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[gimymblert]

We need something more advence than the spore creature editor but as easy to use... then indie would have a great tools to animate quickly relevant animation  

Short answer, good animation is very expensive, but most indie does not rely on "bad animation" their animation are more "symbolic" and is an art in itself.

Problem arise with uncanny valley ("realistic" graphic with game style animation like aladdin snes). SMB have awesome animation, sonic does, megaman is unmatch. But earthworm jim feel out of place: repetitive running cycle with no variation, no spatial awareness, etc... Wind waker is great with the procedural gazing and expression, but still a little off. However i have play spiderman web of shadow on wii and the animation (main character) is umbelievable  , lots of spatial awareness (yep with a mask, facial animation is more believable), if only all the characters in the game was like that (not going to happen)!

EDIT: I could also argue and demonstrate how the 8/16 bits rpg had more awesome animation ans mise en scène than a game like FF13, simply by using the basic principal of animation (expressivity). BUT YA KNOW! you ALL are talking about good visceral animation, not "intellectual" animation (convey things effectively). 

[raleigh]

Yeah- CS4 would work great from frame by frame animation, but it makes you create a new layer for every frame, and then manage turning the opacity on and off or whatever.

Actually you can create animation layers in CS4. It also has onion skinning and some other bits and pieces. It looks good compared to the old method of flipping layers on and off, but that's cause the old way only sucked so much more than what's available now.

TBH, a good bit of the hassle for me comes from exporting into a game format and maintaining changes across different files. That's not really a Photoshop problem.

[HöllenKobold]

I wouldn't place the animation in Aladdin or Earthworm Jim in uncanny valley at all. They're placing an emphasis on the cartoonish stretching of limbs.
If anything, Mega Man is far more grounded into realism than Earthworm Jim. As for the other two, I always thought the animation in SMB was a bit plain and uninspired, and that it wasn't until later Mario titles that the animation got spruced up, inheriting similar ideologies like in Earthworm Jim. As for Sonic, Sonic's cool.

But as for lacking tools, I don't really think you need tools to create animations like in Aladdin if you're doing it in pixel art. I mean layers help, but it's really wholly up to the skill of the animator. Well, I never really found myself hindered by animations but I'm strange and I just use GM's sprite editor. So I guess I just have a very low standard for tools.

[Xion]

Has anyone ever tried out Toon Boom?

I opened it once, and then closed it shortly after. I had no idea what I was looking at.

I would love a raster-based version of flash, though.

[gimymblert]

I wouldn't place the animation in Aladdin or Earthworm Jim in uncanny valley at all. They're placing an emphasis on the cartoonish stretching of limbs.
If anything, Mega Man is far more grounded into realism than Earthworm Jim. As for the other two, I always thought the animation in SMB was a bit plain and uninspired, and that it wasn't until later Mario titles that the animation got spruced up, inheriting similar ideologies like in Earthworm Jim. As for Sonic, Sonic's cool.

Regardings subtleties:



By uncanny valley, i'm not talking about realism but expressivity. The more expressive the character (ie less symbolic and abstract) the more likely usual limitation will be seen. Animation like earthworm jim or genesis aladdin always bug me out because they had the same slippery and repetitiveness that usual game animation, their walking animation is not grounded, and feel generic because of the shifting context, they look like they will react but never does. It does not happen with sprite like megaman because the style never clash with the function.

BTW mario and megaman are awesome because they strike the perfect balance between limitation, form and function. They have just the right amount of expressivity and it's not that easy to acheive (especially in a time were there was no reference). The one frame jump "animation" is no small feat, because it must look right despite having only one frame: it must look right as the sprite ascend and descend, and its must convey the right feedback about collision. I did tried to do thing like that, it's craft, and it takes skills, time and energy to achieve.   No wonder they are timeless  

Most modern game could be both, but most fail were megaman and mario suceed, having good form. Gears of war bleed my eyes everytimes but god of war does pass the grade! No not unchartred, not the even the second   lara croft 1 does better  

[astrospoon]

Actually you can create animation layers in CS4.

