I put my game related things in this thread

[Zorafim]

Animation dump for future use:











.exe of testing area:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/e6lkfmoaqwfzekd/Home.zip

As always, criticism is welcome.

[Zorafim]

The concept for my next animation. I couldn't figure out how it should look, so I thought I should write it down first. Turned out to be a good idea.

To the left is my concept for an 8 frame animation. Since Levia will swim in a wave-like motion, I wanted to make sure I knew where each body part would be on the wave at any given time. H would be super high, h is high, l is low, L is super low.
I saw what would happen, and it looked like Levia would be going way higher and lower than I wanted. So I tried again with a 6 frame animation. This time I combined h and l to just m (midddle), and it looks much more tame. I'll be using this going forward.



You can see my actual artistic skill here.

So my next goal is to take the 6 frame animation, and draw frames 1 and 4. As the two extremes, I'll be able to draw the rest of the frames between these two. That will both save drawing time, and create a better timed animation.

[qoxolg]

Well, it might be good for you to know that I am no artistic person AT ALL. I approach drawing in a very structured way. Things like style usually come from shortcuts and habits that unconsciously slip in.

I think a more structured approach to drawing will probably work for you. Drawing is for a large part just technical (things like perspective and lighting) and knowledge. Both require 0 artistic talent. Just time and effort.

For games you also need to be the most lazy person possible. I usually spent more time up front creating multi-usage assets or generic gameplay systems that later on save me a ton of time. Good assets can be re-used in all kinds of ways you wouldn’t imagine. You can create 5 rocks with each their own textures and one side to use, or you can create 5 rocks with two usable sides and make some generic textures that you can apply to each rock, which will give you 50 rock variations, instead of 5. Usually the setup for a generic solution is harder and takes more time up front, but you can save so much time in the end.

Also, the idle animation now looks really good! Keep it up!

[Zorafim]

Also, the idle animation now looks really good! Keep it up!

Senpai noticed me

So I need to find some cheat sheets, eh? I should research that.

[Zorafim]

Starting on the next animation, here's my first frame.



Oh, the sideways nature makes it more postable. Neato.
I'm not sure if anything looks funky about it or not, so hopefully I'll catch any flaws as I blend frames. Until then, I would appreciate any criticism.
And thanks for your input, Qoxolg. The back was bent too low for the last one. I straightened that out and shortened the neck, and it looked a bit better.

On a related note, I'm thanking God for this mermaid tail craze. I have so much reference now.

[Zorafim]

Yeah, it looked pretty funky. Take two?

[Zorafim]

New animation! I realized how slow I'm going by focusing too much on details, so I tried to do this one as lazily as possible. Lots of copy pasting, and I tried to do each new piece as quickly as possible. I think I still need some work done on the hair and maybe a frame on the fins, but otherwise I'm not seeing much wrong with it. I may give it a day and look back at it and see if there's anything I want changed. Until then, I could use any thoughts anyone has about it.

Now I can finally do some programming!
*googles how to change from water to land*

Spoiler!

[Zorafim]

Standing sprite. I'll need this if I want to look decent on land.

[qoxolg]

For the swimming other then the fins needing some extra flow, I think you might wanna look at the head? Wouldn't it be unpracticed for the head to face down a couple of times when you are going full speed ahead?

[Zorafim]

The head did look a little wonky, and the fins do seem a little stiff. Thanks for the input, I'm gonna see what I can do.