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[Jacksinthe]

What kind of game does the name ASIDEUS make you guys think of? I want something iconic or at the very least "different" for the game I'm working on.

Does it relate in any way to the game you are making? How is it pronounced? Is it an actual word in any language?

Do note, its also a user on Twitch and Twitter.

Also, icons are only icons by the merit that is given to them, there's no real way to create an icon. You could try forcing it like Ubisoft tho but then you'd just get featured on a Jimquisition

 

[Jumplion]

Speaking of names, anyone have any suggestions for my own? I've been calling it "A Decent Game" and "A Good Game" for better SEO, and I've changed it now to "Dot Dot Dot" but it doesn't quite feel right. Any suggestions?

Example of the game in action

 

[liliththepale]

Speaking of names, anyone have any suggestions for my own? I've been calling it "A Decent Game" and "A Good Game" for better SEO, and I've changed it now to "Dot Dot Dot" but it doesn't quite feel right. Any suggestions?

Example of the game in action

Super Dot Matrix. Because it looks like Super Hexagon meets the bullet dodging of The Matrix, except the bullets are dots, and dot matrix is a computer-related term. I may or may not be serious.

 

[Kalentan]

Ignore the weird looping. Somehow my Gif put the previously made gif at the end. o.o

Anyway, I think one thing I'm going to need to figure out is how weapons are going to work in terms of spriting since you will have main hand and off hand weapons so you can mix and match. You could have a pistol and shield, a sword and pistol (with the pistol in off hand.)

I'm thinking I might need a sprite set for every possible combination?

 

[Jumplion]

Super Dot Matrix. Because it looks like Super Hexagon meets the bullet dodging of The Matrix, except the bullets are dots, and dot matrix is a computer-related term. I may or may not be serious.

I dig the dot matrix part. Maybe Dot Matrix Dodger? The game's already heavily inspired by Super Hexagon, no need to draw that many parallels to it

 

[Sàmban]

There are so many ways I could read that, but none of them make it to the top.

A-Side US, some sort of cassette tape/America thing.

Asidious, some sort of demonic horror thing.

A.S.I. Deus, a Deus Machina style cyberpunk thing.

I really can't get a handle on it.

Wow, you picked up on the A.S.I part pretty fast; maybe I need to make it more subtle? The game is a top-down shooter with a bit of an emphasis on shooting/abilities like bio-shock but thematically closer to system-shock.

 

[Lautaro]

Speaking of names, anyone have any suggestions for my own? I've been calling it "A Decent Game" and "A Good Game" for better SEO, and I've changed it now to "Dot Dot Dot" but it doesn't quite feel right. Any suggestions?

Example of the game in action

I was gonna suggest Dot Dodger but is taken, remember to always google your name ideas!

 

[liliththepale]

Trying to get rid of the paper doll look a little bit and improve my animation. Unfortunately there's a trade-off between smoothness, ability to go off model, and artwork investment. I have two animations below for reference. The old one (below) is using a single texture for the sword and just scaling the bone to get a little faux foreshortening going on. In the new one I have four different textures (flat, sideways, pointing nearer to the camera and pointing further away).

I think it's already an improvement over the former, but at the same time it looks kind of choppy. The only way to fix that is to illustrate more interstitial angles, but then that becomes a HUGE workload with all the weapons I have planned. (screenshot: 43 of the ~100 weapons planned here)

I suppose it's worth noting that the animation will be sped up 25% on average and even more for quicker weapons, so probably the choppiness won't be as apparent in play.


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I dig the dot matrix part. Maybe Dot Matrix Dodger? The game's already heavily inspired by Super Hexagon, no need to draw that many parallels to it

Yeah, I like it!

Wow, you picked up on the A.S.I part pretty fast; maybe I need to make it more subtle? The game is a top-down shooter with a bit of an emphasis on shooting/abilities like bio-shock but thematically closer to system-shock.

Uh, maybe. I should say the only Bioshock I've played is Infinite, and I only made it ~20 minutes into Deus Ex: Human Revolution before getting bored. So I'm not even super familiar with either franchise. Then again, I might not have noticed it had you not asked us to look closely.

