I've noticed on pass 3, that the head looks a little like he's head-bangin' as his head returns from the sharp dipping motion. The second pass I think looked a lot nicer and fluid, since he tips his head back slightly as it dips rather than doing the head-banger stare.

It looks freaking awesome though. Like, if the purpose wasn't to over-analyse it... you could easily get away with using that as a final product.

~Sol

Rhythm is good <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

But you're right, it could use some smoothing out. I'll address this as well. And thanks for the compliments! I want this animation to be as close to perfect as possible, simply because it will be the most common one you see. For the others... I doubt I'll be over analyzing quite as much <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

@Stefanos - "the tale and the back legs are going a little bit together"

Do you mean the tail comes down too soon? I based the tail on DravenX's excellent sprite and the video you posted on the first page. I'll take a closer look at it and see if I can improve the timing further. Thanks for taking a good look <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

@Lucid - Thanks, I'll reduce the rear height with my next pass and accentuate the head (again!). I plan on tweaking the forelegs quite a bit too, so hopefully after this next attempt I'll be pretty close to finishing. Thanks for the continued help <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Third pass done, but I shouldn't really call it that. It's just the progress I made today. Accentuated the head movement again, further improved the accordion effect of his body (though it may need more 'oomph' still), and added a wave-like movement to his torso.

I'm hesitant about adding that wave movement to his rear though. I quite like how it juts up, and it seems to play well with the way I've designed his fur in two prominent sections. But once I've stared at my own art for this long, the weirdest things can look normal to me. So if it looks odd to you, let me know! I'll happily add that wave movement in completely if you think it will look better!

Adding that little extra force to his spring seems to have highlighted the foreleg issues a bit more, so I plan on sorting them out with my next pass.

<img src="http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/Wolf-GIF-3.gif" border="0" />

Many thanks for all the help and support so far. <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

@Lucid - I tried to convey that accordion effect, but I'll look into it more closely with the next attempt. Your point about the timing of its force makes a lot of sense. Thanks.

@Urled - What's a whorse? Because that's conjuring up some strange images in my head... And do you mean that the kicking of the back legs has been conveyed well? Or poorly?

Updated with a second pass. Edited the tail a lot, and tweaked the head. I think the tail still needs some more work though.

@Lucid - The front legs jump out to me too, and is the main reason I want to add in more frames. They move so fast that they seem to warp around too much at the moment. Hopefully, adding new frames to blend the current ones together will make the legs look much more fluid in their motion. That video is awesome btw, thanks :)

@DravenX - Damn, you're right about the 'wave' movement of the back. Seeing it in Lucid's video made me see it in your animation, and now mine looks completely off :P

I'll be tweaking the back in my next attempt then. Think his tail still needs to drop down a bit further too?

Yeah, I always knew the tail would be the hardest part for me to nail :P

Anything else stand out? Think the head movement needs to be more pronounced?

@DravenX - Awesome animation. Love the bulky look. I'm making this game for practice more than anything else, so I love the idea of finding my own resources for animations, putting something together, and then getting feedback from guys like you who have been there and done that. So while the offer to look at your animations is very generous and tempting, I'd prefer to go without them for now, post what I come up with, and then tweak them with feedback. I know there's nothing wrong with looking at what others have done for guidance and inspiration, but I'd rather not cut any corners just yet :P

Update - 30th Jan: Fifth and penultimate pass uploaded. Got the base animation working well enough, so just waiting until I've finalized the wolf's visual design and his speed/physics behavior before I tweak it to work perfectly in-game.

Update - 21st Jan: Fourth pass uploaded, with details of changes on second page of this thread.

Update - 19th Jan: Third pass uploaded. Minor improvements, still a few things that need tweaking, but figured I'd upload my progress so far anyway. Keeps me going if I know people are judging :P

Update - 18th Jan: Second pass at the animation uploaded. Improved the tail, and slightly accentuated the head movement.

Righto. I've been playing around with a platformer idea involving a wolf and the four elements, and am loving it so far. Animation is something I'm really new at though, so I'd appreciate a lot of feedback for getting the wolf's movements spot on.

