Non-sliding walk animation is jerkier than sliding

  • #1, by dionousFriday, 06. October 2017, 13:53 7 years ago
    Hi all,

    Did some tests with an 8-frame character animation and switched from sliding to non-sliding by setting the offset between each frame.

    It works and it's more correct this way, but the result is clearly jerkier than using the sliding animation, such that i have to switch back to sliding i think.

    It seems that by definition, sliding will be always smoother and would be the best solution provided that you set it up correctly. From what i understand, Deponia is using sliding walk cycles, as they are always smoother than the non-slide ones.

    What i think now is that sliding animation is better for lower frame walk cycles (e.g. 8) which normally require bigger offset to move at a decent speed, while the non-sliding maybe provides better result for more frame cycles where the offset is smaller.


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  • #2, by afrlmeFriday, 06. October 2017, 15:16 7 years ago
    Non-sliding requires you to align the feet correctly. It's a lot of work to get it right as it updates to a new frame & offsets it from the last frame by the value you provided. You have to tinker with both the delay & offset values, you can't just have it move 30 pixels between each frame like the sliding animation as it will look like shit!

    The sliding animation works like a tween & transitions the current frame position to the next frame position over the specified global delay time or the custom frame time if you specified a specific amount of time for the frame.

    Anyway, if you get it right then you should have a character that has planted feet like games with 3D characters.

    https://i.gyazo.com/0bc9c9040b2fafa4fd882e8b95708daa.gif

    Obviously doesn't look as smooth in that as it's a gif created with gyazo.

    https://youtu.be/jBojQ3uVrUQ

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  • #3, by dionousFriday, 06. October 2017, 15:20 7 years ago
    Thanks for that, as i suspected, you are using 32(!) frames for the animation, this is a case that non-slide can work smoothly smile

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  • #4, by afrlmeFriday, 06. October 2017, 15:44 7 years ago
    Thanks for that, as i suspected, you are using 32(!) frames for the animation, this is a case that non-slide can work smoothly smile

    I previously used 14 frames. Works just as well. You just need enough frames to make it look nice enough as it's updating position on each frame change. 14 is the amount of frames they used in Monkey Island 3 for each walk direction. It's all down to the timing really. Make it fast enough & it will look much smoother.

    We decided to test a 32 frame walk animation. I've not quite finished adding them all yet & I still need to tweak the alignment on some of them a bit. The diagonal walk animations are a pain in the arse to sort out. Also I had to adjust delay down to 40ms to compensate for the amount of bloody frames otherwise the character moves really slow at the intended 80ms we used before. 40ms for regular walk & I change to 20ms for fast walk. I like the new movement system Alex sorted recently as it makes it so easy to update the walk speed.

    P.S: I linked the youtube video in my last post.

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  • #5, by dionousFriday, 06. October 2017, 16:12 7 years ago
    Thanks for the video, looks nice and it is clear that you need a lot of frames for such a smooth effect, which nevertheless i'm sure it's a pain!

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  • #6, by afrlmeFriday, 06. October 2017, 16:25 7 years ago
    Pretty sure the 14 frame animation we used in the ALLD demo with VS 4.2.5 looked pretty good too. According the Marian, the character will walk differently in each episode. In episode 1 he's a bit of a nervous character & so he walks like he's treading on eggshells or something. In episode 2 he will move more purposefully & in the third & final episode he will be walking confidently & with determination. Kind of interesting in a way I suppose as the characters appearance also changes throughtout the game. Hat & Beard (looking all amish) to no hat to no beard with ripped sleeves to look like han solo apparently - I dunno... I think Marian is a bit of a geek. grin

    Here's the 14 frame non-slide walk animation we used for the demo which we created with vs 4.2.5. Still looks pretty nice to me, but we had some questionable animation frame selection hence the lurching in one of the walk directions. I have bad memory & accidentally deleted or selected one of the incorrect frames. Originally it was 32 frames which we carefully stripped down to 14 frames for optimization reasons.

    https://youtu.be/8TlZjVN0wYY

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  • #7, by dionousFriday, 06. October 2017, 16:30 7 years ago
    Hat & Beard (looking all amish)
    Was going to ask that! Would bet he is some kind of rabbi razz

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  • #8, by afrlmeFriday, 06. October 2017, 16:34 7 years ago
    He's an organic vegetable farmer, but I thought he looked Amish & because Marian did the voice over for the demo to save money it meant his German accent when he spoke English wasn't out of place when we decided to pretend the protagonist may actually be Amish. grin

    P.S: check my last post. I updated the thread with new text & a youtube video I just uploaded of the 14 frame non-sliding walk animation we used for the ALLD tech demo.

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  • #9, by dionousFriday, 06. October 2017, 20:18 7 years ago
    P.S: check my last post. I updated the thread with new text & a youtube video I just uploaded of the 14 frame non-sliding walk animation we used for the ALLD tech demo.
    Thanks for that!

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