 

[SystemBug]

I wonder if adding a slight movement trail will mask some of the choppiness? I think the snap can work well if it's maybe more deliberate? Kinda like If the character holds the final hit position for a little bit longer before reeling in the sword?

 

[timetokill]

Speaking of names, anyone have any suggestions for my own? I've been calling it "A Decent Game" and "A Good Game" for better SEO, and I've changed it now to "Dot Dot Dot" but it doesn't quite feel right. Any suggestions?

Example of the game in action

Dot Matrix Sprinter for maximum punnage

ApocEllipses for dot dot dot relevance

Petri Dish Ninja for what your game reminds me of

 

[liliththepale]

I wonder if adding a slight movement trail will mask some of the choppiness? I think the snap can work well if it's maybe more deliberate? Kinda like If the character holds the final hit position for a little bit longer before reeling in the sword?

I don't know. I feel like the weapon path is really easy to trace without a movement trail here, especially since it mostly just travels in a straight line back and forth from this perspective. And also because of that I'd worry the trail would obscure too much of the art that I still want visible. I guess I think movement trails work better for arcing motions or in 3D space, not for what's essentially a thrusting motion.

It's worth experiment with though, so I may give it a shot. I'm not really worried about this, just wanted to think out loud and actually share something since it's been a while. But even so I'm still open to suggestions, so thanks!

 

[Kalentan]

Hey, just a question guys... Would anyone who sprites be willing to aid me in drawing my side view walking animation?

I have this thus far and you can see the south walking animation just a few posts back... My biggest thing is that I fear that it looks more like their a side view game rather than a top down game. I think the arms shouldn't move too much... At least with equipment on.

 

[electroflame]

Trying to get rid of the paper doll look a little bit and improve my animation. Unfortunately there's a trade-off between smoothness, ability to go off model, and artwork investment. I have two animations below for reference. The old one (below) is using a single texture for the sword and just scaling the bone to get a little faux foreshortening going on. In the new one I have four different textures (flat, sideways, pointing nearer to the camera and pointing further away).

I think it's already an improvement over the former, but at the same time it looks kind of choppy. The only way to fix that is to illustrate more interstitial angles, but then that becomes a HUGE workload with all the weapons I have planned. (screenshot: 43 of the ~100 weapons planned here)

I suppose it's worth noting that the animation will be sped up 25% on average and even more for quicker weapons, so probably the choppiness won't be as apparent in play.


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I think the overall quality of the animation is greatly improved, but the sword itself seems choppy.

I'm no animation expert, but the faux perspective you had before might look fine with this more refined animation. If not, maybe you could fade between the sword frames so they don't "switch" as abruptly?

Even so, the animation itself looks great. If it's sped up (and you weren't looking for it) it might not even be noticeable.

(As an aside, her back leg kind of jitters, which looks rather painful)

 

[timetokill]

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Old

Looks much better, except the back leg jitter is a bit strange. It definitely looks more "deadly" whereas the previous one looked more like she wasn't getting any real power behind the swing.

Have you tried making it "snappier" on the in and out? Give it a really violent ramp up to the sword being extended, pause for just a moment, then a really quick pull back of the sword. I think considering how stylized your character is, you should embrace it and really go all out with stylizing the animation in the same way.

Hey, just a question guys... Would anyone who sprites be willing to aid me in drawing my side view walking animation?

I have this thus far and you can see the south walking animation just a few posts back... My biggest thing is that I fear that it looks more like their a side view game rather than a top down game. I think the arms should move too much... At least with equipment on.

I have a tough time with this as well.

One thing to consider is making sure the leg/foot in the background is not on the same y-plane as the foreground foot. Similar thing for the arms. It shouldn't be dramatic, but just enough to tell a difference.

Here's mine, it's far from perfect but you can at least see that the feet do not come down onto the same y-pixel.

 

[Kalentan]

I have a tough time with this as well.

One thing to consider is making sure the leg/foot in the background is not on the same y-plane as the foreground foot. Similar thing for the arms. It shouldn't be dramatic, but just enough to tell a difference.

Here's mine, it's far from perfect but you can at least see that the feet do not come down onto the same y-pixel.

