Support NeoGAF

[ken_matthews]

Ha! You called my bluff...I am not doing that, you win.

But more to the iterating through the creative process thought, there is something interesting about how your perspective changes as you progress through it. When I completed the previous version, I thought it looked fairly good (I was proud of it). But after finishing the new version, I can now clearly see the anatomy and proportion issues on the old one, and it looks awful by comparison. The head looks really bad, and the ab muscles look like stacked marshmallows. Even when referencing stock photos, this wasn't clear until I made progress with the next iteration. While I am fairly satisfied with the new version (not finished, still needs more detail work), I feel like this just reinforces the notion that if I were to make another version, it would be even better. Then the question becomes, when do I stop? Anybody else ever feel like that?

 

[Blizzard]

Ha! You called my bluff...I am not doing that, you win.

But more to the iterating through the creative process thought, there is something interesting about how your perspective changes as you progress through it. When I completed the previous version, I thought it looked fairly good (I was proud of it). But after finishing the new version, I can now clearly see the anatomy and proportion issues on the old one, and it looks awful by comparison. The head looks really bad, and the ab muscles look like stacked marshmallows. Even when referencing stock photos, this wasn't clear until I made progress with the next iteration. While I am fairly satisfied with the new version (not finished, still needs more detail work), I feel like this just reinforces the notion that if I were to make another version, it would be even better. Then the question becomes, when do I stop? Anybody else ever feel like that?

To quote the painter Bob Ross, from the recent Twitch marathon:

'I hear over and over that, "We're not satisfied with what we're doing!" And I tell 'em, "That's the greatest thing that could ever happen to you. Dissatisfaction -- I hope you're plagued with it. 'cause if you're not satisfied, then that's what drives you to go forth and do another one. And it'll be better." So I hope you, too, are plagued with dissatisfaction.'

That said, especially in game development, the challenge is knowing when it's good enough to stop. Otherwise years have gone by, you have no money, and there is no longer market space for you.

 

[missile]

^ Indeed, the money will tell him when to stop.

 

[missile]

To all the 2d artists in here; what are the topmost three painting tools you
are using to draw your graphics? Does any of those allow for user-defined
(third-party) plugins to have say for example a user-defined realtime filter
running while you draw?

 

[Blizzard]

To all the 2d artists in here; what are the topmost three painting tools you
are using to draw your graphics? Does any of those allow for user-defined
(third-party) plugins to have say for example a user-defined realtime filter
running while you draw?

I'm not much of an artist, but I think GIMP is a major open-source one that has a bunch of plugins. I don't remember even that having real-time filters, however.

 

[Popstar]

To all the 2d artists in here; what are the topmost three painting tools you
are using to draw your graphics? Does any of those allow for user-defined
(third-party) plugins to have say for example a user-defined realtime filter
running while you draw?

Some tools on OS X allow the use of Core Image / Quartz Composer filters on layers. Acorn for instance.

 

[Blizzard]

I'm probably late to the party, but I just ran across a really helpful article from http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/ and realized the entire book is freely available (and can be bought in other formats). It might be a good resource for the first page of this thread.

 

[V_Arnold]

Missile, try out GraphicsGale.

I'm probably late to the party, but I just ran across a really helpful article from http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/ and realized the entire book is freely available (and can be bought in other formats). It might be a good resource for the first page of this thread.

I spent the past 6-7 months just organizing, reworking and rewriting my codebase and my "library", and I still have a feeling that this will be tremendously helpful to me as well Thanks for sharing!

 

[GulAtiCa]

Getting so close to the top 100 on Steam Greenlight! Now at 87%. It's definitely in reach now! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=523083479

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

To all the 2d artists in here; what are the topmost three painting tools you
are using to draw your graphics? Does any of those allow for user-defined
(third-party) plugins to have say for example a user-defined realtime filter
running while you draw?

Like Blizzard said, GIMP is probably the best free option out there, and is open-source. It supports scripting but I've not had a reason to using it yet (scripting is Python-based btw). The default version doesn't have real-time filters but there may be mods that add that feature in.

