[In Development] Pixel Art Decision 2013: Epic Poll, Inside

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What kind of game would you like content for?

Final Fantasy Tactics
11
16%
Nintendoverse Freeroam
18
27%
Strictly Pokemon
7
10%
Sim/ Manager
7
10%
Fantasy RPG
24
36%
I'll specify in comments.
0
No votes
 
Total votes : 67

[In Development] Pixel Art Decision 2013: Epic Poll, Inside

Postby Terrantor!!! » Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:22 pm

Sup, ppl!

So you guys seem to be fond of my pixeling skills. I'm both flattered and motivated to continue slaving over a mousepad and retina-burning pink screen. Now the only thing I really need to know is in what direction I must continue. Above are a few options the community will have; some vague, some to the point. If I seem TOO vague, go ahead and check the final option and post your idea in the comment. All comments are taken into consideration, and your words do mean much to me. so happy voting and I look forward to hearing from you all!! :)
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Last edited by Terrantor!!! on Fri Feb 22, 2013 7:42 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby QuizmasterBos » Sat Jan 19, 2013 5:06 pm

Doesn't this post belong in the tutorials page? You can ask questions about animation there. Can a moderator please move the thread?

Either way, I can't help you. I have absolutely no understanding about animating. You'll have to wait until someone else pops in.
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby KaTsuO_O » Sat Jan 19, 2013 5:31 pm

It's pretty simple actually. All you need to know is how how to separate the parts, and what parts to separate. You don't need to know how bone works, it only works for Actionscript 3.0, and even some who use 3.0 doesn't use bones.

Here's a leg I drew for this example:
Image 1.png
Image 1.png (6.58 KiB) Viewed 19081 times


You can't just separate it like this and think that that will work.
Image 2.png
Image 2.png (6.63 KiB) Viewed 19081 times


Because when I bend it, you see where they are separated. That is also about as far as it goes without it looking too bad.
Image 3.png
Image 3.png (7.88 KiB) Viewed 19081 times


What you need to do is add a rounded end to the part that is supposed to be bellow the other.
Image 4.png
Image 4.png (7.16 KiB) Viewed 19081 times


Now when you bend it, you don't notice where they are separated.
Image 5.png
Image 5.png (6.72 KiB) Viewed 19081 times


You can even go further and it still looks like it is supposed to.
Image 6.png
Image 6.png (7.1 KiB) Viewed 19081 times


What to separate is up to you. If you want to be able to move the feet separately, then you need to separate the feet. If you want to be able to bend the torso, then you need to separate it in to hips and chest.
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby Terrantor!!! » Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:50 pm

QuizmasterBos Wrote:Doesn't this post belong in the tutorials page? You can ask questions about animation there. Can a moderator please move the thread?

Either way, I can't help you. I have absolutely no understanding about animating. You'll have to wait until someone else pops in.


Hey, there. I do plan to start creating content for this thread, so I ultimately see this going in the creative section.

@Katsuo:

Thanks for the advice!! I think I got this.
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby Blargh » Mon Jan 21, 2013 4:07 pm

Make sure your transform points (the white circles/cross-hairs) are at the point where most rotations and skews are going to happen from. For instance, on the torso up there, the boobs would likely be top-left so that you can get an easy jiggle effect from skewing the right side up and down or the bottom left and right. KaTsuO_O's leg could have the transform point at the knee (to line up with the body based on the fore-leg position when the fore-leg's position needs to remain static), but it will probably be better to have the transform point at the ass cheek because you'll probably make more rotations from the body. Basically, when you make your first model and create all of the symbols for each part, move the shapes around inside the movieclips/graphics so that the point you want to rotate from is over the cross-hairs. Then go back to the model and move all the pieces back into place.

Swapping symbols of similar type is also a lot easier if they share the same transform point position. As an example, hands should all have the transform point at the same point at the wrist. Then if you want to change from, say, an open hand to a fist you can make the swap without having to rotate/skew the new part back into position. Classic tweens (I don't know about other tweens) will cause an object to twist and skew to match the new transform point (including flipping if the two were reversed), so if you swap an object and it's out of place or mangled, the tween animation is guaranteed to become mangled as well.

