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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperArt (Moderator: JWK5)Hits packing a punch / good blow visual feedback
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Joh
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« on: March 13, 2014, 02:51:40 PM »

I don't know if I am just a bad critique of myself, But hit feeling right and strong is just something I cant seem to do.

I have seen that screenshake help, opponent flash helps, slight pushback and a blow sprite (or particles) seem to do a good job.

In my personal case I just cant seem to get blow sprites right.

here are a couple examples, maybe you can check whats wrong.
2 notes the sandbag is supposed to be pushed back & id like to change the flash to white, seems better.



At first I just made slashes that appeared and fade away. With this I made one that animates, Honnestly I think its alright... problem is its a fire sword, id like to convey it in the blow. Mixing it with the others doesnt look good.


Kinda inspired by a recent gif, I tried to do a more "explosive" blow. I think its too red, or something; just feels off.

are particles explosions better? quick sprite, animated sprite? should they fade out (alpha) or suddenly dissapear?

So, does anyone have any tips on how to do good blows, from animation tricks to anything surrounding it?
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Darion
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« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2014, 08:59:19 AM »

I like the contrast and speed of the slash which I think gives more of an impact – it also emphasizes the response from the character.  I get the impression it's fire from his animation, so I actually think its fine.

I'm not crazy about how that fire in the bottom animation fans out, but I think if you want more emphasis on the fire in general, i'd pull the speed (and quickly decelerate the speed as the fire diminishes) and contrast from the slash and apply it to the fire. Maybe have a white slash that only appears milliseconds before the fire.
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@darionmccoy
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« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2014, 09:05:17 AM »

Catguy made a great guide here
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Wilson Saunders
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« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2014, 09:46:52 AM »

That white punching bag looks like a place holder, but you may want to give it a hit state sprite. Like the girl on the left.
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« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2014, 01:20:44 PM »

I feel you've got enough effects, but both characters still look very stiff. At this point I'd focus on having them throw their weight around with a little more movement.
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Muffinhat
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« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2014, 02:24:25 PM »

Why not have a 1 or 2 frame animation where the sack sort of bends in response to the blow (much like a pillow when it's punched). As of now, the sack just looks sort of stiff, and doesn't quite sell the idea.

Love the fire though!
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Lee
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« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2014, 03:30:24 PM »

I don't feel like this was adequately explained. There are a few things involved in creating high impact animations: anticipation, swift impact delivery, "heavy" impact, and the recovery/overshoot before returning to normal state

Basically there needs to be some build up, the longer the build up to the action the more powerful it is perceived. This is in things like bringing the arm over the head to a position behind the body whilst slowly leaning back to throw an object, or lifting a hammer above the head.

Then the motion from the anticipation state to the impact state needs to be quick, only a few frames at most.

Then the impact needs to look like a heavy hit, fancy effects which have been discussed add to this, animation/deformation (squash and stretch) of the thing being hit and making it physical by imparting a force on the hit object. There's also a weird technique which shouldn't work but does... If you have the "hit" frames/effects for a few frames before imparting an insane hit force (ridiculous speed across the map) it makes it feel like an even heavier hit, I'm not an anime fan but I believe it was popularized in animes and is even used in super smash brothers, it's usually followed by the object going off screen into a glinting star or something.

Lastly for a real heavy hit there needs to be a "recovery" after the action; the (doing) character also needs to look like it was a powerful hit after the action. It's kind of difficult to express in words but easy in an example: say you smash a sledgehammer into the ground, if it's a heavy sledgehammer or it's smashed the ground and maybe got stuck then you really need to put the effort into pulling it back out, or after throwing something the character might stumble forward.

These principles actually apply to all animation
So I made this:

to break it down there is a long anticipation before the attack, he lifts the hammer up and then holds that position for a few frames, then there are two frames of transition although the first is barely noticeable moving the hammer very slightly from it's rest position the next is the full swing AND impact in only one frame: http://i.cubeupload.com/B1kCQT.png then there's your hit effects and such, then the "recovery", basically the effort all the way through should be noticeable and what I'm referring to as the recovery is no exception, the moments of rest (before the impact swing and after the impact) are also very important.

It all boils down to giving the character a sense of weight and momentum, a "strong" hit is just a heavy object with a lot of force, and you want to focus on making it look heavy.

As terri said, the effects you have are fine, you need to work on the animations.