Yeah I see... I'm trying to do that but I never feel like it looks right. I think I just need to redraw the legs and I wonder if you should be able to see the other arm sticking out slightly. Maybe.

Edit: Well, here's my new attempt:

I think it's an improvement!

Edit 2:

I'm thinking I made the butt too big or at the very least I think the leg went too far back in the middle one. So I made 2 edits. I'm unsure if I like 1 or 3 better.

Edit 3:

 

[liliththepale]

Looks much better, except the back leg jitter is a bit strange. It definitely looks more "deadly" whereas the previous one looked more like she wasn't getting any real power behind the swing.

Have you tried making it "snappier" on the in and out? Give it a really violent ramp up to the sword being extended, pause for just a moment, then a really quick pull back of the sword. I think considering how stylized your character is, you should embrace it and really go all out with stylizing the animation in the same way.

I think the overall quality of the animation is greatly improved, but the sword itself seems choppy.

I'm no animation expert, but the faux perspective you had before might look fine with this more refined animation. If not, maybe you could fade between the sword frames so they don't "switch" as abruptly?

Even so, the animation itself looks great. If it's sped up (and you weren't looking for it) it might not even be noticeable.

(As an aside, her back leg kind of jitters, which looks rather painful)

Oh, yeah, I wasn't really paying attention to the legs when I animated it. They're basically just IK'd to the ground, set-and-forget. I can fix the jitter pretty easily.

Making it a bit snappier is worth a try. It already feels a lot snappier than before, but I suppose I could push it even further. Fading between the textures isn't an option as far as I can think of, but maybe I can mix in a bit of bone scaling plus what's already there.

I'll keep working on it. Thanks all!

 

[NinjaBoyLao]

Probably the last update/post here until we sort everything out.

We went with tron style particles(and somewhat mother 3-ish).

Here are some mockups for how we want the game to look.

The lock on reticle+Bomb stacking on on the locked target.

Detonate explosion.

 

[SeanNoonan]

<awesome animations>

Much improved with the exception of the already mentioned leg jitter.

I really like that the sword has some depth now, though share your concern at the workload cost across the game as a whole.

I guess it would be interesting to see the additional work required with on a weapon with a more complicated silhouette.


As for me, taking the 4 day weekend off gamedev to do life stuff. Getting a lot closer to getting the iOS version of Jack B. Nimble done (task list here: https://trello.com/b/tOT1bmLx/jack-b-nimble) - still evaluating whether it's worth porting to Steam and/or WiiU. We'll see.

 

[liliththepale]

Much improved with the exception of the already mentioned leg jitter.

I really like that the sword has some depth now, though share your concern at the workload cost across the game as a whole.

I guess it would be interesting to see the additional work required with on a weapon with a more complicated silhouette.


As for me, taking the 4 day weekend off gamedev to do life stuff. Getting a lot closer to getting the iOS version of Jack B. Nimble done (task list here: https://trello.com/b/tOT1bmLx/jack-b-nimble) - still evaluating whether it's worth porting to Steam and/or WiiU. We'll see.

Yeah, it's going to be a lot of extra work, but combat and weapons are primary tenets in the game, same as the run and walk cycles which I've retooled half a dozen times or more. So I'm not necessarily going to be this anal about every detail in the game. I'm of the opinion that if the character feels really good to play and looks really good then most other issues are easier to overlook (not that I'm planning on having other issues! ).

And I agree that experimenting with a more complicated silhouette should be interesting. I'm not sure if it will make it look even more choppy, if the extra dissonance between frames will cue the changing depth more and gloss over the choppiness some, or something else in between. I'll have this figured out yet!


Enjoy your Easter/Spring holiday! I'm probably going to take some time off myself. &#9829;

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

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The arm swing on the new anim is muy bueno.

Good job.

 

[AndrewPL]

I am just watching indie game development conference talks on YouTube, I'm suprised at how many and how much info there is out there!

Just wanted to ask if anyone had done the same or had any favourites?

I glad there are all these videos that are publicly available.

 

[Jacksinthe]

Ignore the weird looping. Somehow my Gif put the previously made gif at the end. o.o

Anyway, I think one thing I'm going to need to figure out is how weapons are going to work in terms of spriting since you will have main hand and off hand weapons so you can mix and match. You could have a pistol and shield, a sword and pistol (with the pistol in off hand.)