You can also move the transform point around temporarily for more accurate rotations, but classic tweens at the least don't like it when the previous frame and the next frame have different transform points, so you need to remember to reset it afterward (double-click the white circle).
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby GoRepeat » Tue Jan 22, 2013 2:42 am

The bone tool is very useful for what you are trying to do. Make your base model set, then within that symbol your adaptable/swappable "skins" bound to a variable control. Whip out the bone tool to make some limbs along a similar vein to Katsu's tutorial and you are in business.
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby Ivan-Aedler » Tue Jan 22, 2013 3:23 am

I dont like the bone tool because:

1. As everyone knows, it only works in AS3.
2. Its more CPU intensive.
3. It does not allow deformations (like streching) so you will have to make each boob in its own classic tween layer, for example.
4. It's a one-way transformation. That is, once you create the 'green frames' (bone tool layer), you cant return back to its parts without converting to frame-by-frame (a thing you want to avoid at all costs). Do you want to add/remove a given part? Same problem.
5. It does not act well with scaling. Sometimes, in a given animation, when you scale, registration points change position, in a way you will get a mangled result, and worse, UNDO may not work! (tested with Adobe CS6, student version, latest version of JAN 2013 and older version SEPT 2012).
6. You can't swap objects (like hand types), or remove/add objects (like a skirt being shred) without breaking the bone layer into two or more set of frames, one with a given MC part, other with a new MC part.

So you can think of Bone Tool as a 'black box' that creates a really nice animation for you but without the needed flexibility.
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby GoRepeat » Wed Jan 23, 2013 2:23 am

Ivan-Aedler Wrote:I dont like the bone tool because:

1. As everyone knows, it only works in AS3.
2. Its more CPU intensive.
3. It does not allow deformations (like streching) so you will have to make each boob in its own classic tween layer, for example.
4. It's a one-way transformation. That is, once you create the 'green frames' (bone tool layer), you cant return back to its parts without converting to frame-by-frame (a thing you want to avoid at all costs). Do you want to add/remove a given part? Same problem.
5. It does not act well with scaling. Sometimes, in a given animation, when you scale, registration points change position, in a way you will get a mangled result, and worse, UNDO may not work! (tested with Adobe CS6, student version, latest version of JAN 2013 and older version SEPT 2012).
6. You can't swap objects (like hand types), or remove/add objects (like a skirt being shred) without breaking the bone layer into two or more set of frames, one with a given MC part, other with a new MC part.

So you can think of Bone Tool as a 'black box' that creates a really nice animation for you but without the needed flexibility.



Pffttt.

1) I use an AS3 model file then I just export the animations to my AS2 game
2) See 1
3) Yeah, I don't advocate using the bone tool for EVERYTHING... just limbs, really (arms, legs).
4) You can break apart bone object easily... what you are supposed to do though, is make the actual clip an editable subMC so that it will auto update the bone animation when you edit the main symbol
5) Never ran into this!
6) Again, subMCs dude! Frame 1, full, Frame 2, torn, Frame 3, off... the master MC is what is in the bone tool for animation!

I used to dislike it as well, then I realized as long as you embed your movie clips productively, it is an amazing utility for making limb motion. Using it is always 500% better than going frame by frame in a tween because your bent knee doesn't want to stay connected at the joint or the turn of an elbow does not want to stay connected as the arm rotates.

HUMBUG I SAY GOOD SIR
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby Ivan-Aedler » Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:02 am

Gorepete Wrote:4) You can break apart bone object easily... what you are supposed to do though, is make the actual clip an editable subMC so that it will auto update the bone animation when you edit the main symbol....subMCs dude! Frame 1, full, Frame 2, torn, Frame 3, off... the master MC is what is in the bone tool for animation!

Could you explain better, please? SubMC => Create a symbol on top of the current symbol?

Gorepete Wrote:5) Never ran into this!

Please click to enlarge. Example FLA in the end

to gorepete.png
to gorepete.png (100.92 KiB) Viewed 15904 times
to gorepete2.png
to gorepete2.png (57.55 KiB) Viewed 15905 times

The attachment scale problem - bone tool.fla is no longer available

Gorepete Wrote:I used to dislike it as well, then I realized as long as you embed your movie clips productively, it is an amazing utility for making limb motion. Using it is always 500% better than going frame by frame in a tween because your bent knee doesn't want to stay connected at the joint or the turn of an elbow does not want to stay connected as the arm rotates.

Now you're right. Even putting registration points right, rotations that are more circular make them act in ziguezague.