EDIT: For a game though especially fighting games you kind of have to realize though that snappy controls are essential, one thing fighting games do to work around this is having a kind of "pause" moment on the impact, like in the screen shot above. This is kind of like what I was saying about the wait before applying the impact force in some animes. So yeah, you basically have to understand that in a game there are some trade-offs between graphics and control. You can sacrifice some control for a more powerful looking hit or sacrifice the more powerful hit animation for tighter controls, but there is a happy medium most games achieve.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2014, 03:40:31 PM by Lee » Logged
Glyph
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« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2014, 03:51:18 PM »

I think the main way to make it look like it has more punch is for the attacks to horizontally affect the sandbag. On the third image you posted, the player is moving forward with his hits, but the sandbag is staying in the same place. At the very least, have it move up with him. But what I would do is a sort of 'spike' system. It's hard to describe but maybe since you have the sandbag you're familiar with it from Smash Bros. Basically, when hitting an enemy they will remain in their place (maybe shake around a little for added effect), which will allow the player to hit the enemy multiple times without them flying away. Then, once the player stops attacking or uses a finisher, the enemy will fly away with the appropriate horizontal/vertical speed.

Also, yes, a hit frame for enemies goes a long way. Two hit frames is even better (reeling one way, then the opposite, for example).
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Joh
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« Reply #8 on: April 09, 2014, 02:36:12 PM »

Thanks for all the answers

Kinda dissapointing its not super obvious, but I took hints from pretty much everyone!
I changed the player animation a bit, its not very visible since its small, quick and simple, but I gave him a bit more swaying.
I also added a simple hit animation, horizontal push and even a knock-out-of-here Tongue

I quite enjoyed the lenghty Lee feedback,cant say I have really applied it in this attack, since its so quick and ''twitchy'' However Its quite useful for the Impactful attacks, Im quite proud of the one I did (too bad its not here), also looking foward to make more of those.

Well, I wasnt really satisfied of the effects, not their amount, but their looks, Im not sure if they look better now, but I tried following that catguy guide.
Also found this over there quite small, but a lot of cool effects: Feel Good

wasnt too sure about it, and after seeing some other games using it, I tried to go back to particles, they are simpler to use/make and can look good too.

Does it look better now?
I read about slowdowns,''freezes'' during very powerful hits.. Thats not very visual, but how does one go about it? Is droping the fps speed working alright?
Also can (alpha) blending be used with pixel art? it weird cause depending on the colors sometimes it looks great others it looks awful sometimes its not even visible. The japanese looking game in the feel good page uses it plentyful and I think it looks good... Is it a dont try this at home kind of thing?
 

Thanks to everyone, and ill also take any further criticism, suggestions and ideas.
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Glyph
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« Reply #9 on: April 09, 2014, 04:58:19 PM »

It's looking better, but there are a few factors that are still detracting from the overall 'feel'. I'll try to list some of them.

The horizontal motion is definitely a good addition -- but I'd take it further. In the top-left image, the object's horizontal speed quickly decreases to 0, even though it's not in contact with the ground. Unless absolutely necessary, I'd make the object's horizontal speed only decrease when on the ground. This way, it has some nice projectile motion, which feels 'realer'.

The speed given to the object on-hit is a little off. If the arrow is flying only horizontally, it would make sense for the thing it hits to move mostly in the horizontal direction. It can still have some vertical lift, but I would definitely make it lesser.

The flame particles from the arrow seem to be going exactly backwards -- if this fire arrow hits something, it's going to pierce.

The three-hit combo definitely looks better. If possible, I would reduce the time between hits so it seems more fluid -- but that's just a personal thing.

The white hit effect in the three hit combo should be rotated in the direction of the swing, so it seems more like you're swinging through it.

As for the slowdowns -- only on really really really strong attacks would I actually slow down or freeze the game. Like, getting hit by a boss' 30-second-charged death laser. Normally, the 'spike' or freeze should only apply to the attacker and the thing getting hit. The rest of the world can go on its merry way, but for a moment the two freeze from the perceived impact of the hit (there's no physical force to describe this, it's just a visual thing).


...Anyway, these are just some things I noticed. These are things I would change, but everyone's preference for this sort of thing is different. Mess with it until you feel like it's right.
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escher
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« Reply #10 on: April 09, 2014, 06:40:47 PM »

The flame particles from the arrow seem to be going exactly backwards -- if this fire arrow hits something, it's going to pierce.