Yes, GIMP is pretty mod-friendly. The version I use has integrated MyPaint brushes in there w/ the MyPaint engine, which is really good for digital illustrators who want a more traditional painting look or methodology for their creation process. There is also the GIMP Animation Package that has a lot of video support (it can extract frames from movie files for example), but has to be installed into a current version of GIMP on your machine. For that reason I have two versions installed on mine; the Onkel-Hatti build w/ MyPaint support, and the regular build w/ the GAP install.

Some other programs you might want to look into are Paint.NET, Inkscape, and MyPaint, but GIMP is probably your best bet to hopefully get something you're looking for (realtime filter, probably doable through a Python script). Just keep in mind that such a feature is going to require a decent amount of hardware power, which hopefully isn't an issue for your rig.

 

[Candescence]

Well, I have implemented basic orthographic camera rotation as a stopgap solution for the whole 'behind objects' thing.

The input movement now accounts for the camera rotation, thankfully. The other main problem is gonna be animation rotations, but the prototype is not really gonna use those, since I'm porting over anims from the sidescrolling project. I'm guessing I can get the required angle by simply subtracting the Y rotation of the sprite from the camera Y rotation and figuring out the animation angle from there.

 

[Lautaro]

Getting so close to the top 100 on Steam Greenlight! Now at 87%. It's definitely in reach now! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=523083479

Mmm... I think you should have asked here before boosting your votes with a bundle, man. I mean, sure, you get a lot more exposure and votes that way but Valve approves games based on the real interest in the game not in a specific amount of votes (they know when someone is using bundles or giveaways).

Not saying you won't get greenlit but a bundle so soon kills the value of your game IMHO.

Also being in the top 100 guarantees nothing, IIRC a guy recently was in the top 5 but he wasn't greenlit automatically because he got there by making a giveaway of thousands of keys.

 

[SenorArdilla]

I am trying to make a Mega Man clone using Gamemaker. The player can now move left/right, jump, air jump, wall jump, dash, air dash, and create a hitbox that can hurt enemies.

It took me three days to realize that adding in an alarm could prevent enemies and the player from getting shredded every time they touched a hitbox. It took me a week to realize that I could have just modified my movement code to accommodate a dash button. It took me two days to figure out that I could have just separated my (Max # of Jumps) variable into just a check to see if the player is (Grounded) and (Air Jumps) so the player doesn't magically have one more air jump if they run off the ledge. And then while trying to fix it so that (Wall Jumps) don't eat up (Air Jumps), I suddenly realized that I should just combine all of my jump code into one piece.

Making really slow progress but progress nonetheless. Though most of the progress seems to be going back and modifying old code.

 

[GulAtiCa]

I wish Steam had a better process for being approved as a Steam Developer. Right now just not friendly compared to the easy process of getting in/approved by Nintendo/Microsoft. (I'm sure Sony is better too, but I don't have any dealings with them or references for them and their process).

(Talking about a outside perspective to getting in)

 

[_machine]

I wish Steam had a better process for releasing games. Right now just not Indie friendly compared to the easy process of Nintendo/Microsoft. (I'm sure Sony is better too, but I don't have any dealings with them or references for them and their process).

What in particular do you feel is not too indie friendly (naturally if you're a developer, a lot of is under NDA, but is there something you can share)?

Apart from Greenlight being a mess, especially in terms of expectations and communciation, I have found that Steamworks to be a great environment and the whole development and release process on platform end was really smooth. We got all the QA, temporary testers, press handled easily, we managed to set up a smooth build automation process on an external server, and the the end-user Steamworks features have been really good.

EDIT: Ah, I see you edited it. Well, yeah Greenlight isn't really good at all, especially lately, but at least it's quite stable in handling the amount of developers coming in. Especially when you factor in the size of the Valve's support towards indie developers, I would argue that aside from acceptace criteria, the system is quite indie friendly still.

 

[Blizzard]

I wish Steam had a better process for releasing games. Right now just not Indie friendly compared to the easy process of getting approved by Nintendo/Microsoft. (I'm sure Sony is better too, but I don't have any dealings with them or references for them and their process).