Really now? I'm going to look into this asap. Doh! I knew about Onion skinning, but only because I have PS CS4 Extended, which uses an After Effects like animation strip, but I still was making a layer per frame.



Also, someone, somewhere, made a Photoshop script or something that converts PSD animations into sprite sheets. Someone on this forum even....

[jpgray]

I have to agree with neoshaman here.  Good, expressive, drawn-out traditional animations are great, but in many games they would be woefully out of place and a poor substitute for good mechanics in terms of return on invested effort.  To yoke them by violence to standard platformer mechanics, for example, risks dissonance between what is done and how it is presented, and may lead to an absurd result. 

For example, turning around and jumping is done almost instantly in the best action platformers, yet traditional animation of these actions is anything but instant.  The actions which can afford to be drawn out (walks, runs, deaths, etc.), might be presented traditionally, with proper weight, spacing and timing, but the windup to these that is crucial to their illusion of life must be absent or the controls will be slow and unresponsive.  Jerking unnaturally into smooth, natural animation can work fine (EWJ), but then so can jerking unnatural animation (Mega Man), since it fits with the already jerking and unnatural controls.  The latter also takes a lot less work.

The most valuable lesson from traditional animation for game art really comes from the layout department, in my view.  An appealing style built to best fit what happens in the work will serve a game better than a 12-frame animation for turning around, and is certainly a better place to focus your energy, if it is limited. 

If you have the time and energy, brilliant animation can only help, of course, so long as it is subordinated to clean control of the characters and doesn't obstruct the action.

[Μarkham]

You can create an animation in Flash, and then have it export all frames to png files.  You can then use SpriteStripComposer to turn them into a single sprite sheet.

Also, Adam Phillips has a series of videos on

[tametick]

As for the lack of skill though- Don't you guys think that some young animators would love to contribute to indie games though? It seems like more of a problem in the gap between the communities than anything else...

People generally don't want to work on other people's games.

[ChevyRay]

Is there a purpose to stating such a thing?

No, but they love to work on their own games. When you're the one building beautiful animations which bring out your game's world and make it lively and interactive, it's your world. Your game. Just as much as the fellow who codes it or writes the music.

And people love to do that. That's why I've worked with animators who have worked on "my" games, and that's also why I've done graphics/animation for other peoples' games.

I don't know why you'd want to say such a discouraging thing, but when the team is right, it's not true anyways, so it doesn't matter.

[Nystre]

Yeah, I'm really not sure where that came from. In my experience, working in teams can honestly be even more rewarding than simply doing the game all yourself. Everyone has a blast doing their part, usually.

[Chris Whitman]

I think a big issue is with art folks who are not used to doing games.

People often underestimate how much work is actually required and on what schedule to get something completed. I've seen a lot of artists give up halfway through, and being left with a bunch of half-finished assets in a style you can't duplicate is no fun for nobody.

That happened to a friend of mine twice in the same project. He's almost ready to release finally after five years of work.

[astrospoon]

Yeah-

Working in a team is super rewarding, but it does come with much higher risk of collapse as well. But honestly, if everyone on the team is tops at their one part, you'll get a much better result than if one person tries to cover everything, and has to "fudge" certain aspects.

Besides, I guess I'm advocating two things. 1) Work with a traditional animator to get better results or 2) If you are going to do the art yourself, you should reference the really good stuff instead of the generally mediocre animation in most games.

did a little study of the Aladdin run, trying to get a better feel for it. Using my stock "space bear" guy:

[Shambrook]

One of the sprites (looks like the only one I still have) for a game I was working on back in 2008. Was trying for this kind of thing but ended up giving up cause I couldn't find a programmer or get my head around any game maker.

