The Leflair Sprite Sweatshop, Voxels need not apply

[Leflair]

There are ways to get around that problem with the guns, for example if you got a humanoid sprite that doesn't wield weapons at all, or got them built in, or holds them in a way where overlapping aint an issue - as for the walking stuff, the game could simply switch out the models so it's just one (whole) model loaded in each frame, considering we got like 20 years of computer power over the original I don't think it would be much of a data sink 

I did propose that the game have a switch for handling it one way or the other, so depending on what kind of asset you want to include it can be a lot less work involved. A bit like setting up a fancy Excel sheet, some extra work up front but you save time in the long run.

e: Ideally all the loading information for the model/frames would be editable in a simple .txt file or similar, so we can set exactly how Y-levels, load-orders of overlapping frames, number of total frames and their order etc should load for each individual folder/sprite.

Maybe it's not possible to go over a certain number of frames for an animation sequence due to how the game works but the other parts would really give some freedom!

[Leflair]

Enough talk, more pixels!

East-facing arm set minus "Stationary unarmed":

Going for a bit of a jogging feel. Closed fists = Powerful, or so some art book I read said. Hmm, making some close combat boxing animations might be fun 

I wonder if the bigger gun will block like half the face one some of diagonal posing models like this one, then again the Veronian got a big third eye on the forehead that should peak up above so it might not be a problem

[luke83]

Looking good , cant wait to see them in game

[Leflair]

S Arm movements:


Gonna be tricky to get the weapons to line up properly, the Muton sprite is very broad and bulky. I'm trying to keep an eye on where the hands are in relation to each other though, everything else is pretty irrelevant.

E: SE Armo movements done:

Took a lot of work to get those arms looking decent. Process right now: Do drafts of all the arms and worry about things lining up properly on the big grid later.
Assembling the models to get a good view of how things should look complete helps a lot. Gotta be careful not to have weirdness like arms/hands that should be "behind" the model show up "infront" of the legs and such.

[Leflair]

NW arms movements


Was a bit worried that some of the hands would overlap the legs before I started gluing on the legs (and not sure how the game handles that when it comes to "overlap priority") which could look wonky if an arm was supposed to be "infront" of the leg while the hand ends up behind the hip or something. Turns out none of the hands did so no worries there.

I've noticed that the game have "complete" arms even when the main body should hide most of them (diagonal facings/side view). Might be smart to fill in with a dark colour "just in case" the arm doesn't link up perfectly with the body as it wouldn't be noticable then. Might help with positioning too...

NE done


SW done


Because the body hides the arms I chose not to draw the hidden arms, no need to have them pop out if they end up misaligned with the body.

Only 40 frames (West and North) + 8 stills + Picking death animations to go!

Well... that and getting them in game.

[Volutar]

There shouldn't be totally hidden arms you know. It looks like they have some sort of T-Rex "pseudo arms". Arm moving on SW and NE looks weird to me, looks like they are waving with forearm only. Like they have non uniform shoulder cramp (left/right movements are non symmetric).

[Leflair]

See your point.

How about something like this then?


e: Just discovered by a misclick that Paint.net comes with a pixel grid system built in. That should help things along later!

[Volutar]

Darken far hand? Don't know. This will be fine in dark environment, but I doubt it will good when bright like desert.
Have you seen your animation in dynamic? As far as I see his left hand is moving weird way, no front-back waving, just some strange circles with diameter of 3 pixels. I don't see any frames when arm is infront. I thought you just haven't finished, but now I see you done this sorta intentionaly.

[Leflair]

No, I haven't seen them in motion yet - these are the first drafts. Some will be ok, other will need adjustment. Maybe I could add a little shoulder jostling to reduce some of the static feel (although I don't want it to look spazzy in the other direction).

Did these two in the meanwhile:





Here's there's even more of the body blocking the inner arm but I've got a few frames where it juts out a little - can't do much more than that without it look a bit weird though.

[moriarty]

I only just noticed: the fifth frame of the "west" leg movement (as well as the first frame of the "north" leg movement, of course) looks a little... weird. it looks like he's moving his "front" leg outward instead of forward, because the feet are on the same level, when the "front" foot should be "higher" (the direction of movement is away and to the side, after all, so the foot should move approximately 1 pixel up for every 2 pixels to the side.

am I making sense?   

[Leflair]

Yeah, I've noticed that too a little. The moving foot is actually one pixel below the inner one which creates the "side-stepping" effect. Hard to picture how one of those bug legs would move to their maximum extent at that angle 

Would something like this look better? (Might need to slim the leg a little)


Third draft of the sideway arms motions too:


Going for more of a "wheel" motion of the outer arm and darkened up the inner arm a little more. This angle is bloody hard to work with using this body type, both the head design, hunchback and legs conspire to make it a headache to look right.

[moriarty]

legs and arms look just about right in this one, I think


...I made a quick-and-dirty attempt at an animated gif... something doesn't quite look right with his right leg, seems like it moves "up" too much, compared to the other one. also, there's one rather sharp "drop" of the sprite, resulting from a 3-pixel vertical offset between the last and first frame. also, I think the arm could move "forward" a little more, but maybe that's just me

[luke83]

Even with your observations , it still looks awesome 

[moriarty]

Even with your observations , it still looks awesome 

absolutely. I'm a big fan of that monster

[Volutar]

Actually no unit should be moving up-down on its own during walk cycle. Up-down movement done programmily, because it includes weapon reposition, which obviously will hang still during walk on the gif above.