FTW!
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby GoRepeat » Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:47 am

Ivan-Aedler Wrote:Could you explain better, please? SubMC => Create a symbol on top of the current symbol?


Each flash animator is different in how they like to structure their characters, of course, and no one way is "right" but I generally do it in 5 "depths"

Stage Depth - this is the main movie clip that will be "on stage" in the main timeline. Use it for scaling loading/unloading
Animation Depth - these clips compose the Stage clip and represent all the characters actions (walk, jump, attack, etc). This is the depth you would see the most action script / controls.
Parts Depth - these clips make up the actual parts of the character (legs, arms, body, etc) for the animations. This is the depth you would see the bone tool being used.
Skin Depth - these clips are the different character skins within each body part (Eva's arm vs Bridge's Arm vs Dusty's arm etc). This is the depth all the customization is in.
State Depth - if I feel like being that detailed, these clips are the 'armor' state on the body parts. This is the depth you see whole armor, torn armor, no armor.

So a character would look something like:

Character timeline on stage
-->Character timeline with animations
---->Character timeline with body parts
------>Character timeline with body part skins
-------->Character armor/clothing condition

I have found this structure lets me have the most flexibility with the least amount of library objects, but it is all personal preference. To me, this also makes editing and updating extremely easy because all the custom stuff is on the bottom two depths. So you make one adjustment to the design, and it automatically carries up through all the characters and their animations.
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby Ivan-Aedler » Wed Jan 23, 2013 4:33 am

Gorepete Wrote:Each flash animator is different in how they like to structure their characters, of course, and no one way is "right" but I generally do it in 5 "depths"

Oh, that! Thank you, yes I understand that organisation.
I use exactly that structure, with one small add: cloth part is subMc of body parts, and the state (dressed, not so dressed) is a subMc of clothes.
Well, and how this is going to do with bone tool? In the example above, I created the bone structure in all body parts involved, so the 'green frames' is in 'Animation Depth' MC. Of course, when I double click in each part, I can edit it manually.

The problem is that I need to swap an arm with another arm (a newer MC I've created). So I need to swap a critical BONE part, not inside of it (like updateing its state for all ARM parts).
I also need to update THIGH MC, a critical bone structure. I can only change INSIDE it, not itself. This is a problem when you want to update the character THIGH with an enemy THIGH, or an updated THIGH version that is in another library folder. So the only way I see here is to enter inside THIGH, and update it, so every pose and everyone who uses THIGH will have this update. But, if I need 'animal thigh' just there, editing inside it will make THIGH an animal shape for that pose. But all THIGHs MC will have the wrong shape, just because I wanted one pose to have a correct shape in its bones.

Ok, this is easy to fix, anyway. You just BE CAREFUL not to put a given MC as a critical bone part that you may change in the future. If you call it 'HUMAN THIGH', it will be like this forever. You cant swap Mcs, only edit inside them. Or, like you said, create another 'father' MC that will be the critical bone, like 'Main_Thigh', which will contain THIGH.

For about the scale/move problem (they all get mangled up), I still dont know a solution. I just dont know whats causing this, but it might be an exceptional case. As I have 50 poses to be adjusted, I'm almost exporting them back to AS2 model (tweens), so I can edit them better without those glitches.
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby Terrantor!!! » Wed Jan 23, 2013 5:54 am

Gotta say I'm a little intimidated by the bones. I'll just stick with the origin points and stuff. Thanks for the info on that, blargh. As for Gore and Ivan, thx. But what you are talking about is above me and I can't comprehend what you are saying.
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby Zeus Kabob » Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:15 am

Cool. So your thread is kind of a combo of a tutorial on model creation, and the creation of a model itself?
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby GoRepeat » Wed Jan 23, 2013 11:46 pm

Ivan-Aedler Wrote:The problem is that I need to swap an arm with another arm (a newer MC I've created). So I need to swap a critical BONE part, not inside of it (like updateing its state for all ARM parts).
I also need to update THIGH MC, a critical bone structure. I can only change INSIDE it, not itself. This is a problem when you want to update the character THIGH with an enemy THIGH, or an updated THIGH version that is in another library folder. So the only way I see here is to enter inside THIGH, and update it, so every pose and everyone who uses THIGH will have this update. But, if I need 'animal thigh' just there, editing inside it will make THIGH an animal shape for that pose. But all THIGHs MC will have the wrong shape, just because I wanted one pose to have a correct shape in its bones.



