The Mana World Forums

ElvenProgrammer wrote:Unfortunately diagonal directions are not supported

Heh

Cosmostrator wrote:One question, I'm working on Mac OSX, does anyone know a good program to create the animated gifs in?

I think you can use GIMP in MacOS as well.

Cosmostrator wrote:I read through the pixel artist tutorial. I was more interested in seeing if there was enough interest in the small version to put the time and effort into creating an entire sprite. I've found that a lot of what is offered without interest on this board gets passed up.
Now I think I will work on a hopping animation, then an attack.
One question, I'm working on Mac OSX, does anyone know a good program to create the animated gifs in?
-DAVe
edit:put in v1 of hop animation

I read through it too. Good stuff, despite the fact that I knew a lot of it already.

Also, does my interest count?

Hmm.. I don't like how it's head swings up before it hops. Maybe you could try to just do a hopping animation..? I mean, sure, make it interesting, but the whole head thing kind of ruins it for me.

Lastly, as Elven said, GIMP works good. It's what I use for both creation and animation of projects.

I think the head hopping would work if the body in general seemed more flexible during the bounce: It seems like his head is the heaviest part of its body and it only has to bounce up its hed with its huge neck muscles and the momentum will bounce up the entire body (relatively absurd, but could look funny enough to use).

Or if the majority of people don't like that idea, we can just go with regular limb powered hopping.

I like the head swing. It looks funny.

In my opinion it looks more like a creature that walks than a creature that hops with its heavy body.

I don't like the texture at all. As it's just a resize of the concept drawing it doesn't fit in at all. Also it's completely blue, this makes it boring colourwise.
About the hopping animation... as pauan said, it looks like he hops by just throwing his head in the air rather then jumping. First he should bend his legs a bit, then stretch 'em pushing himself not only upward but also forward.

I don't like the texture at all. As it's just a resize of the concept drawing it doesn't fit in at all. Also it's completely blue, this makes it boring colourwise.

What would you like to see with the texture and color. "I don't like it" helps a little, "I'd like to see better defined fur and a little brown, green and red worked in" helps a lot more.
The original picture I posted was resized, outlined, combined with different colors of blue to achieve the best look, then edited by hand for anything funny looking. If you look close up you will see about 40 different shades of blue and about 6 shades of yellow. The animation is done with 16 shades.
I don't like the way the hop looks either. I didn't get to do too much on it last night cause my wife made me go to bed. Actually if I remove the frame where the furball is in the air he has a good half of a shuffle walk. I think I am going to pursue that further, that is once I get off work in 8 hours
Pauan your interest definately counts. It doesn't hurt that Rotonen, ElvenProgrammer, Crush, and Modanung are looking at it too.
Thanks for all the feedback-
-DAVe

Well, having read that you'd like some 'better defined' feedback, here's my two cents. I think it's a good concept study, but it's a bad sprite. The animation is currently with the mob at a 45 degree angle. This is fine if that is a method you use to explore/define the movements/look of the mob. It will however not 'fit' in the game since all other sprites move in one of four directions (N, E, S, or W). About the coloring, I have no defined opinion on that as I'm not familiar with the subject. I can however tell you that something "feels weird" about it. With a furball mob like this one, I would expect either all fur and no well-defined elements, or a lot of fur and some contrasting well defined elements. In other words I'd like to see hands, feet and face in a different color.

Totally unrelated ... if you use other colors for the hands/face you might think about using a rolled-up-like-a-ball pose instead of the normal standing frame. That will cloak the creature in it's natural surroundings. The camouflage standing pose could then be used for an ambush attack or a method of escape. This offcourse assuming that this is a creature that would warrant an AI controller in the foreseeable future.

Good luck

Cosmostrator wrote:What would you like to see with the texture and color. "I don't like it" helps a little, "I'd like to see better defined fur and a little brown, green and red worked in" helps a lot more.
The original picture I posted was resized, outlined, combined with different colors of blue to achieve the best look, then edited by hand for anything funny looking. If you look close up you will see about 40 different shades of blue and about 6 shades of yellow. The animation is done with 16 shades.

The outline is the only thing that really looks pixeled. That makes it look like an outlined picture, not a complete piece of pixel art. What I'm saying is use a concept drawing as reference, not as a base you edit to get the result.
About the colours, I had something in mind that looks more like this:

i think modanungs one looks more "real". ( lol, call something that doesn't exist real its funny )

Avaniel wrote:Totally unrelated ... if you use other colors for the hands/face you might think about using a rolled-up-like-a-ball pose instead of the normal standing frame. That will cloak the creature in it's natural surroundings. The camouflage standing pose could then be used for an ambush attack or a method of escape.

Nice idea. We might do something like the flowers in SoM, first make 'em look like an ordinary tile (snowball/hill), but when you walk close they turn out to be creatures.

That is a great idea

Cosmostrator wrote:Pauan your interest definately counts. It doesn't hurt that Rotonen, ElvenProgrammer, Crush, and Modanung are looking at it too.
Thanks for all the feedback-
-DAVe

You'll find that, despite their constant criticism and bashing, they still pay attention and are interested in anything that might help this project. Sure, they have high standards, but I don't see a problem with that. The only time they show a lack of interest is where it's either impossible to implement, or it is irrelevant to the project.

Plus, being the lowly peon artist I am, naturally I would be interested in anything art related. And, if I can pawn off some of my work onto somebody else, that is a plus as well...

I think walking would be better for it too... just doesnt look like somethin that would hop

Recolored.. some. Still haven't finished dithering the fur.

Standing up, taking a step then resting again. Note I haven't recolored these pics yet.


Walking continuously. The head moving looks a little funny here.
Sorry for so little so late, I got sick this afternoon and spent most of the afternoon sleeping.
Avaniel - I'm not quite sure what you mean about the MOB or the 45 degree angle. I'll see what I can do about an at rest hiding pic.
Downloaded GIMP, but I don't have the x11 library for osx 14 so I'll have to find the install disk, didn't feel like paying $50 for the Darwin installer.
Well I'm going to bed-
-DAVe