+Karl G Posted December 17, 2018 Share Posted December 17, 2018 Does anyone have a link to advice on how to create good walking animation frames? E.g. how many, how to space them, etc. This is for the Atari 2600, but I imagine most of the advice I would need is platform-independant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted December 17, 2018 Share Posted December 17, 2018 I put together a 2600 walk cycle in the "free sprites for the taking" thread. Feel free to take, adapt, or study. I don't have a tutorial to link to, but yeah, any cartoon walk cycle tutorial should serve. My animation is 4 frames, which I think is the minimum to sell the animation. More cycles would certainly be smoother, but I think the upper frame limit isn't that high, since we're dealing with a very small pixel grid. My animation is technically half of a walk cycle, but at low resolutions the ambiguity of which leg or arm is in the foreground allows you to repeat a half-cycle, and the viewer's brain does the rest. Speaking of ambiguity, don't get hung up on features that look like a blob on a given frame. e.g. if the arm is close to the body and makes it looks like a large gut. The animation will resolve that. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Karl G Posted December 17, 2018 Author Share Posted December 17, 2018 Thanks! I've been playing around with a Santa sprite, even though I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet. Because I can only have 1 color per line without using more than one sprite, I think I can't use a full side-on view, or else the face wouldn't work. I think the step would have to look different for each leg for this reason, unless I make it more ambiguous by making his coat longer or somesuch? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 Yeah, the color changes tend to lock in vertical motion, which limits you to a shuffle. Here's a couple variations of a santa walk cycle I put together. I don't think the side face looks bad. The one with the colored hands doesn't quite work. The idea was you'd see either hand, and then there's only one frame in the middle, leaving the direction ambiguous. Might be better to add another 1/2 cycle and make it clearly the foreground hand. Again, feel free to use, or not use, however you like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+nanochess Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 When I was young the Computer Animation Primer was my bible https://www.atariarchives.org/cap/showpage.php?page=173 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Karl G Posted December 18, 2018 Author Share Posted December 18, 2018 To my eye, the one with the hands looks fine. I'll have to do some tinkering and see how it looks when actually in motion. I appreciate you doing some examples for me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.