I think in this case it only looks like it's going backwards. If I'm seeing it correctly, the effect happens exactly at the point of impact and doesn't move while the enemy flies away. It would probably make sense to have the effect follow the enemy for a a bit to prevent the weird separation between the enemy and the effect.
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Jad
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« Reply #11 on: April 10, 2014, 02:27:38 AM »

I'd modify escher's advice to: "make the bag spawn some fire particles too as it flies", and not move the effect itself with the motion - that's gonna look weird. You'll want the center of the fire exploding to be exactly at the point of impact.

edit: I actually misread escher's advice, and it seems that we're completely in agreement
« Last Edit: April 10, 2014, 03:12:46 AM by Jad » Logged
Jad
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« Reply #12 on: April 10, 2014, 02:54:58 AM »



I made a very sloppy sketchy animated mockup that you can look at in a gif editor frame by frame if you wanna

points: all out every effect that I could think of and implement in 10 minutes

- particles linger longer
- particles move at different speed
- smoke trail lingers
- more body to the flame explosion in 2-3 frames
- the famous metal slug black->white ball
- delayed black->white screen flash
- added a little pose thing for wizard when he fires. more pose. more changing silhouette
- more screen shake, much more.

this might be a bit over the top, and that's ok. if you add several layers of impact-making things, it's easy to scale them down. If you perfect something understated and then wanna add more, it can be hard to know what to actually do.
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Joh
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« Reply #13 on: April 15, 2014, 06:30:14 PM »

I dont know if you really meant that sloppy sketchy but it looks amazing to me.
I might have been heavily influenced by what you did, hopefully you dont mind.
it looked good to me and used less colors, and felt less ''perfect'' while still conveying the intention. (me being no artist, simpler means better)
I didnt take all the elements but of course took note of them. the fireball is actually a puny (spammable) attack so wouldnt want it to be over the top!

does it look alright?


If the smoke looks ''generic'', it's that fire isnt the only element, and (almost)any hit can blow you away. Also looking into better casting animation/pose and cast flash, I like yours but it seems too powerful for this little ball.

as for glyph and escher, I did make a mistake, I tested the blow (projectile) on wall, so it reflecting made sense, but I talked with a friend and indeed, its should have went the same way as the sword hit. the knockback also doesnt help much, but I added trails now.
As for the three hit combo, I purposefully took my time between hits to make the full hit have time to happen, i think its faster in the newest one. (also lowered in air friction, it was actually higher then on land, my mistake)

So thanks some more, is this still improving?
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SolarLune
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« Reply #14 on: April 15, 2014, 11:37:24 PM »

Hey. Yeah, I think that's a lot better, myself. It looks crunchy and visually appealing.
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« Reply #15 on: April 18, 2014, 06:07:11 AM »

I've always looked at it as the best effects attempt to trick your brain into seeing all the signs of a single force travelling through the whole event. An example of this might be Metal Gear Rising:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/metal-gear-rising-revengeance.jpg

You can track a smooth curve of motion right through the swing, from the bottom force feeding in to the explosion out the top of sparks. So how do you in general achieve this?

Imo:

a) Particles moving at an appropriate direction and speed. For impacts, this can sometimes be the exact OPPOSITE of the motion - e.g. a bullet impact where you see a great spray of smoke and debris away from the surface. If the bullet penetrates, or you want to indicate that it did, particles behind as well for an exit spray..!

b) Hit stop has already been mentioned. This is normally best reserved for the most crunchy and powerful of attacks though.

c) Screenshake, as before.

d) Sometimes using distortion effects/shaders can be very powerful - having the appearance of a shockwave/ripple can give a great feeling of impact and force.

e) Giving visual indicators that connect the initiation of the action to the end of it - so that you can follow the whole movement all the way through. An example of this might be animating your character so that the line of motion through the attack includes his whole body. Another example of this might be if you are firing a gun to have the muzzle flash end with a longer sharper piece of flash pointing towards the target, and give the impact spray a peak pointing towards the gun. It gives the impression of unity of force.

f) If you have smoke, make it behave like smoke! Brains are actually quite good at knowing how these types of things will swirl, and will reward you for getting it right. An obvious example would be the hong kong massacre trailer - the smoke effects on the weapon discharges are very pleasing (I suspect done in some 3d softwares dynamics sim though).



g) Avoid symmetry if you are trying to indicate directionality in motion. AT ALL COSTS!
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