Now that we’re caught up..
First off, let me say that there was no good tutorial for how this process even works that I could find online, and I searched off and on for weeks. Some people covered different parts of this idea, but no one used the idea to the extent that I needed to. The new system basically works like this:
Instead of me hand-drawing every frame of animation, I realized I could just draw pieces and manipulate them. What’s even better, is that I could take any of these pieces and swap them out for a different piece that would move the same way as the piece it was replacing. Meaning, I could replace the naked foot with a shoe, and the shoe would move the same way without me having animate it at all.
So in essence, I found a way to draw each piece of clothing only once instead of eight times per direction (4 times total vs 32), whiling making the program do the hard part for me. Granted with this method I do lose a little creative control, but it’s still very possible for me to go in and edit one individual frame if I need to (For example, if the foot needs to look like it’s coming right at us in one frame, and then bending back in another)
I was still super unhappy with the way our animation looked, though. Too stiff, not exaggerated enough. I decided to study some nice dynamic running animations, then try my hand at redrawing it one last time. Don’t let your friends tell you that you can’t learn anything from anime.
I drew it originally at 16 frames and then cut it down to the two versions you see here. I did this so I could ask everyone which one they liked better, but by the time I had uploaded I already knew the answer. After I had my sketch in, I made some objects and slapped them on as a sort of proof-of-purchase so I could know for sure that this idea was going to pan out.
At this point I’m confident in the way the animation looks and feels, so I go ahead and finish up all the base pieces for this direction.
This animation isn’t without it’s problems, either. The feet and hands will need to be adjusted on certain frames to prevent everything from looking so stiff. The important thing is that the framework is here and is easy to manipulate if I’m not happy with how a particular frame looks. And since all the outfits that will be layered on later are based on this base here, it’ll only need to be edited once.
This is the part where things get a little tedious. The images are actually exported individually as PNGs to be imported into the game. It’s a simple process, but it still takes awhile, especially at 32 frames per direction set and per clothing set. Even though I’ve cut out the work of me drawing a pair of pants 32 times, I still end up having to export it that many times for the game to be able to read it. I simply don’t have that kind of time, to export each set and try out different combinations in-game. So I’ve worked on a way a preview these directly in flash. Even though I’ve messed with this idea in theory several times, when I’m trying to actually make it work everything is riddled with bugs and sadtimes. It’s probably my fault for paying attention during programming 101, or not paying attention when Hawk talks about algorithms and.. math.
At this point I’ve basically redefined the way every object is made by separating the color and the lines from each other and adding them to different layers. This isn’t a necessary step, but it helps a lot when recoloring specific pieces or adding new ones later. It’s also useful for the way I’m going to be layering shadows onto the base and extra frames.
I managed to get a little more done that just be frustrated at and tweak my animation , redo all the objects in that animation, and program a skin tone changer. I’ve been fooling around with different layouts for our actual game website, and I continue to go back and forth on several ideas we came up with. We thought a background featuring an island with all the elements of the game in was a good idea, but I’m really doing a super poor job of angling it and finishing it. I’m also over-complicating the entire design. This is probably the 4th island I’ve attempted to draw with little luck.
Goal for next week: Finished Animation Bases for the other 3 Directions, Have a base outfit for each of them
(I also finished* redoing my own website.)