, I dunno)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on April 06, 2019, 08:44:07 pm
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/diemenschentotungsmaschine0.png)
So against my better judgement - and before I got any feedback at all (let alone anything sufficient) on my previous sprite - I ended up taking a knack at doing.... one of the more 'memorable' figures of the cast of Tiertex's attempt at developing their own unofficial Street Fighter I sequel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zUkK14bHDk). This time rather than me starting out with dark fillings and applying lights and shadows I went out to start with brighter fillings and adding in the shadows later. Of course this being me not having much of an idea what am I doing with lightning and other stuff (I still do need help after all, and I have a feeling this thread would end up having a streak of around 10-ish posts of mine with no replies isn't it?) it went around as "well" as I could expect, maybe it's just me tho'
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: PlasmoidThunder on April 06, 2019, 08:59:46 pm
It's hard to put into words exactly what's wrong with your sprites, but I'll try. I assume you're still using that vector technique you showed off a few pages back, yeah? The results just aren't that good, even if it allows you to animate things easier, since the linework ends up pretty messy most of the time and that affects the overall presentation of your sprites. In addition, the anatomy is all over the place (I have genuinely no idea what's going on with the above guy's legs at all), the faces look really off, and the shading never quite seems consistent across the entire sprite; in the above sprite, it's also worth noting that there's barely any contrast on the shirt at all.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on April 08, 2019, 11:50:21 pm
I'd guess this may have to do with how after all of these years there are still a lot of things in graphics I still have a hard time nailing it down (doesn't help when for some things I don't feel I've got sufficient enough of help in them), especially for things I'd have to do entirely on my own (there's probably a reason why some of the traced characters like Beavis, Butthead, Balthazar's Dink, Clippy and others are among the sprites that came out most well). If I could actually draw worth a damn I would've done well with any technique. But with my deficiencies within my artistic abilities you can magically bring me some sort of automated graphics tool you can conjure up with and chances are I would end up still churning out something rather amateurish with it. Maybe it's just me tho'

Remminds me to reassure myself do I still have it regarding tracing at least, I've lazily grabbed a Youtube screencap of Bryan Fury (could've booted up Tekken 7 myself to get a nice clean screencap myself but as I've said, I was a bit lazy) then traced off from that, scaled down the vectors and did some pixel touchups. I've left the sprite unshaded as I'd rather be sure I got things right before proceeding further with essentially polishing the unmentionable. (Interestingly apparently @Ink: thought the lineart was good enough to have him play around with my own lineart (http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/notme/inktrechubetbryan.png))
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/bryanatempt3d.png)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: PlasmoidThunder on April 09, 2019, 12:02:16 am
As someone who mains Bryan above anyone else in Tekken, I definitely don't remember him having such a pointy chin and nose. What I tend to see in the sprites where you're trying to go for more realistic anatomy instead of cartoony noodle limbs is that you don't define muscles well at all, instead scribbling in a few squiggles here and there that make it look more like wrinkles or saggy fat than pure beef.

It would definitely help to have someone more competent than myself critique your work, since they could probably do better than me simply pointing out what I think is wrong.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: hatter on April 09, 2019, 04:35:19 am
You need to stop rushing into the details of your sprites and focus on the base before going forward. Putting detail on a bad base is basically polishing a turd, sorry that I can't put it in a nicer way.

This unfortunately means that yes, you'll need to practice your drawing to be better at pixel art. If anything, start with learning how to draw shapes in 3D space and breaking down the anatomy into easy-to-understand shapes; from there you can anchor your anatomy in the proper spots and yadda-yadda-yadda get a more anatomically appealing result.

I did this with the top part of your Bwyan Bryan sprite to show you what I mean:

(https://imgur.com/hYnpGNd.gif)

it's probably not perfect (you can notice I struggled with his right (viewer) arm and hand and did some guesswork to get it drawn, and this was done on short notice), but when you break things down into shapes, it becomes easier to know where to place the details correctly, and eliminate a huge amount of guesswork on your part.

To get better at pixel art, you need to start practicing how to draw, there's just no way around it. Tough shit, but it's worth practicing, especially if you wanna sprite your own characters and make them look good.