I'm thinking I might need a sprite set for every possible combination?

Draw all of the weapons, shields, whatever. Use those as objects to overlay/place behind the main sprite.

You don't need to sprite every combination as they shouldn't be part of the main sprite.

 

[LordRaptor]

Trying to get rid of the paper doll look a little bit and improve my animation. Unfortunately there's a trade-off between smoothness, ability to go off model, and artwork investment. I have two animations below for reference. The old one (below) is using a single texture for the sword and just scaling the bone to get a little faux foreshortening going on. In the new one I have four different textures (flat, sideways, pointing nearer to the camera and pointing further away).

Personally, the weapon rotation element of the weapon is so marginally noticeable that it is not worth quadrupling your workload to achieve - especially extrapolating that out into being part of an overall game environment, not being scrutinised in a bubble.
This might just be because it is a rapier type weapon - I can imagine if you had a battle axe that you wanted to have a horizontal swing, then it would be much more necessary.

If you're dead set on using weapon rotation, and you're unhappy with it still not being smooth enough even after quadrupling your assets, an alternative solution might be to make your weapons textured quads rather than sprites - that way you can use z-axis rotation for effectively infinite degrees of rotation with a single sprite (this is assuming you've transitioned to using Unity okay and not gone back to your previous engine).
You'd have a lot more work initially in marrying your character and weapon animations to work together, but I suspect it would be less work longterm on asset creation.

 

[Ianan]

All blueprint, I know basic C++ but want to stay away from it as much as possible, especially with the new BP>C++ converter meaning the game still runs well

Awesome, always blows my mind to see how powerful blueprint is. I used to do a lot of Kismet in UDK but still haven't fully adjusted to blueprints in UE4. Did it take you long to learn blueprint to make something like this?

 

[Noaloha]

Speaking of names, anyone have any suggestions for my own? I've been calling it "A Decent Game" and "A Good Game" for better SEO, and I've changed it now to "Dot Dot Dot" but it doesn't quite feel right. Any suggestions?

Example of the game in action

Plate, Oh!: Cave Of Denial.

 

[tamaster92]

Awesome, always blows my mind to see how powerful blueprint is. I used to do a lot of Kismet in UDK but still haven't fully adjusted to blueprints in UE4. Did it take you long to learn blueprint to make something like this?

It's a difficult answer tbh. It didn't take me long to learn but I have a knowledge of actual coding already. To make something like this though... It's s combination of experience making other stuff with them first and taking advantage of the scores of help out there.

I think if it had been the first thing I tried to make it would of took a lot longer than it did currently

 

[caffeware]

So I decided to hop aboard and realize my dream of making a 16-bit action RPG.
The game will be a mix of Lttp and SoM, and hopefully will be enjoyable.
If I'm lucky, the game will be a brand new GBA game in cartridge with manual.

 

[Slamtastic]

So I decided to hop aboard and realize my dream of making a 16-bit action RPG.
The game will be a mix of Lttp and SoM, and hopefully will be enjoyable.
If I'm lucky, the game will be a brand new GBA game in cartridge with manual.

Looks and sounds amazing!

 

[Mafusto]

Also, icons are only icons by the merit that is given to them, there's no real way to create an icon. You could try forcing it like Ubisoft tho but then you'd just get featured on a Jimquisition

Who doesn't want to be featured on the Jimquisition!

So I decided to hop aboard and realize my dream of making a 16-bit action RPG.
The game will be a mix of Lttp and SoM, and hopefully will be enjoyable.
If I'm lucky, the game will be a brand new GBA game in cartridge with manual.

The game already looks like something I would love to play. Co-op ARPG's are the best!

On a side node, my engine seems to get along well, and I love all the new ideas I come up with while working on it. So much possibilities to add to the gameplay with the current attacksystem. Hope my artist is finished soon with his designs, so I can start showing stuff here without resorting to show of my programmer art/sprites of existing games

 

[JeffG]

Who doesn't want to be featured on the Jimquisition!

lol I watch all of his stuff just to see what is being done in the marketplace. (and to learn not to make the same mistakes)

 

[caffeware]

Looks and sounds amazing!

