next »

[Ramirob]

I have a running animation composed by 10 frames, as seen in this gif.
http://imgur.com/gJAG3e7
Which is based off of this concept sprite I made earlier.

http://imgur.com/fi250jq

I was wondering if anyone knew a method (possibly a photoshop trick or anything really) that could make the process of detailing every frame of my animation easier; especially since this is one out of 20 or more animations I intend to do.

Btw, I'm not sure if this topic belongs to this forum since I'm new here.

P.D: Fucked up the formatting, I'll just leave the links there.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

I have a running animation composed by 10 frames, as seen in this gif.

Which is based off of this concept sprite I made earlier.

Ftfy

you should pretty much look for any software with onion skinning

[Ramirob]

Does onion skinning refers to having layers with less alpha behind your main layer to get an idea of how your image looked in the last frame? If that's the case, I did just that to create the basic animation (that gif) and now I'm looking to add more detail on every frame, especifically smoothing out the edges and making them blend better with backgrounds (anti-aliasing). I can do the work manually but maybe it is possible to do a little trick in photoshop to give the impression of anti-aliasing, thus saving me a lot of trouble.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

i don't there's any magical trick to do that honestly (but some people probably have some tips suited to their art style).

this might probably help you:

https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=50340.0

[Ramirob]

i don't there's any magical trick to do that honestly (but some people probably have some tips suited to their art style).

this might probably help you:

https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=50340.0

That actually might come in handy later, thank you. I'll try to think of something my self or do it manually.

[absolute8]

Here ya go: http://pixeljoint.com/pixels/tutorials.asp

Start pixel-ing...pixelin'..pushin' pixels...make pictures from colorful squares of light!

[Richard Kain]

It's also a good idea to do the concept portion of your drawing first. Draw the line-drawing "skeleton" for your character, and animate that first. Drawing each frame of animation when your character is a stick figure is way faster, and will make it much easier to get an idea of the motion you want to create. Once you feel like you're in a good place with the way that the stick figure is moving, add an outline to represent its shape, and animate that in accordance with the way the stick man is moving. Just a rough sketch of the character's outline. Once you've got the animation for that looking good, you can move forward to overlaying this animation with the details for the final character.

Animation is incredibly time consuming. You can do yourself a favor by changing your workflow as I've described, which will prevent you from re-doing your animation from the ground up multiple times. This will save on time in the long run.

[absolute8]

It's also a good idea to do the concept portion of your drawing first. Draw the line-drawing "skeleton" for your character, and animate that first. Drawing each frame of animation when your character is a stick figure is way faster, and will make it much easier to get an idea of the motion you want to create. Once you feel like you're in a good place with the way that the stick figure is moving, add an outline to represent its shape, and animate that in accordance with the way the stick man is moving. Just a rough sketch of the character's outline. Once you've got the animation for that looking good, you can move forward to overlaying this animation with the details for the final character.

Animation is incredibly time consuming. You can do yourself a favor by changing your workflow as I've described, which will prevent you from re-doing your animation from the ground up multiple times. This will save on time in the long run.

Personally I prefer to animate chunks of pixels instead of lines. Lines are really high maintenance in pixel art so I consider them part of the end process.

Animate chunks of pixels then come back later and render your image.

[maruki]

Personally I prefer to animate chunks of pixels instead of lines. Lines are really high maintenance in pixel art so I consider them part of the end process.

Animate chunks of pixels then come back later and render your image.

Me too.
Also, try to usually use the pose-to-pose workflow: you first make the character in the most important positions of that loop, then you draw the extreme transitions to those states, then you draw the in-betweens. It's a time saver.

[Richard Kain]

Personally I prefer to animate chunks of pixels instead of lines. Lines are really high maintenance in pixel art so I consider them part of the end process.

I actually wasn't referring to doing low-pixel line work. The resolution that the original author is working at would allow them to do decently high-resolution sketches initially, and then scale it down for the final pixel rendering. I was also specifically suggesting stick-man drawings to flesh out the initial skeleton of the character, not the line-based pixel outlines. A stick-man skeleton for a characters animation will give you an idea of how you want it to move in the animation before you start drawing the structure over it.

Essentially, given the digital tools at your disposal, there's no reason not to use a workflow closer to how a traditional animator might go about it, and then simply scaling your work down to the necessary pixel resolution once the animation is already at a point you are happy with. Actually working at low-resolution is only useful if your game is going to be EXTREMELY low-res and pixel-based by its very nature. We're talking 16x16 or 32x32 pixel hard limits for individual sprites. If you're working at anything above that, you might as well refine your workflow to allow for a more natural drawing and animating experience.