[How Do I] - Manage Animation Speeds

How do I get rich quick? (Just Kidding)

Anyways I have been curious about Scirra Construct on how to manage my animation speeds.

I have 2D RPG Sprites, when they walk have 7 Frames (0-7) and my sword attack frames are 5 Frames (0-5), whereas my spear attack frames are 6 (0-6).

How do I manage all of the speeds equally so they play smoothly and efficiently.

Currently Walking Frames are set to 10, Sword attacks are set to 15.

Sincerely,

Jesse Jarvis

I believe the numbers you set in the animation properties panel is fps for the particular animation. So if you set 10 for your walk and sword for 15, the walk animation is going through its frames more slowly than the sword animation is.

You have two options, really. You can either insert extra frames into certain animations, and standardize your animation fps, or, once you've animated an object, decide how long the action should take and divide the length it should take by the number of frames. (e.g. if you want your walk cycle to take 1 second, and you have 8 frames, set it to 8, and voila!)

I am unsure how the interface handles non-integer values well, or at all, so you might not be able to get it perfectly synched if you follow the second method.

What do you mean, exactly? If you set all the animations to have the same animation speed, they will all play back equally quickly and smoothly.

I see, so if I set them all to 10, they will all play equally as fast?

Alright so what would be recommended speed to play for 2D RPG sprites that use 7 frames to walk, and 5 frames to attack? Or should I have them both at 10?

Equinox80 You need to test them by watching if the movement matches up with how fast the character moves. You then adjust either movement speed or animation speed till you find one that looks/feels right. There isn't a predefined magic number for each game type. You need to experiment and watch. Factors that will affect it:

Sprite Size

Leg Movement Speed

Parallax Scrolling

Sprite Movement/Acceleration

If the character moves too fast and the legs don't move fast enough you will get a "moon walk" effect like Michael Jackson.

If the character moves slowly and the walk animation appears to quick, it will seem you are walking in quick sand, etc...

This part is really about trial and error :)

Alright thank you, I was just curious if there was some recommended formula between animation speed and frames. Thanks very much everybody.

The formula is animation speed = frames per second.

This explains the art side a little bit.