(Talking about a outside perspective to getting in)

I was going to say until I read your last line, lotcheck processes on consoles alone should make Steam easier to release.

 

[GulAtiCa]

Yeah, I mean the process of getting into the system. That part. I should have made that more clear. Yeah I imagine lotcheck on consoles is much harder/annoying then the ease of Steam. lol

Thank God IARC is now in effect. No longer have to pay for PEGI/USK/AU ratings. That alone makes releasing outside of North America on the Wii U much easier. Now the PEGI/USK stuff I went through early this year, that was a pain! lol

 

[neko.works]

1st post about one of my upcoming games: Super Night Riders, a 3D arcade racing game inspired by 80's classics, mostly Hang-On from SEGA. My goal is to have a similar gameplay with modern visuals. The game is currently on Steam Greenlight.

Still though seems really promising, just on the premise alone. Not a lot of arcade-style racing games out there period, let alone any going along this path of inspiration. That oft-delayed one on Wii U is the sole other example that comes to mind.

Can you please name the game you're talking about? I have access to the Wii U dev showcase forums, so I will check it out!

I've been working on some alternatives for a few stages. Here's a few examples:

Any thoughts?

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

Can you please name the game you're talking about? I have access to the Wii U dev showcase forums, so I will check it out!

I've been working on some alternatives for a few stages. Here's a few examples:

Any thoughts?

It's called The 90's Arcade Racer iirc. I think it's been in development for a while now and some time ago had a breakthrough of some sort.

It's a lot closer to a cross between Daytona 2 and Outrun 2, though, visually, and plays more like the aforementioned with the exaggerated drift.

And good progress there w/ those shots, particularly the last two. It seems there's a bit more going on in the background but it doesn't go overboard. Lighting seems improved too. Really like the color gradient for the sky in the 3rd pic in general.

 

[Theanine3D]

I wish Steam had a better process for being approved as a Steam Developer. Right now just not friendly compared to the easy process of getting in/approved by Nintendo/Microsoft. (I'm sure Sony is better too, but I don't have any dealings with them or references for them and their process).

(Talking about a outside perspective to getting in)

I agree, it's especially hard when your game is a very niche one.

My game has gotten a really positive response on Greenlight. 99.9% of the comments and feedback have been very positive. But because it's a genre with a relatively small audience on PC, the game will probably take several months to finally get Greenlit (good thing my game won't be out until next year anyway). There just aren't many people checking their Greenlight queues anymore, and an even tinier portion of that amount are people interested in a 3D platformer, much less a very cutesy colorful one. (The only negative comment my game has received so far on there was about the colorfulness, lol)

 

[Poetic.Injustice]

I think our model transferred well from 2D to 3D, just need to make some adjustments with the texture.

 

[asa]

We just revealed our first title Power Hover, it's a hoverboarding game about lonely robots

Heres the logo:

Here are few Screenshots:

Hopefully I can hotlink stuff from my tumblr.

more screens @ www.oddrok.com

Game will be premium game for iOS, though we are looking at porting as soon as possible.

We are quite close finishing the game, maybe week or two work left. We just finished the games story scenes this week, one more level needs some work and then I guess we are finally done. pretty crazy.

Quite exciting to show the game off for the first time. What do you guys think?

 

[SeanNoonan]

To all the 2d artists in here; what are the topmost three painting tools you
are using to draw your graphics? Does any of those allow for user-defined
(third-party) plugins to have say for example a user-defined realtime filter
running while you draw?

I use Photoshop from time to time, and that allows for realtime layer filters and index painting. Usually I just use the Paint style package built into Construct, but I make quite oldschool games so it's all I need.

 

[missile]

@Popstar: Had a look at Core Image. Seems interesting in a way. So Core Image
is integrated on a system wide basis (iOS/OSX). If I write the filter via Core
Image, then any app can load this filter if it implements/loads the Core Image
API, right? Question is; how widespread/common is this concept implement in
3rd-party image processing software? Does Photoshop (on OSX) or any other
animation tool supports loading of Core Image resp. Image Units? Do you also
know if some of the filter processing can be done on the Objective-C (CPU)
side instead of the kernel (GPU) one? Or is the Objective-C side only there
to initialize the filter kernel once, i.e. not called again once the filter is
used? Thing is, the kernels can be quite limited at times.

