11 replies to this topic

[QuickPatch]

So I've been drawing up some sprites for my game, using Chumbucket's handy sprite template. I wasn't a huge fan of his slashing sprites, so I decided to make my own, just by editing a bit.



Sorry about all the white space. Anyway, my biggest problem with the attacking graphics is Tanner's sword. It just looks... too solid. A friend mentioned it looks like he's swinging a brown flag. He also suggested transparency, but I'm not sure if I want to go that route. Anyone have a suggestion?

Also, the last swing is supposed to be a strong attack (it isn't finished, I'm afraid). My only problem is aside from the three frames of only slight pixel movement to give it a wind-up, it looks like an ordinary attack. I'm trying to think of some way to accent the move. Maybe I should add a bit of speed blur to the character? Or change the color of the sword's blur effect?

I'm not entirely sure, because I'm so bad at art in general, but any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Merlocker]

Best rout would have to be transparency. But I also suggest a cartoonish way of have the sword at the end and adding black lines that are curveish, like motion blur.

[yvesnadjarian]

But a brown sword? It look likes more a wodden stick.
You can try different colors for the sword, like light gray.

Im not sure if this would help, but if you dont want transparency, maybe you could try to do more sprites with less speed moviment on each of them. ie.:
on the 4rd row of your image, the 3rd image, you can try to break down on two or three.

for the big attack, blur is a good effect, maybe you try one of these:

- To add a shake effect on the target
- An aura around the sword
- increase the sprite moviment at the final of the move

Hope any of this helps

[Swifty]

The most important thing about animation is timing. It might look like a brown flag, if the swing is slow. Speed it up, and it might look like a fast swoosh of the sword. The colour as well is important, people don't really see brown swords (unless you intend for it to be a wooden sword).

Another thing I noticed and fixed up here, is the 'form' of the weapon. Your 'woosh' arc was distorted, that's not how the sword would look if it was brought down from above. If it's distorted it can give the impression of something soft (like a flag) so keep it solid and sharp and it'll look more like your sword. Also don't be afraid to push other colours too, like the arms. Anyway short adjustment of one of the attacks here:



Swifty

Edited by Swifty, 06 July 2012 - 03:57 PM.

[QuickPatch]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. And yes, it's just supposed to be a wooden sword.

for the big attack, blur is a good effect, maybe you try one of these:

- To add a shake effect on the target
- An aura around the sword
- increase the sprite moviment at the final of the move

Hope any of this helps

I think I'll try the aura element. I'm also going to edit so it's a little more horizontal, the way it's done now is just shoddy.

Another thing I noticed and fixed up here, is the 'form' of the weapon. Your 'woosh' arc was distorted, that's not how the sword would look if it was brought down from above. If it's distorted it can give the impression of something soft (like a flag) so keep it solid and sharp and it'll look more like your sword. Also don't be afraid to push other colours too, like the arms. Anyway short adjustment of one of the attacks here:



Swifty

How'd you make that gif? Actually, could you show what you edited so I can compare the frames separately?

Also, pushing the colors of the arms, do you mean making them blur as well, or something else?

EDIT: Mind if I steal that gif for my avatar? XD

Edited by QuickPatch, 06 July 2012 - 04:14 PM.

[Swifty]

How'd you make that gif? Actually, could you show what you edited so I can compare the frames separately?

Also, pushing the colors of the arms, do you mean making them blur as well, or something else?

I threw it in photoshop to make the .gif but there are other programs you could use to do that.
Here's the strip:

Yeah that's right, making the arms blur as well is what I meant by that.

Swifty

[kburkhart84]

Honestly, I think most good "sword-swishes" use transparency on the tail effect. For some parts, if the sword crosses the body(maybe in that strong attack for example if you want) the transparency then shows the character behind it as well. If you look at other games' animations of this, it seems that they all have transparency, at least on part of the tail.

[Swifty]

Mind if I steal that gif for my avatar? XD

Go for it mate You might want to save it/upload it somewhere yourself. I have it on my dropbox and I do clean it out every once in a while.

As everyone else is saying, I'd add some transparency to it too. Not too light, but just a little bit.

Swifty

Edited by Swifty, 07 July 2012 - 04:17 AM.

[QuickPatch]

Thanks everyone. This'll help really well. I'm still working on all the graphics, so I won't be able to show an updated sheet for a bit. Still, thanks.

One last thing. The transparency. I'm not a huge fan of that. Fire Emblem didn't use it, but then again, I'm not the chief artist for that game. I think I'll use it then, since I think it would fit nicely. The only trouble is how to add it. The program I use, Graphics Gale, doesn't have transparency. Anyone know a freeware program for it? Or actually, does GameMaker allow it in it's built in editor? I'm not entirely sure how do to do so.

I'm also trying to a slight aura effects. I tried a little glow on the hands, then I tried some after-image effects. Not quite sure what works, but I'll test it all out.

[kburkhart84]

Graphics Gale does support transparency in a limited fashion. It isn't full support as in directly paint over something, but you can put the sword swish on top and do that whole layer at a certain alpha. The program is actually misleading on that because you can choose an alpha value along with the color, but it doesn't appear to ever use it right.

The GIMP, though it is meant more for "higher quality" stuff, can be used for pixel art. And it does fully support transparency as far as I know. Also, the GIMP, with filters could possibly make that glow effect automatic. You could on a layer the "base" glow, and then add gauss noise to get the glow to it.

[dannyjenn]

What I'd do for transparency would be to make the sword and the guy (or the sword's blur, the sword, and the guy) all be separate sprites and then overlay them with code (using the image_alpha rather than actually giving any transparency to the sprite itself). That will allow you to change the amount of transparency it has easily without re-saving the sprite, and it will also allow the possibility of having more than one type of sword (either by changing the blend colour or using another sprite altogether)
If you don't want to do it that way and would prefer a single sprite, I'd highly recommend using a program that has layers (which the built-in sprite editor does not)

[kburkhart84]

The only issue I see with the above method is that if your sprite has no transarency, you have no good control over it at runtime. Yes, you can draw it with a set transarency, but it would apply for the whole thing. So if you want the point of the sword swipe to have a higher value then the inside(which makes sense because it is moving faster) you can't do that.

I agree with the need for layers in an image editor. I also agree with keeping that sprite separate, and for the same reasons. And in an image editing program with layers, it makes things easier because you can set the bottom layer to be the frames of the sprite so it is easier to line up the sword swish.