Thank you for the interest.
Here's more. Some assets are place holder and taken from various sources.

 

[Jumplion]

Plate, Oh!: Cave Of Denial.

ayyyy

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I think I'll go with "Dot Matrix Dodger" for the time being. Just need to go for the home stretch and I can think of the next project, woo~

 

[Vanguard]

Question for anyone knowledgable with shaders (Unity). Would like to fade out an object by decreasing alpha but keep the shadows fully intact, the shadow strength is same as alpha though and doesn't look great for what I need it for. All my searches have lead to people asking for shadows to be cast on transparent shaders, but not transparent shaders casting a full shadow. I could set the object to shadow only, but fading out would look neater. (Cannot bake either as I would like realtime lighting)
I want to say this is doable, but can't be sure...

So I decided to hop aboard and realize my dream of making a 16-bit action RPG.
The game will be a mix of Lttp and SoM, and hopefully will be enjoyable.
If I'm lucky, the game will be a brand new GBA game in cartridge with manual.

Would play this, love old style 2d rpgs.

 

[Jacksinthe]

So Unity is doing this thing where when I play in he editor it tells me one of my array length is out of range. Only in the editor and only until I compile. Code won't execute. When I compile it works fine as an exe or on PS4 - THEN it starts working properly in the editor.

This started when I added OEM Color to my sprites for the tunnel darken/brighten effect to keep whatever color values I apply (sometimes darken a BG sprite for contrast in Unity instead of Chop since its faster). I thought I did a stupid so I just undid the code for testing (I always leave old code as comments at the bottom of a class in case I decide to revert fast without forking/merging using GIT, aids when I want to toy with stuff) and what was fine before now exhibits the same behavior. My arrays are fine, BTW. There's nothing wrong with their lengths or my code.

I should probably dump Unity cache but on the cusp of a fresh 5.4 install I'm too lazy.

That's just weird behavior. WARNING! WAIT, nevermind you compiled.

 

[helava]

A while back, I'd posted a work-in-progress of our iOS game, Give Me Fuel. We're finally in a closed beta (sign up here: wonderspark.co/earlyaccess-signup, and I'll send you a Testflight build), and making a ton of UI changes to clarify stuff before we launch. We spent a ton of time making a pretty novel animation system for the game that is all 2D, but allows for character customization and some more complex animation than your usual Flash-bone style animation.

 

[JeffG]

So Unity is doing this thing where when I play in he editor it tells me one of my array length is out of range. Only in the editor and only until I compile. Code won't execute. When I compile it works fine as an exe or on PS4 - THEN it starts working properly in the editor.

This started when I added OEM Color to my sprites for the tunnel darken/brighten effect to keep whatever color values I apply (sometimes darken a BG sprite for contrast in Unity instead of Chop since its faster). I thought I did a stupid so I just undid the code for testing (I always leave old code as comments at the bottom of a class in case I decide to revert fast without forking/merging using GIT, aids when I want to toy with stuff) and what was fine before now exhibits the same behavior. My arrays are fine, BTW. There's nothing wrong with their lengths or my code.

I should probably dump Unity cache but on the cusp of a fresh 5.4 install I'm too lazy.

That's just weird behavior. WARNING! WAIT, nevermind you compiled.

or is the compiled version just swallowing the exception?

lol

I have the opposite issue. I have a collider trigger that works in the editor. Hard crash when compiled (when character enters the collider)

 

[Jacksinthe]

or is the compiled version just swallowing the exception?

lol

I have the opposite issue. I have a collider trigger that works in the editor. Hard crash when compiled (when character enters the collider)

Lolololololol

If I debug what the code is doing its doing it - it just doesn't visualize in the editor. The renderer color dims appropriately but the sprite remains the same and I get an array error.

I also tried earlier backups of the game that are known to not have the issue and it still happens then, too.

 

[BioFan]

Hi Guys,
Just released my first game. Made it with my brother for the last 6 months. We wanted to share the progress here but was skeptical cos we are new to game development. I guess we weren't confident in ourselves. We just learnt programming about a year or so.