I think I get what you are trying to say... the bone tween itself acts as a consistent movie clip, unlike normal keyframes where you can swap parts in and out without affecting the other keyframes; right? What I do with the bone tool to get around this is just F6 (insert new keyframe) twice to get two key frames next to eachother on the bone timeline, then ctrl-c and ctrl-v the second keyframe on top of itself. This will create a new instance of the bone on the same timeframe, and when you swap the movie clip, it won't affect the other keyframes before it.

Hotkeys work differently in bone animations than on regular time lines... watch for a solid line to indicate a new KEYFRAME on the bone animation as opposed to a new POSITION (which looks like a normal tween keyframe).

An awesome hotkey to get used to, which is universal, is to hold down ALT and drag on the timeline. This will make a copy of the keyframe you clicked while holding alt and you can drag it around to other places. In a bone animation, it copies the current pose to avoid the above treatment issue.

Alt + Drag on the timeline = best shortcut ever.

There is also an extension you can get called MassSwap which you should find useful, it lets you select multiple objects across the timeline (edit multiple frames) and swap ALL of them with a new object with one click. Like if you ever made an animation then realized you used the wrong part 100 frames into it. MassSwap will let you fix all of them at once.
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Re: [PreConceptual] Animation-Friendly Flash Model?

Postby Ivan-Aedler » Tue Jan 29, 2013 3:13 am

Gorepete Wrote:I think I get what you are trying to say... the bone tween itself acts as a consistent movie clip, unlike normal keyframes where you can swap parts in and out without affecting the other keyframes; right? What I do with the bone tool to get around this is just F6 (insert new keyframe) twice to get two key frames next to eachother on the bone timeline, then ctrl-c and ctrl-v the second keyframe on top of itself. This will create a new instance of the bone on the same timeframe, and when you swap the movie clip, it won't affect the other keyframes before it.

Thank you Gorepete! Sorry about a bit of delay to answer! I will create new keyframes in order to create another group of bones (master MC, lets call like this) with the corrected parts.

Gorepete Wrote:There is also an extension you can get called MassSwap which you should find useful, it lets you select multiple objects across the timeline (edit multiple frames) and swap ALL of them with a new object with one click.

This I already know ;) There is also 'MultiSwap'. This one dont ask you a confirmation.
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Re: [In Development] Pixtor Model.

Postby Tovi » Sun Feb 17, 2013 1:28 am

This new post you made really intrigues me. I am all in favor of more pixel-art based games as I could really contribute to those kinds of games, seeing as I've really depth-ened myself in pixel-based art thanks to minecraft! XD
Thanks to said minecraft I wouldn't deem the former glory of the great pixel too dead in the water. I like the concepts and wold love to see where you're going with it.
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Re: [In Development] Pixtor Model.

Postby FlashOfSonic » Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:12 am

Valpas Wrote:This new post you made really intrigues me. I am all in favor of more pixel-art based games as I could really contribute to those kinds of games, seeing as I've really depth-ened myself in pixel-based art thanks to minecraft! XD
Thanks to said minecraft I wouldn't deem the former glory of the great pixel too dead in the water. I like the concepts and wold love to see where you're going with it.

I agree with this. Especially since humbird0 does some great things with pixels and sprites.
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Re: [In Development] Pixtor Model.

Postby Terrantor!!! » Mon Feb 18, 2013 7:15 am

Valpas Wrote:This new post you made really intrigues me. I am all in favor of more pixel-art based games as I could really contribute to those kinds of games, seeing as I've really depth-ened myself in pixel-based art thanks to minecraft! XD
Thanks to said minecraft I wouldn't deem the former glory of the great pixel too dead in the water. I like the concepts and wold love to see where you're going with it.


Well stay tuned, as I plan to contribute my Artwork and tinker with the formula a little. Feel free to submit any work you think is good enough to vectorize.
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Re: [In Development] Pixtor Model: Update 2-21

Postby Terrantor!!! » Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:00 am

Got some new content up above!
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Re: [In Development] Pixtor Model: Update 2-21

Postby Knight Cream » Thu Feb 21, 2013 11:39 pm

Hey it looks great! So are planning on making like an isometric game? cuz thatd be awesome :D
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