[Competition] C: Walk Cycle Spritesheet (The First Character Animation)

Comp C: Walk Cycle Spritesheet (The First Character Animation)

"Speaking of art, remember that an awesome character design isn't worth as much as a crappy but finished spritesheet" - Erin Robinson (Game Designer, Gravity Ghost) Global Game Jam 2013

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Adding animations and particles to a game really makes it pop visually. When characters walk to where the player wants them, shows weapon recoil when they shoot and fall down and die instead of blinking away; the player is more engaged in the game.

Create a spritesheet of a character (bipedal or not) walking.

Rules:
  • Competition starts on February 6th, 06-02-2013.
  • Deadline for entries is February 28th, 28-02-2013.
  • Minimum 5 frames for the walk cycle.
  • Your character is only required to walk in 1 direction (up, down, left, right, diagonally).
  • The character must have animated parts. (Can't just be floating, burning thrusters or teleporting)
  • Max frame resolution: 128x128, min frame resolution 16x16.
  • No, you don't have to be "8 bit", any colour depth you like is cool, even a constrained one.
  • Don't be a dick: So no using someone else's art and saying it's your own.
  • If you're using other people's characters as inspiration, but keep it fair use.
  • Ask for help when you get stuck.
  • WIPs are posted. Always. Even if you think they're terrible... How else are you going to get tips and feedback?
  • If someone else chooses the same character as you, that's totally cool. Give each other advice and enjoy having another take to learn from.
  • Competition is open to entry for South African citizens, current residents of South Africa and South African passport holders.
  • The judges' decision is final and no negotiation will be entered into. All risk or liability in case of copyright infringement or other legal issue resides with the entrant, Make Games SA takes no responsibility for entered content.
  • We have no idea what winning means right now. You'll probably get a high five and a warm sense of accomplishment.
Entering:
To enter the competition, start a thread titled "C: Nameofyourcharacter" and post your WIPs and final images there. Start the post saying what character you're animating. Include some reference shots of the character so the rest of us know what the crap you're trying to do!

Other people WILL reply to your post with their feedback and ideas, it's a fact that more feedback directly equates to better outputs. Please report any offensive comments to for moderation. At the same time, don't be precious about your work - remember it's not you personally that's being critiqued.

You may enter multiple times if you wish and can handle the work.

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Advice:
Keep your character simple by avoiding clothing, jewellery and armaments that would have to be animated extensively to allow the character to walk.

To look natural try animating the whole body. Legs make the waist turn, turning with it the chest pushing the shoulders back-and-forth and moving the arms. The head bobs up and down as the character bends their knees and pushes off on the back foot.

image
WalkCycle_Side.jpg
519 x 288 - 18K
vlcsnap-2013-02-06-11h57m45s158.png
640 x 360 - 69K
AAAAAv1BOQMAAAAAAOP5DA.png
206 x 185 - 4K

Comments

  • It may help to use something like Graphics Gale, because it has onion skinning (which makes it way easier to animate in than in Photoshop), and has a functional shareware version.

    http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/
    Thanked by 1damousey
  • I guess I am the only one asking, but why haven't we had judging on Comp A and now Comp B yet? We keep doing "Competitions" with no results or feedback other than the entry's thread.

    It's not that I care about who's first or last or anything like that, but it is discouraging.
  • I have to apologise, but we are busy with the judging as we speak. The previous art competition was particularly difficult to judge but we've learnt some lessons and we'll be better at judging this art competition.

    Remember that instead of just picking a winner, the judges provide feedback on each entry so that participants and get some "official" feedback on their entries. This makes the judging take longer but doesn't excuse how long we've been on the last competitions.
  • Remember that instead of just picking a winner, the judges provide feedback on each entry so that participants and get some "official" feedback on their entries.
    We'll thats the part I'm interested in anyway. Thanks for the feedback though, and I will most likelly make an entry for this comp.
  • Wooo art competition! I was just thinking that I should do some more pixels.

    I second the whole herp derp where is the judging thing, but personally I gained a lot just from participation, and there was a lot of feedback given in my thread where I just iterated with the art which I loved. So totally looking forward to this!
  • In case you missed it, the results of Comp A are here.
  • definately doing this

    also another app for quickly exporting an animated png or gif: http://www.gamani.com/gmgdown.htm
  • Would it be cheating to use a bone-based animation system?

    I was thinking of learning Spriter, and the compo is a good excuse to try it out :)
  • Would it be cheating to use a bone-based animation system?
    MY GAWDS MAN! YOU'RE PLANNING TO CHEAT IN A GAME DEVELOPMENT RELATED THING?!

    SWEEEEEEET! Cheats and fast solutions are awesome :) Do it.
  • @dislekcia wrote:
    MY GAWDS MAN! YOU'RE PLANNING TO CHEAT IN A GAME DEVELOPMENT RELATED THING?!
    Hahaha! Good point :D. It looks like an interesting system they are trying to implement. This mix of vector and raster based stuff. Could be cool. And it could be a duzi...
  • Hey duncan, I'm having trouble with spriter getting my images to use the transparency i asigned them in Gale.

    Anyone tried using this, and is there something stupid i should be doing?
  • Nvm, figured it out. Was not using the native file format of Gale, so the settings werent being saved
  • hehe sorry Actrox, at the moment I am just animating with bones for now. I'm assuming I can attach the various pieces on once I am happy with the animation :)
  • So.....hate to be "that" guy again.......but yeah......

    not to mention Comp B........
  • The entries for competition C have been sent for judging and is in their list of stuff to do.
  • @Actrox: Please don't stop being "that guy". Sometimes people need reminding! :)
  • Lol. Thanks for the update aodendaal.

    Is there any way that the community as a whole can assist in the judging process? We really need to figure out a way to keep these comps going and running. It is discouraging for anyone doing a comp, not having a "result" to his work. Even a "hey that was pretty crap, but doing this would make it awesome" type review makes it worthwhile and would make them enter the next one.

  • Just leaving this bump here for Comp B and Comp C.
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