Anyway, we wanted to take on classic games like Marble Madness and Super Monkey ball, we felt it is something that is rarely touched on mobile game. So we thought to try making it. Long time fan of Super Monkey ball I hope you guys like our attempt.
we don't have a trailer yet, but we made a run through video that you can see here

Anyway, this is the link to the app. Sorry IOS only. Let us know what you think.

 

[HidingMyThunder]

Speaking of names, anyone have any suggestions for my own? I've been calling it "A Decent Game" and "A Good Game" for better SEO, and I've changed it now to "Dot Dot Dot" but it doesn't quite feel right. Any suggestions?

Example of the game in action

The more I read "Dot Dot Dot" the more I like it!

 

[ephemeral]

So I decided to hop aboard and realize my dream of making a 16-bit action RPG.
The game will be a mix of Lttp and SoM, and hopefully will be enjoyable.
If I'm lucky, the game will be a brand new GBA game in cartridge with manual.

That looks fantastic. I hope you will make the game work well for solo playing too .

 

[ephemeral]

Question for anyone knowledgable with shaders (Unity). Would like to fade out an object by decreasing alpha but keep the shadows fully intact, the shadow strength is same as alpha though and doesn't look great for what I need it for. All my searches have lead to people asking for shadows to be cast on transparent shaders, but not transparent shaders casting a full shadow. I could set the object to shadow only, but fading out would look neater. (Cannot bake either as I would like realtime lighting)
I want to say this is doable, but can't be sure...




Would play this, love old style 2d rpgs.

If you happen to come across a solution for this I'd love to know. Dunno if it's possible to solve without using baked shadows.

Trying to get rid of the paper doll look a little bit and improve my animation. Unfortunately there's a trade-off between smoothness, ability to go off model, and artwork investment. I have two animations below for reference. The old one (below) is using a single texture for the sword and just scaling the bone to get a little faux foreshortening going on. In the new one I have four different textures (flat, sideways, pointing nearer to the camera and pointing further away).

I think it's already an improvement over the former, but at the same time it looks kind of choppy. The only way to fix that is to illustrate more interstitial angles, but then that becomes a HUGE workload with all the weapons I have planned. (screenshot: 43 of the ~100 weapons planned here)

I suppose it's worth noting that the animation will be sped up 25% on average and even more for quicker weapons, so probably the choppiness won't be as apparent in play.


New

Old

Yeah, I like it!




Uh, maybe. I should say the only Bioshock I've played is Infinite, and I only made it ~20 minutes into Deus Ex: Human Revolution before getting bored. So I'm not even super familiar with either franchise. Then again, I might not have noticed it had you not asked us to look closely.

That's a nice improvement . I would suggest to make the arm stretch out completely, or maybe it does but only for a frame so it's not noticable.

 

[tamaster92]

I have now found myself with the dumbest issue ever.

I can't find a way to my the UMG UI in unreal 4 only take input from a controllers dpad and not the analog stick as well

*hits head against wall*

 

[ephemeral]

I have now found myself with the dumbest issue ever.

I can't find a way to my the UMG UI in unreal 4 only take input from a controllers dpad and not the analog stick as well

*hits head against wall*

I even went out the extra mile to add support for using both in Unity. How come you don't want to allow both?

I've been spending the last week rewriting a ton of my code to make my game not depend on the framerate anymore. Easily the most stupid decision I've made so far for my game, but at least it's reversed now. Here's hoping I think things through more next time, it's not easy being too eager to create.

 

[Theanine3D]

I've been spending the last week rewriting a ton of my code to make my game not depend on the framerate anymore. Easily the most stupid decision I've made so far for my game, but at least it's reversed now. Here's hoping I think things through more next time, it's not easy being too eager to create.

I did that with my game too, very early on. Didn't know what the Delta Seconds slot in UE4's Event Tick node was for. Thankfully I started using it in time before it had become too big of a problem.

I had some platforms in the first levels that were scripted to move a small amount every frame. When I had a friend run a test build on their (very old and much slower) PC, I noticed that even though the game seemed to be running at a smooth frame rate on their hardware, some of the platforms in the level were moving much slower than others. Didn't take long to figure out that this was the problem. :B The platforms that only moved after a specific trigger, moved at their intended speed. But any that were scripted to move automatically (aka using Event Tick instead of a custom event) without the player triggering it had delayed movement.

