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I'm trying to take up animation again.


Kyne
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Howdy! I few years back I animated stick figures. It was pretty fun and i was in a nice little community (fluidanims before it merged with stick page and indeed a little after that) but I never got too good at it. I was always mediocre at best. Now I'm trying to not only unrust but also become better. I figured that spriting would be the next logical step (since I DO wanna develop games and all) so I'm trying to make a few battle animations for the GBA FEs.

All of these "rigs" are done in flash. I'll start the actual spriting soon.
 

Spoiler

 


I'm Redoing the rig animations. I was unhappy with how they turned out as a whole and I think I can do better. Expect them some time until the 17th.

Progress on the sprite:

Finished the ACTUAL Standing sprite. I've also "made" a custom sword for them. By "Made" I mean I edited the Binding Blade in the Beta Lyn animation.

wBX1Lko.png

Big Version:

L6DelDi.png

 

Note: All of the palettes were taken directly from the mugs because most of the sprites don't match the mugs in palettes and I like the mug palettes better. All except Marisa's armor palette because she only has one color on her top (apart from the outline color) because of the usually unseen red details.

The Femmes have 3 different hairstyles, Echidna's from the sprite, a bun and both combined (which I only kept because halfway through drawing the bun I noticed this looked like samurai hair. Was thinking of adding a ponytail or a braid of some sort but I guess it would only be noticeable during any back poses in the animation.

 

 

 

Update on the Mercs that I feel should be out of a spoiler!

I fixed up their stance because it looked rigid and dead so now they rest their hand on the hip and OMG THEY MOVE!!!11!

I know there's a pixel or two missing from the tasset (hip/thigh armor) but I'll have it fixed on the next update, with, hopefully, the full attack animation.

The reason for A and B is the way they shrug. In A, I just followed what Hector does in his crit animation, and stretched their chest up. I eventually decided that this might look a little awkward and did B, in which I stretched the abdomen instead, which makes it look much more natural in my opinion. What do you guys think?

[img=http://i.imgur.com/Dd2HeGz.gif]

(if the gif doesn't embed here, i don't know what to tell you. It doesn't appear for me either but it's there just fine when I preview my edits for some reason.)

I'm still not sure whether that's part of the crit or normal animation but I'll work on it. The attack animation is already being worked on and I honestly don't know whether this should still be a merc or not. Mercenaries are fast and have good overall stats but I was thinking this class could be a little slower and maybe have a little less skill in exchange for a boost in strength, con and defense. I was also thinking that they might get axes but if I do decide to make them a different class I might not want them to be too "heroic".

I was also thinking of having their promotion be capable of using light magic as a sort of "more fantasy-esque paladin" (you know, like in wow and DnD and all that.) with all of the monster slaying and light magic and bulkyness and all that. Still don't know. The only thing I know is that the promotion will be as tall as the berserker or warrior and have a massive sword. Maybe not Yeti's Zweihander big, but big. 

I'll move on to more/new classes soon enough. I want to complete the sprites for this one.

PS: This thread will be updated as I make more animations but for now this is all!

Edited by Kyne
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Wow, that looks really good, though, my only issue with it is that the timing is a bit to quick? Maybe have him ready his sword a bit before the attack, like Hector? I don't know, I'm not much of a critic, it just looks shiny and new to me

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I would like to suggest using aseprite over paint because it lets you preview the animation among other things :>

also yes SF makes it difficult to embed image content, but

[img=url.goes.here/image.extension]
or

[img=url.goes.here/image.extension]
To get that url you can just right-click the image after it uploads (sometimes you can left click it and it pops open by itself but that's been unreliable in my experience):

x4qQknL.png

either "view image" then copy the url that you get directed to, or copy image location to save the time c:

as far as the animation looks; the landing at the end of the return looks like it lacks weight in its current state. The momentum of the character is all going backwards, but then they slam their sword forward with no counterbalance-- shouldn't their pose need adjust to compensate for that swing?

(then again, that may just be because it's still sticks)

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This stick figure practice is directly recommended by yeti, so if you haven't read both his tutorials on it, you totally should. You'll likely get a lot of use out of them.

Unfortunately, while I linked them once before, both the old one and the newer one are hosted on photobucket, which is a notoriously bad host. Right now the images are refusing to load, but it's not a 404 error so hopefully the site is just being shitty and not that they've been deleted...

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Holy cow thanks folks! For both the criticism and the general info.

as far as the animation looks; the landing at the end of the return looks like it lacks weight in its current state. The momentum of the character is all going backwards, but then they slam their sword forward with no counterbalance-- shouldn't their pose need adjust to compensate for that swing?

(then again, that may just be because it's still sticks)

Right. All this rust made me forget to ease in AND out of things as well as weight distribution. I'll fix that here in a bit. Update coming soon now.

EDIT: UPDATED! Fixed up the landing a bit and now I'm off to work on the crit.

Oh and as for Bwd_Yeti's tutorial there's actually a version of his second one on imgur. (I know because I insta-bookmarked that shit >o>) Here it is if anyone wants it : http://imgur.com/1B5JYRx (best not embed this one ^^

Edited by Kyne
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UPDATE! Finished the Magic sword, Crit and Dodge (though I'm planning on re-doing dodge). Main post has been updated accordingly.