@Blizzard & jhmtehgamr20xx: Gimp sounds good as well, but I'm also not sure
about making realtime filters overlays unless modifying the program to a large
degree. A static variant using python seems reasonable, but anything else I'm
not sure about. On the other hand, I'm questioning if gimp is really used that
much by 2d artist doing graphics (sprites, pixel graphics etc.) for (indie)
games. That's way I asked for the top-three programs any artist in here is
using for their games. Well, I'm specially looking for programs which are used
by 2d artists/animators making graphics for video games, because the filters
will be tailored for video games in the first place.

@V_Arnold: Does GraphicsGale allow to overlay a filter over the drawing or
output canvas?

@SeanNoonan: That's a great info about Photoshop. It's years ago I used it the
last time. The filters can be user-defined, loaded via a plugin, or how does
it work? These embedded image editors (Construct etc.) are interesting, too.


Another approach would be to write a program that covers/grabs the output area
of any such paint/graphics programs. But I consider this more as a hack,
doesn't integrate into the workflow I guess and may produce various side
effects. Don't know.

 

[Situacao]

Hey GAF. time for an update on Pulsar Raiders!

You can now play a pre-alpha demo of Pulsar Raiders, which consists on the local PVP (no AI) mode for the game. As it already supports PS4, PS3, XBO and X360 controllers, the link also includes a file with the mappings for each controller.

If you would, please send me some feedback on stuff like gameplay, graphics, whatever you think might improve the game. I would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

@missle: I actually forgot one: Corel Painter. It has real-time filter layers but they are mimicked more off of traditional medium like watercolors. Still though it's worth a try if you don't fancy a subscription to an imaging suite, and it's cheaper than Photoshop (around $350-$400 for the full version last I checked).

As for your concern w/ GIMP for sprite art, it's actually really good for it, not any less capable than other programs. You have your grid settings you can adjust, resolution settings you can tailor, etc. Just remember to ALWAYS use the pencil tool (never the paintbrush) and set the eraser to Hard Edge mode and you get complete opacity, clean pixels with every dabble, stroke, whatever. You can set up color palettes as well.

Also don't forget to snap the brush to the grid (or I should say, set Snap To Grid as "checked", depending on what type of tile size you're working with. Not really needed if you're going 1px, but if you're drawing by tile size instead and your tiles are, say, 4x4, it helps to have Snap To Grid on). If you do all of this it sets GIMP up pretty dang well for sprite art, and you can tailor other parts for your particular needs.

I figure the reason you don't see most artists mention it is because it's a bit of a tough program to use. I guess for them it's similar to my first brush with, say, Blender (which truly is awkward with right-click to select things). I've often heard people say it's harder to use than Photoshop but it's just as capable as that program more or less, some modification notwithstanding. And any modifications you do won't involve touching .dlls in the registry, if that's what you're worrying about. At most you may just need to copy and paste files from a .ZIP to other folders belonging to the base installation. Nothing fancy or complicated tbh.

 

[neko.works]

It's called The 90's Arcade Racer iirc. I think it's been in development for a while now and some time ago had a breakthrough of some sort.

It's a lot closer to a cross between Daytona 2 and Outrun 2, though, visually, and plays more like the aforementioned with the exaggerated drift.

And good progress there w/ those shots, particularly the last two. It seems there's a bit more going on in the background but it doesn't go overboard. Lighting seems improved too. Really like the color gradient for the sky in the 3rd pic in general.

I see. I did notice this game when it was on KickStarter around 2 years ago, didn't know that it was planned on Wii U too.

 

[Sir_Fishelsworth]

We just revealed our first title Power Hover, it's a hoverboarding game about lonely robots

Heres the logo:

Here are few Screenshots:

Hopefully I can hotlink stuff from my tumblr.

more screens @ www.oddrok.com

Game will be premium game for iOS, though we are looking at porting as soon as possible.