 

[liliththepale]

That's a nice improvement . I would suggest to make the arm stretch out completely, or maybe it does but only for a frame so it's not noticable.

The hand is an IK target so I was trying to avoid popping by not extending it fully, but I can probably push it bit further than it is. Thanks!

 

[caffeware]

That looks fantastic. I hope you will make the game work well for solo playing too .

Actually, the game is a GBA game, so only solo right now. I'm implementing a simplified gambit system to control the AI on the fly.

Thanks.

 

[Jumplion]

The more I read "Dot Dot Dot" the more I like it!

I would, but there's another game called "Dot Dot" on the Play Store, so it'd be best to avoid that name unfortunately Dot Matrix Dodger sounds more dynamic to me anyway.

 

[ElFly]

Trying to get rid of the paper doll look a little bit and improve my animation. Unfortunately there's a trade-off between smoothness, ability to go off model, and artwork investment. I have two animations below for reference. The old one (below) is using a single texture for the sword and just scaling the bone to get a little faux foreshortening going on. In the new one I have four different textures (flat, sideways, pointing nearer to the camera and pointing further away).

I think it's already an improvement over the former, but at the same time it looks kind of choppy. The only way to fix that is to illustrate more interstitial angles, but then that becomes a HUGE workload with all the weapons I have planned. (screenshot: 43 of the ~100 weapons planned here)

I suppose it's worth noting that the animation will be sped up 25% on average and even more for quicker weapons, so probably the choppiness won't be as apparent in play.


New

Are you using Spine or something like that?

I recommend doing an extra piece of art that shows her back and switch it mid animation, so she can be seen moving her right shoulder forward. So basically she starts showing the front of her torso during the windup, switches to the back when the sword goes forward (here you can move the right shoulder forward, and then back; the left shoulder should similarly move back, and then forward), and then switches again to the front torso during the recovery animation.

Otherwise it will never not look like a paper doll, cause when a human does that kind of move, they will turn their torso. It is an extra investment in artwork, but it will give you a lot more freedom in animation, cause basically you can do a lot of moves now that turn her around. You did great by giving her a skirt, cause that way she can turn around her legs without it looking weird, but there's no way around the torso.

A lot of animations done with skeletal animation programs have this problem where they look stiff when doing moves with the back hand, cause it can never go to the front. Similarly, you are making her left hand wave to the back and it looks awkward, cause in a real person that hand would go backward starting from the shoulder. You are making it wave waaay too much to compensate for the lack of turning around.

If you are using Spine, you can smoothly fade one texture even when the other is already there by animating the opacity, so it will look less drastic and smoother (you don't want to change the opacity of both, only to animate the fade of the texture on top). It will help your sword problem too. If you are using something else, I don't know.

 

[timetokill]

Are you using Spine or something like that?

I recommend doing an extra piece of art that shows her back and switch it mid animation, so she can be seen moving her right shoulder forward. So basically she starts showing the front of her torso during the windup, switches to the back when the sword goes forward, and then switches back to the front during the recovery animation.

Otherwise it will never not look like a paper doll, cause when a human does that kind of move, they will turn their torso. It is an extra investment in artwork, but it will give you a lot more freedom in animation, cause basically you can do a lot of moves now that turn her around.

Well, as somebody who likes the paper doll look anyway, one way she could get around the "turned torso" thing would be to switch sword hands and give her a "fencing" style of approach, which could look pretty sweet. That said I don't really think the paper doll thing is that much of a problem, the visuals are nice.

 

[ElFly]

Well, as somebody who likes the paper doll look anyway, one way she could get around the "turned torso" thing would be to switch sword hands and give her a "fencing" style of approach, which could look pretty sweet. That said I don't really think the paper doll thing is that much of a problem, the visuals are nice.

Switching it is not a bad idea but the problem will reappear if she ever has to "wind up" her sword too much.

Basically she can never be shown hitting with too much strength because of this.

It does look nice, yeah.

Adding the back allows her to do a more natural run cycle too.