Animating?

  • #1, by elecThursday, 26. January 2017, 20:46 7 years ago
    Hello, fellow game Developers!

    So i sat in front of my Computer today, drawing a scene, just to realise i had to animate alot for this scene, really a lot.
    Since i userd yesterday the entire day to animate parts of a new character im asking myself, am i doing something wrong? Theres gotta be a better way...right?
    So im actually drawing with GIMP and animate the image through shifting the different screens, thats the best i could come up with, but the polish really suffers through this.
    How are you animating?
    Thanks for your Answers

    Forum Fan

    109 Posts


  • #2, by ke4Thursday, 26. January 2017, 22:05 7 years ago
    Hi we're using Adobe Animate(Flash) and yeah you're right. The amount of animations is huge. Basically making the graphic side of game is taking the biggest part of the whole development.

    You would probably save some time with using some animation software. Adobe Animate, Spriter Pro or Spine which should be supporter by Visionaire.

    Key Killer

    810 Posts

  • #3, by anna-arnoldFriday, 27. January 2017, 08:00 7 years ago
    Yes Animating is really much work. I'm animating with ToonBoom because it's the software that I can work best with, although the monthly Subscription (which must be at least Advanced (61€) for Commercial use) is extremely expensive, almost unaffordable, for me. I like the function to work with Vectors but also with Bitmaps. Also, I like the multilayering (one layer for the lineart, one layer for the coloring)

    I'm doing a Prototype-Level at the moment and I've got two main Characters to fully animate, I'm going mad :'( This week is because of other crisis'es too frustrating for me to go on animating without a break.

    I also recommend every other Animator that can afford breaks; do breaks if you're frustrated, or the results won't be appealing.

    Animating:
    I'm animating classically, tracing pictures etc., but Toonboom also supports rigging and has extra funtions for Game Animation.
    First I'm animating only the directions Southwest, Southeast, Northwest, Northeast and not the Directions east,west,south,north. And I'm only doing the lineart first.
    When I'm ready with the Direction Southeast, I can mirror it and correct it (for example the hair parting), so I've got Southeast and Southwest. With little work I can trace the North-Directions through the Southdirections (but that needs an extra portion attention) and then I color it. 

    Color:
    I don't know how other programs work, but if you're working with Vectors in ToonBoom, you may change the colors later on without much work. You don't like the yellow jacket? Just change it. Coloring is the last thing I'll do. I created a white testlevel in Visionaire for testing the quality of the animation before coloring.

    Ah and: Because my Characters will really have to change their outfits, I'm saving the Lineart so I simply can trace it for the next Outfit. It's not easy to animate with colored frames, in my opinion.

    Newbie

    95 Posts

  • #4, by sebastianFriday, 27. January 2017, 08:23 7 years ago
    Because i lm doing some low resolution stuff (1/5 HD) the most bone/rigging animation software is useless to me because when moving the arms, etc the bitmaps get rendered very weird and mostly a lot of detail in this low res art gets lost due to glitchy rotated/rendered limbs. 

    So im doing classical frame by frame onion skinning pixel art animation in photoshop and it works great so far (my brother also doing some stuff in gimp on his pc). But its very exhaustive. I switch a lot between animation a needed character pose and doing other stuff in the engine to keep my mind entertained smile 

    Thread Captain

    2346 Posts

  • #5, by anna-arnoldFriday, 27. January 2017, 08:37 7 years ago
    Yes Sebastian I know what you mean. I'd like to switch too, but for that I need at least the main Characters. I think as soon as the Prototype-Level is ready I'll be convinced by my game, again smile
    At the moment, Character No. 1 goes Backwards when she needs to go in the North-Directions. *giggle*

    Newbie

    95 Posts

  • #6, by LebosteinFriday, 27. January 2017, 09:48 7 years ago
    What about Aseprite for low pixel animation?
    https://www.aseprite.org/

    Key Killer

    621 Posts

  • #7, by georgmoensFriday, 27. January 2017, 10:10 7 years ago
    Hast du schon mal AnimeStudio (jetzt MOHO) probiert?

    Newbie

    87 Posts

  • #8, by ArtNovaFriday, 27. January 2017, 13:12 7 years ago
    In my early stage game prototyping Im using animations rendered in Daz3D and tweaked per frame in Photoshop.
    (background image is just taken from web for testing)

    Although Im pretty fine with how it looks for now, Im not sure if I will remodel/reanimate/rerender, or redraw it per frame at later stages (Im novice at drawing). Maybe I'll even leave her as she is, but just abit lighter, something like that:

    I got Spine for 2d character animation, but not sure for now, how much it can be hard to reproduce diagonal animations.

    Newbie

    41 Posts

  • #9, by elecFriday, 27. January 2017, 13:18 7 years ago
    Its funny, the first time i really noticed how much work i have to put in to animating was, when i realised, after animating my first character in a way im happy with, i have to do this 3 times again because of the other outfits that need to be created, right now im just avoiding it by drawing scenes, but i guess ill have to at some point

    Forum Fan

    109 Posts

  • #10, by ArtNovaFriday, 27. January 2017, 13:24 7 years ago
    Yep. Animation, in my opinion, is the most hardest thing in adventure game creation.

    Newbie

    41 Posts

  • #11, by anna-arnoldFriday, 27. January 2017, 15:14 7 years ago
    Hast du schon mal AnimeStudio (jetzt MOHO) probiert?
    Wenn's an mich ging; ich hab alles 2-Dimensionale durchprobiert roll Aber ohne Bitmapfunktion komm ich nicht klar.

    Newbie

    95 Posts