Oh and Like, I'm not too sure yet. I've been concepting some stuff on paper but I want to keep the same type of clothes. I was thinking a full gambeson rather than just covering the chest but for now nothing's concrete. Suggestions are appreciated!

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UPDATE FOLKS: I've begun to make a standing sprite for it. For now it's just Hector lord's legs with Hector Great lord tassets added on top along with merc's head but everything else will be drawn by hand and I'm going to alter the color scheme on these (Hector's boots won't be a different color from the armor for example) How is it? :0

F66cCOG.png

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New Update! After countless hours of me realizing spriting is freaking hard and it's gonna take me many moons to learn how to do so decently, I decided to try my hand at splicing in order to begin learning (tips by Yeti). After a good hour of mixing and matching I arrived at this:

Ng430MR.png

It's not perfect but it's a start. In fact I like this so much better that I'm probably gonna be moving forward with this. (palette will change btw, it's only black so that I could "uniform" the different armors)

I used bits of the Hero as well as both Hectors. Head is still Merc.

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Should remove the white from the face.

It ain't a critical issue, but I agree. Makes it hell of a lot easier to recolor if you don't.

Also idk maybe it's just me, since FE sprites never show it, but he seems kinda like he has no neck.

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  • 2 weeks later...

UPDATE AGAIN! It's been a while.

Finished up the (unarmed) sprite and went ahead and recolored it into Eliwood, Hector, Dieck, Raven, Echidna and Harken. Just to see how it would look like.

Q5iZIva.png

Top version is supposed to be a segmented breastplate and the bottom half of it is gonna need some editing in the shading. Also probably gonna outline the whole front shoulder in black like I did on the bottom ones.

Bottom versions are my two attempts at solid breastplates instead. The second one raises the top of the breastplate a little bit to cover more of the neck (like it would in irl)

I'm thinking of taking care of the dodge "animation" first since it would literally be only two more sprites until I add the sword. I also just realized that for the block I had him block with his sword which is making me think that maybe I should either re-do the dodge entirely like I wanted to initially or spruce up the weapon "block" and make a separate dodge animation for when he's unarmed.

Making the female version of this is gonna kill me most likely.

EDIT: Got to work on that breastplate already and I have a few different results:

GfouKet.png

So from left to right: the normal hero breastplate; extended upwards a pixel (to cover more of the neck); extended the top half downwards a pixel (to make the top half cover the whole rib-cage as it should) and the fourth one is both extensions which I seem to be favoring atm. Thoughts?

Edited by Kyne
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  • 2 weeks later...

Updoot! Got back to work on the male sprite because the trim looked cool after attempting it on the newly made breastplates and came to the conclusion that number two looked best.

I also "finished" the female sprite.

frR1EEL.png

Big version:

g6SHnqs.png

The girls have three different haircuts that I'm still picking from but I might add a ponytail or braid if I'm not too lazy.

I'm still designing the sword but FE makes it weird. Making it the size of the original Merc sword makes it look gigantic (which, admittedly, it is) and making it smaller so it doesn't look as ridiculously large makes it look super puny in comparison. DAMN YOU FIRE EMBLEM ARTSTYLE. I'll keep trying and I'll come back to you folks on this.

EDIT: Lol Echidna doesn't have the solobun. Oh well, you get the idea. I'll fix it on the next update.

Edited by Kyne
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  • 1 month later...

UPDATE! Standing Sprites finished from both genders! Still can't decide on the haircut for the women though. I guess I could just animate all four (really just animate one and edit in the heads on the others) so people could have different sprites for different lady mercs. I was also thinking of straight up making it a different class all together since we now actually have a neat armored Mercenary animation :/

Sorry for the delay btw, my laptop battery fried and I have to get a new one.

Small Version:

wBX1Lko.png

Big Version:

L6DelDi.png

Edited by Kyne
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Thanks! They were somewhat inspired on it. Armored, big two-hander and tall. If I make a promotion for this I'd like to make it as tall as the berserker or warrior, similar in size to the Zweihander.

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It seems you've shaded the characters based on a variety of light sources and a mix of...

1. What is closest to each light source
2. What is closest to the screen

It looks great, especially since you've shaded with 4 colors in some parts (dem legz).

The only thing I'd do is, to keep it consistent, make the outline of the character's face blackish just like the rest of the character. But this is just a nitpick and doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things.

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UPDATE!

I know I said I'd have all the rigs done by the 17th but honestly, I've been distracted with this, hearthstone and my fe7 randomized run and well as finally getting around to playing fe6.

[img=http://i.imgur.com/P8eUG15.gif]

 

The attack animation is already planned out and this shrug is likely to be part of the crit (which will probably have a neat, mid-air pirouette, a la brigand) so not having the rigs isn't delaying me too much. This was animated at 20 fps but all that really means is that for 60 I'd really just have to triple frame it. No biggie. 

In A, I simply stretched the chest upwards like in Hector's animation but that looked weird to me so I made B, in which the abdomen stretches instead which I think looks a heck of a lot more natural.

PS: The forum doesn't actually seem to be letting me embed images because it says there's an error with the image host (in my case imgur) no matter what host I use (and by that I mean I tried two) so for now just click the link I guess.

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