We are quite close finishing the game, maybe week or two work left. We just finished the games story scenes this week, one more level needs some work and then I guess we are finally done. pretty crazy.

Quite exciting to show the game off for the first time. What do you guys think?

The low poly style and color palette look great. What are the controls like on iOS?

 

[GioG]

I want to crush my sales records. See them broken before me. Hear the lamentations of its userbase's wallets. Who do I contact to do this? I need names, dammit.

This is for Hex Phase press stuff if you can throw me some tips.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Okay.

Game nearly drove me to madness.

Stepping the fuck away for a few hours.

Time to enter the Wasteland.

 

[Jobbs]

Going to do kind of a horror cliche (sorta?) where this area has ominous sleeping monsters that aren't responsive to you -- At first.

http://www.gfycat.com/AlarmingCriminalLadybird

They let out a scream and then when they're awake their eye glows in the dark, which makes me happier than it should.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Going to do kind of a horror cliche (sorta?) where this area has ominous sleeping monsters that aren't responsive to you -- At first.

http://www.gfycat.com/AlarmingCriminalLadybird

They let out a scream and then when they're awake their eye glows in the dark, which makes me happier than it should.

Do they only wake up in the dark? Because that would be really fucking cool when the player figures that shit out.

 

[Jobbs]

Do they only wake up in the dark? Because that would be really fucking cool when the player figures that shit out.

They start being able to wake up after the player does a certain thing on the map.

 

[Lord_Balkan]

Hey guys, anyone in the Champaign (or Chicago-land), Illinois area and want to team up with me to work on a small/smaller scale project? I have some ideas but I am also open to ideas / collaborations. I'd like to do this with people that are in closer to me geographically just so we can more easily collaborate.

Just as an FYI, I am a programmer by trade.

 

[Blizzard]

Going to do kind of a horror cliche (sorta?) where this area has ominous sleeping monsters that aren't responsive to you -- At first.

http://www.gfycat.com/AlarmingCriminalLadybird

They let out a scream and then when they're awake their eye glows in the dark, which makes me happier than it should.

The (Super?) Metroid game(s) did that in lab(s) too, so there's good precedent for it.

 

[Davision]

Currently working on a small tactics game with a twist and I'm also using my painting shader for it, so it is kinda low poly painterly looking.

First animations are in, was also the first animations I ever imported in UE4. It is pretty easy to hook up with animation blueprints.

Btw, does anyone here know what happened to the 7dfps game jam? Was looking forward to joining this year again.

 

[Jacksinthe]

Google is the fucking worst.

Every month... EVERY fucking month Google keeps telling me my Tax information is wrong. That I have the wrong EIN and Company name and every month i type the same information in then get paid. Then the next payment cycle comes and it's the same shit. Same automated message.

I've chatted with support several times and "fixed" the problem several times only to have the automated system flag me again, like clockwork.

I may just make the damn app free.

 

[Jobbs]

Got them mostly hooked up now.

Ultimately they kamikaze and detonate (not pictured).

http://www.gfycat.com/DelectableNiftyAssassinbug

 

[shaowebb]

Got them mostly hooked up now.

Ultimately they kamikaze and detonate (not pictured).

http://www.gfycat.com/DelectableNiftyAssassinbug

God I love your work. My wife has been waiting eagerly with baited breath for your title. It really captures the atmosphere she's been missing since Metroid went on hiatus.

 

[Jobbs]

God I love your work. My wife has been waiting eagerly with baited breath for your title. It really captures the atmosphere she's been missing since Metroid went on hiatus.

Ah thanks

I honestly feel like worse than shit that the game is taking forever. Hopefully home stretch soon...

This is the detonation test:

http://www.gfycat.com/CanineRapidGraywolf

edit:

redid the green fog to make it cooler.

http://www.gfycat.com/LiveJealousHowlermonkey

 

[shaowebb]

Ah thanks

I honestly feel like worse than shit that the game is taking forever. Hopefully home stretch soon...

This is the detonation test:

http://www.gfycat.com/CanineRapidGraywolf

edit:

redid the green fog to make it cooler.

http://www.gfycat.com/LiveJealousHowlermonkey

My wife is behind me viewing these with a big grin on her face. Keep up the good work man! You're attention to detail is really whats making this so great. Take your time and know that all of your fans feel its worth it and support you.

