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[s-spooky g-g-ghosts]

I'm sorry, I can't tell the difference. It's so small

[Zanhuf]

I'm sorry, I can't tell the difference. It's so small

Hopefully this is a more noticeable difference:



Sorry if the edit is worse than the previous one.

[s-spooky g-g-ghosts]

I'm sorry, I can't tell the difference. It's so small

Hopefully this is a more noticeable difference:



Sorry if the edit is worse than the previous one.

I think it's actually better that his helmet faces the direction of his chest, because theoretically that's his front. Like, sure, the spear appears to be going right, but subconsciously we feel the entire direction of this character's movement is at a slight angle like his chest. Also I see you changed the shield, which makes sense. Like when you take a huge swing, you let your other arm loose or at least you don't bend it. Now you could add a subtle shadow to the shield (if it's not supposed to be flat, that is). Cool, cool.

[Zanhuf]

Ive decided to start re-working the walking animation for the animation i posted previous (currently doing it on a different base for clarity's sake).



I know the body should be more animated as well, but at this point i am focusing solely on the legs.

It's currently 14 frames, although it could obviously be limited to 8.

Here's a swordsman with the updated walk animation:



Had to extend the number of frames so he could fully rotate his legs without running into the leg-flipping problem. I'm hoping the animation doesn't suffer for it. Also increased speed of certain frames (most noticeably when he's raising his sword)but if it takes away from it, i'll put them back to their original speed.

Also im aware the hop looks weird/impossible. Im not sure what to do with it atm.

I was also thinking of maybe delaying the actual attack until he's further across the screen.

Like so:



I am worried it might lose it's momentum and look slow now however.

Edit:

Now with stationary version because he seems to be moving too much and the big hop backwards is sort of awkward:



Also has an extra blur-trail on the frame just before the attack.

Apologies if it seems like im messing around, just trying to get a general feel for animation.

[Zanhuf]

Small update on the sword guy:



I was thinking of using this as the basis of other melee attacks, would that be reasonable? Obviously there would be some changes depending on the size of the character and the weapon used.

Also tried modifying the spear-guy with what i have learnt so far.



Hopefully the leg movement is consistent now.

[Zanhuf]

Practicing rotating and moving arms (as well as other limbs) on a few bases:



Also tried my hand at foreshortening.

Doing this because i feel that i struggle with this.

Any tips on foreshortening and how to deal with ensuring the limbs are consistently the same size during moving would be helpful.

[Zanhuf]

Tried practicing again, but this time with a two-handed weapon wielder.

Probably not much of an improvement, but it's an attempt at improving some of the stances and how the weapon is held at least. Also moved the elbows down, since they were too high.



Fiddled around with animating them and got this:



At this point it's me mainly practicing until i get better at this, unfortunately.

[Zanhuf]

Some more practicing and changing of the previous one-handed and two-handed attack animations:





Just a further re-working of it



Sorry for all of the practices recently.

[Zanhuf]

So i have done this:



Not too happy with it at the moment, i feel some of the clothes (Upper Right and Lower Left) shift a bit too much when they move or are too unrealistic. I am also concerned with the readability of the hands and arms for some of them.

Further update, dealing with the moon-walking/sliding problem:

[Zanhuf]

So i continued to work on the two-handed attacking animation and this is the result:



I'm currently facing a few problems with it, i have been told that:

"I never really rotate the hips or the shoulders."

"The chest looks like its facing towards the camera rather than 3/4's view."

I've tried to address both in the edit above, but im not sure how to rotate the hips or shoulders. I tried my hand at it but im pretty sure i got it wrong.

[Zanhuf]

Another update (two edits actually!)


First edit:

Tried editing it further to make it smoother, remove any inconsistancies etc and ensure he actually bends his knee after his foot hits the ground, during the final bit of his swing:



Hopefully the leg movement looks less jerky this time!

Second edit:

Added idle frames after swing and added another wind-up frame to the pre-swing. Hopefully it doesn't look too bad or physically impossible. Will keep the previous one up as well:



Does it feel any more fluid? I'll need to increase the blur trail as well.

[Zanhuf]

So here's some more animation edits:

Spear:



2-Handed weapon:



1-Handed weapon:



Non-Animation stuff:

A bit burnt out from animating (I was finding it more of a chore than something i actually enjoyed) so decided to give animating a rest for now whilst i go back to my bigger bases that i left behind sometime ago and see if i can improve on them with what i've learnt, here's an update:



I guess what i am struggling with the most on this is the arms and how to make them look like actual arms. I tried avoiding the straight arm look but it ends up looking wonky like in the edit.

[Zanhuf]

Here's a further edit of the bigger base, also included two different poses that i felt were appropiate:

[Zanhuf]

So tried animating again:



Changed spear, one-handed and two-handed weapon attack animations.

Added a bow attack animation, a shield defend animation (Still very WIP), Preparation for casting a spell animation and an attempt at a horse running/moving animation (Again, still very WIP).

[clockwrk_routine]

here's some reference for a horse run

[Zanhuf]

here's some reference for a horse run

Thanks so much for the link! Here's a quick edit/update on the horse:



Still wrong but hopefully it's a step in the right direction

[clockwrk_routine]

it's better for sure, it doesn't have that awkward trot issue of the previous version.  but what you really need to do is add some upper body movement, have the tail fly in the wind, lift the chest and head when the front legs are off the ground, do the same for the rear when the back legs are off the ground.

your animations have gotten a lot better!

[Zanhuf]

it's better for sure, it doesn't have that awkward trot issue of the previous version.  but what you really need to do is add some upper body movement, have the tail fly in the wind, lift the chest and head when the front legs are off the ground, do the same for the rear when the back legs are off the ground.

your animations have gotten a lot better!

Thanks!

Tried taking your advice:



Is this any better?

Note: It's only four frames at the moment.

Another edit:



Another Edit: Tried to make back legs look less samey so they don't look like they're going at the exact same time, reduced bouncing of the horses back and tried to contract and expand the horse during certain frames:



Yet another edit:



Added another frame, tried to reduce the bounce further and lowered the horses head consistantly. Hopefully it looks smoother?

[Zanhuf]

So changed:

Head
Movement of body and head
Doubled Frames

[clockwrk_routine]

here's an edit
i lowered one of the frames a few pixels to smooth out the loop
and made the head move less pixels because it was a bit goofy

another thing I would do, is have the tail more horizontal throughout the frames, rather than lift up like that.
he is constantly moving after all.  generally people loop scarfs, hair, tails in the motion of a sine wave.