[astrospoon]

The more expressive the character (ie less symbolic and abstract) the more likely usual limitation will be seen. Animation like earthworm jim or genesis aladdin always bug me out because they had the same slippery and repetitiveness that usual game animation, their walking animation is not grounded, and feel generic because of the shifting context, they look like they will react but never does. It does not happen with sprite like megaman because the style never clash with the function.

BTW mario and megaman are awesome because they strike the perfect balance between limitation, form and function. They have just the right amount of expressivity and it's not that easy to acheive (especially in a time were there was no reference). The one frame jump "animation" is no small feat, because it must look right despite having only one frame: it must look right as the sprite ascend and descend, and its must convey the right feedback about collision. I did tried to do thing like that, it's craft, and it takes skills, time and energy to achieve.   No wonder they are timeless  

Neo, after talking about this with someone, and rereading your post this morning, I do think you have a really good point. Although, I am not bugged out by animation like EWJ's or Aladdin, (I obviously really like it!) I do agree that, especially with low resolution pixel art, there is a careful blend of, as you put it: limitation, form and function. There is an art to making really good, yet simple, animations. And you can convey plenty about a character in this way. I actually remember hearing or reading that the Disney guys who worked on Genesis Aladdin were really bugged out that you could change the direction of your jump midway through. It took them a few tries to find a workable solution that didn't look silly in the game. I think it is interesting to see how they tackled this problem, but it doesn't make the Mega Man solution any less valid.

I do think that even traditional pixel art can benefit a bunch from the same squash and stretch principles though. Fez has terrific animation, and Gomez would look right at home next to a Mega Man sprite. Check out at ~0:30 when he picks up the bomb! Crazy cool looking:





Gomez has a nice kind of squishy-ness to him. I also really enjoy the way the fez itself pops off his head at various times. And of course, Paul Robertson's work is extremely lively and uses many traditional animation techniques, but still looks very much like game pixel art.

I didn't mean to start this thread to bash any kind of game art, rather, to inspire people to really learn from some really great animation outside of the field of games. I know I get in the habit of just selecting an arm or whatever, and hitting Ctrl-R and rotating it, without thinking about how an arm actually swings in 3D space. Here is a walk animation I did recently:



The animation might look kind of nice in stills, but the arms are *really* stiff looking. They only rotate in one dimension, and it makes the sprite look very robotic. Check out the hands too - they never move, and end up looking strange because of it. (Not to mention they are probably not posed correctly to begin with.) The body itself is absurdly stiff too. The spine looks locked in place.

Contrast that with this, which is a polished up version of my Aladdin run study:



I think this give a much smoother, more natural result. I was especially surprised when I drew the arms, at how much they cross over the body! I'm not sure I would have ever pushed the fore-shortening of the arms like this before studying the Aladdin run. (The hair is jumping pretty badly though... yikes!)

And of course, doing an entire game like this would take huge amounts of time. I'm not going to lie, this was pretty labor intensive. I think on games with small teams it is more important to have functional art and you know, actually finish the game.

[Ravey]

Hmm, the two lines for where his feet are makes it look like he's running up and down to me.

[unsilentwill]

This is one dang inspiring thread. Guess I know what I'm doing today.

[astrospoon]

Hmm, the two lines for where his feet are makes it look like he's running up and down to me.

Yeah... it looks bad. I was trying to spread them out so he didn't look as flat, but the lines would still need to be much closer together. Still learning!

[ChevyRay]

The jacket

Well done, astrospoon I definitely love the latter animation much more than the pasted/more stiff look of the first guy, your floating textures are seriously trippin me out though. This actually is inspiring me to study a bit more into traditional animation techniques. Even if I don't use them myself, I think it'll be really nice skills to have when appraising others' artwork and also when working with and directing artists, which I have to do on more than one project in the near future.

Cheers!

[Xion]

would the still jacket texture work in a game? I'd imagine that would maybe need to be done procedurally, or move backwards at the same speed the player moves forward in order for it to keep its rad stillness.