 

[Noogy]

To all the 2d artists in here; what are the topmost three painting tools you
are using to draw your graphics? Does any of those allow for user-defined
(third-party) plugins to have say for example a user-defined realtime filter
running while you draw?

Depends on what art I'm creating. If it's traditional animation, I'm old-fashioned and still do it with pencil and paper. I scan the frames into Photoshop, where I cleanup/layer/color.

For backgrounds I do most of my painting in Corel's Painter. Still my preferred digital painting tool. Once again, I'll bring that artwork into Photoshop for tweaking/comp.

I've been messing with Photoshop's painting tools recently and they've come a long way, but you still can't beat Painter for digital painting. This is of course with a Wacom or equivalent.

My other preferred pieces of software... After Effects for compositing and film work, and 3DS Max for everything 3D.

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

My art tools are hilarious out of date because that's what I'm most comfortable with. Depending on what I need, it's usually either MGI Photosuite for Windows 95 (I like its palette), or it's Paintshop Pro 7 (layers, vector and alpha support)

If neither of those can do what I need, Paint.net is usually my last ditch fall back

 

[zero shift]

So I'm wondering for my game if I should use GBC Shantae like sprites in which they are simple, but well animated, or a game with tradigital animated 2D art via Gimp and a Wacom Tablet. Would the later really take that much longer assuming it has the same frame count as the former?

 

[Pehesse]

So I'm wondering for my game if I should use GBC Shantae like sprites in which they are simple, but well animated, or a game with tradigital animated 2D art via Gimp and a Wacom Tablet. Would the later really take that much longer assuming it has the same frame count as the former?

It depends on your proficiency in said aesthetics? I mean, pixel art isn't inherently "simpler" than high-res art, just because it has a smaller display size. If you feel more comfortable drawing higher res sprites, then undoubtedly doing that will be faster...

As for the frame count and fluidity concerns, I find that the more detailed your sprites are, the more inbetweens it requires to have a good "feel" - a simple example would be the Street Fighter 2 original vs remake sprites. The animation frames counts are the same, but in the original, the simpler sprites allowed the viewer to link them together more fluidly, whereas the more high res sprite art of the remake appears to be animated more choppily (even though it's the same number in both cases). Finding the right balance is what's hard... Unless you go way overboard with inbetweening (and I'd argue that's a waste of time), a "good" animation to me is one that tricks the viewer into imagining/viewing the motions that aren't actually *there*. (Though I'd be curious to know what other animators around here have to say about your question!)

For reference, the balance I found for Honey is based around 10FPS, and 8 to 12 frames for individual motions. That's roughly double the amount of frames compared to pixel-based games such as Streets of Rage 2 of Street Fighter 2, but about half compared to actual dedicated fighting games using high-res sprites. That's because my game is closer mechanically to a beat'em all, so I don't need/want the reactivity of a fighting game framecount, but since my sprites are a bit higher res than pixel art, I need a slightly higher inbetweening count to make it look fluid enough - that's using cel shading, mind you. Using more complex types of shading might require even more inbetweening. Didn't really try that far in that specific direction, Jobbs/Noogy might have more light to shed on that subject.

You need to balance the fluidity you want to achieve, with the amount of work it'll represent in the end for you/your alloted time and budget! Starting to budget your animations on paper will quickly show you an estimate of the amount of work required - and don't be afraid to plan large. Using Honey as an example again, I started off thinking I'd manage with 150 frames per character, with 4 characters to animate, making for a 600 frame estimated count, for which I allocated 3 months. In the end, I have about 4 to 5 times that, because of miscalculations/a growing belly/rushing blindly ahead, and I ended up spending close to a full year (and a couple months on top still ahead) *just* on that, so the estimated project completion date slipped from 8 months to 2 and a half years at least... So don't let that happen to you, plan properly first!

 

[zero shift]

It depends on your proficiency in said aesthetics? I mean, pixel art isn't inherently "simpler" than high-res art, just because it has a smaller display size. If you feel more comfortable drawing higher res sprites, then undoubtedly doing that will be faster...