These two channels have really helped me out when it comes to fundamentals, so yeah, I'll recommend them to you, pretty comprehensive and easy to follow along with:

moderndayjames (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI8GDFj5BQCQrSHITFebzkA)
Proko TV (https://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV)

Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: Helios. on May 08, 2019, 01:02:42 am
To add to the above reply, you could also use something like Design Doll (https://terawell.net/terawell/?lang=en) to flesh out your bases.  You can learn a lot about musculature, proportions, and even lighting from it if used properly.

My own workflow has changed a bit thanks to it.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on November 12, 2019, 10:24:28 pm
It's been a long while, and a couple of months had been a bit rough in places that included my two hard drive troubles (I had a lot of things backed up, not much worries) and therefore I've preferred to make sure I got hardware issues out of the way before proceeding with any serious work. I was able to work on some things on April and September and I've been meant to carry on, but I had a hard time staying consistently motivated throrough the other months, so let's see if I'd be able to warm myself into graphics by doing single sprites again.

This time I've tried to trace over and pose a bulk drawing and modified the drawings into what the outfit the character would get. Not sure was it that neccersary for me to try to capture the arm muscles considering these would be concealed by the suit he's wearing, but I tried whatever I tried. Perhaps eventually I'll try outright using a posed 3D model through the tools Helios suggested once I'd get around finishing that sprite, if ever....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/suitmanskel00.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/suitmanskel01.png)
Spoiler: Reminds me..... (click to see content)
Spoiler: Also, a belated bonus (click to see content)

So against my better judgement I opted to work on further on the sprite before waiting on any feedback and this is what I did.....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/dontmakemesayitagain.png)
Yes, I ended up trying out a simpler spriting style for a change, perhaps starting out simpler would've been the key before I'd be able to get onto something slightly more ambitious. River City Girls had a bit of influence there, as it had in the previous sprite I did before Garcian, as below
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/ineverhadyourdarnstones.png)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on November 21, 2019, 08:30:07 pm
Might as well blurt out a few single sprites I tried to draw in both my earlier and simplified styles....
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/wolvmancv00.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/wolvmanrcg00.png)
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/wildestwoodercv.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/wildestwooderrcg.png)
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/thatparapparipoff00.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/thatparapparipoffrcg00.png)
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/johncenajrcv.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/johncenajrrc.png)
I'll admit that some part of The Scout did give me a bit of the trouble (especially his hat), I wonder if there's anything else I ended up messing up....
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RoySquadRocks on November 21, 2019, 08:35:40 pm
Is that WILD WOODY?! AAAAAAAAAAAAA
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: RMaster007 on November 21, 2019, 09:34:06 pm
The Scout's left eye is somewhat misaligned.

That Poochie sprite is nice though.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: PlasmoidThunder on November 22, 2019, 01:28:13 am
It seems like you're relying too much on the vectors to do most of the work, which is resulting in the linework and shading being pretty messy.
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: The_None on January 03, 2020, 11:30:55 pm
I'm not exactly convinced PT has the full grasp of my graphical process. After I've made enough work with the vectors alone I save into a new .psp file just in case, convert the vector layer into raster layer and to plenty of per-pixel touching to sort of some rough edges, add few more detail or whatever else that would come into my mind, and then I'd make another raster (so per-pixel too) layer (with Soft Light blend mode) and draw blobs of highlights and shadows in good old paintbrush and fill-bucket tools. One could perhaps argue I could've been way more thorough within the retouching phase but whatever the case, I doubt my deficiencies would be result of my methods of spriting, more like with my lack of basic knowledge how to draw certain things, especially at certain angles.

I could prove you this by showing the earlier phases of my previous sprites from before I ever went into the retouching phase, but instead I ended up doing an all new sprite, showing also the early phase before the retouching, the phase between retouching and shading, and my two attempts at shading the sprite. Admittedly, it's been quite a while since I've bothered seriously spriting even for a practice to the point that I forgot how to even light the things properly, I may have messed up with his shoes and the yellow lines of his pants could use more work, but I did what I could muster....

(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/goodpupperbeforecleaning.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/goodpupperbeforeshading.png)
(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/goodpuppershade0.png)(http://justnopoint.com/lbends/junk/graphtest/02/goodpuppershade1.png)
Title: Re: T_N's long and rocky road
Post by: PlasmoidThunder on January 03, 2020, 11:42:00 pm
It's less a lack of understanding and more an assumption based on my own brief attempts at working with vectors for a similar purpose. Regardless, it doesn't change what I said, only that I was incorrect on why the linework and shading was messy.