As for the frame count and fluidity concerns, I find that the more detailed your sprites are, the more inbetweens it requires to have a good "feel" - a simple example would be the Street Fighter 2 original vs remake sprites. The animation frames counts are the same, but in the original, the simpler sprites allowed the viewer to link them together more fluidly, whereas the more high res sprite art of the remake appears to be animated more choppily (even though it's the same number in both cases). Finding the right balance is what's hard... Unless you go way overboard with inbetweening (and I'd argue that's a waste of time), a "good" animation to me is one that tricks the viewer into imagining/viewing the motions that aren't actually *there*. (Though I'd be curious to know what other animators around here have to say about your question!)

For reference, the balance I found for Honey is based around 10FPS, and 8 to 12 frames for individual motions. That's roughly double the amount of frames compared to pixel-based games such as Streets of Rage 2 of Street Fighter 2, but about half compared to actual dedicated fighting games using high-res sprites. That's because my game is closer mechanically to a beat'em all, so I don't need/want the reactivity of a fighting game framecount, but since my sprites are a bit higher res than pixel art, I need a slightly higher inbetweening count to make it look fluid enough - that's using cel shading, mind you. Using more complex types of shading might require even more inbetweening. Didn't really try that far in that specific direction, Jobbs/Noogy might have more light to shed on that subject.

You need to balance the fluidity you want to achieve, with the amount of work it'll represent in the end for you/your alloted time and budget! Starting to budget your animations on paper will quickly show you an estimate of the amount of work required - and don't be afraid to plan large. Using Honey as an example again, I started off thinking I'd manage with 150 frames per character, with 4 characters to animate, making for a 600 frame estimated count, for which I allocated 3 months. In the end, I have about 4 to 5 times that, because of miscalculations/a growing belly/rushing blindly ahead, and I ended up spending close to a full year (and a couple months on top still ahead) *just* on that, so the estimated project completion date slipped from 8 months to 2 and a half years at least... So don't let that happen to you, plan properly first!

Thank you. This was a great post.

If you don't mind, how did you manage to miscalculate by fivefold?

 

[Pehesse]

Thank you. This was a great post.

If you don't mind, how did you manage to miscalculate by fivefold?

Hope it helps

I'd say I miscalculated on three big, different accounts:

-first was the amount of inbetweening I'd require, which was off by a small margin (I expected 6-9 frames at first), so most movements for the fighting segment grew a little in size because of that

-second, was because I added more characters - the initial design called for four, but there are now actually 6 for the main fighting segment, making the total sum of frames required immediately jump by a lot. I also didn't really plan for the additional secondary enemies (6 of them as well), so again, big jump (the secondary characters were into the original design, but they were far, far simpler, so much that I kind of overlooked them :v)

-and third was because initially I decided against animating the visual novel segment, but feedback showed it was a bad idea, so I went back on that and applied the same treatment as with the fighting segment... adding something like 20 characters worth of animation on top :v Not exactly the same design concerns to the animation process there, as it wasn't linked to specific mechanics, only a visual effect, allowing me to cut back a little on some inbetweening in some cases, but it still was work that needed to be done :-D

So it's in part miscalculations, in part a growing scope, and in part aesthetic coherency that made it grow larger than I expected. And also... because I learned animation with this project (still learning, too!) so I kind of found out all of that the hard way :-D

 

[Skab]

Got them mostly hooked up now.

Ultimately they kamikaze and detonate (not pictured).

http://www.gfycat.com/DelectableNiftyAssassinbug

 

[Jobbs]

I put the skab device in

 

[zero shift]

Well after hours of work I finally got the enemy to move around 8 directions and same for the player.

I'm proud of my (small) achievement.

Here is what I have so far (note all this is my first time doing this and the background and characters are nowhere near final, just placeholders):]

*I REALLY have to brush up on my animating*
*The compression of the gif also makes the main character look funny as if he has a shadow on the front of him*

Up next having the player attack.

Hope it helps

Wow thanks.

You are animating all by yourself?