Here is my first pass at the wolf's basic run cycle:

<img src="http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/Wolf-GIF.gif" border="0" />

Second pass (not sure why he shrank :o):

<img src="http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/Wolf-GIF-2.gif" border="0" />

Third pass:

<img src="http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/Wolf-GIF-3.gif" border="0" />

Fourth pass:

<img src="http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/GIF-4.gif" border="0" />

Fifth pass:

<img src="http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/Wolf-GIF-1.gif" border="0" />

I'm going to be adding more frames into the cycle to smoothen it out using Anime Studio Pro, but I want to nail the essentials first. So what stands out to you? I already want to fix that tail and I've only just finished this first attempt<img src="smileys/smiley7.gif" border="0" align="middle" />, and I plan to smooth out the front leg transitions a lot more too.

Any critique would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for reading <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Not sure how to use a multi-quote feature on this forum...

@Shindoh - You're right in everything you say. It's probably something I'll need to play around with. I just panicked when I started working on the running animation, wondering if I'm going to run in issues with this.

But yes, a wolf's paws all land in roughly the same spot. The issue I'll have is that the sprite's hotspot isn't going to be matched up to the wolf's... center of gravity? IE: When he's jumping up, his paws and attachment to the platform are at his rear, like in my original sprite above. But when he lands, his paws are at his front (image below). The hotspot, and the only thing the engine really cares about, will always be at the center of the sprite though. The player will be judging by the wolf's feet.

But as you say, it may well be something I can find the right balance for. And I plan on creating a lot of animations to make it look and feel right. So long as it CAN be done, I'll try my best to do it :)

<img src="http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/landing.png" border="0" />

@Lucid - It is my own artwork, thanks for the compliment :) And yes, I plan on creating a lot of animations for this, and agree that a different stopping animation depending on the current animation frame would be important. I don't see any issues with getting that to work. I also want a climbing animation, for when the wolf is only just hitting the right height to climb up to a higher platform, which I have plenty of ideas for creating. The only part that scares me is the jumping animation. Naturally a wolf jumps from his hind legs of course, so I'm not sure how to handle a jump command being issued when the wolf is on his front legs, or mid-air in his run cycle. Jumping back to a hind leg frame could look jarring...

But that's something I'll tackle at a later date. For now I'm working on the run animation. I plan on completing 8 main frames, and editing them in Anime Studio to blend them together nicely. I don't have much experience in that program yet aside from animating trees, but if it's a subject you enjoy then I'd love some feedback from you when I've completed my first pass at the wolf's run cycle.

So far, I've done 6 of the 8 main frames, and should be done by the weekend. I'll post an animated image then :)

@Tom - That's something I have in mind, yes, but I'm worried about... teleportation, for lack of a better word. It's such a long sprite when he's standing that on small platforms he'll pretty much always have one of his paws close to a ledge. I'd have to find a way to balance it, but I can imagine it looking strange if the wolf is triggered as being close enough to the left edge to pull him back to a squatting animation on the left ledge, and after half a meter of walking forwards he's triggered as having his front paws close enough to pull him forward into a squatting animation on the right ledge.

I guess the easy way out is to only have long platforms =P

I've been thinking about the downwards hop thing too. Trouble is it all depends on what frame the animation is at. So in the image above, if the wolf was right at the edge of a platform with his hind legs being the only part still touching it - that looks and works fine - so a downward hop wouldn't be necessary.

If, on the other hand, the animation frame was of his front legs landing at that stage, then he would look to be a good meter over the edge of the platform, and the downwards hop would be overdue.

Sticking that downwards hop requirement to the center of the sprite would be a trade-off of sorts, but could then easily lead to times when it looks slightly overdue (front legs slightly over the platform mid-run - with hind legs still in the air), or it could force the player to drop too early since his forlegs might be in the air and his hind legs a good half meter before the edge.

In a platformer, it seems pretty important to get these edge detections spot on. Being forced to drop down too early could be infuriating for players.

Fantastic, thanks! And yeah, I'll have to play around extensively before deciding on how to handle the size increase. Zooming out is the first thing that comes to mind, but I don't want it revealing things that should be out of screen for players with incredibly high resolutions.

Thanks for the help.

I'm playing around with a platformer starring a wolf, and may have just realized why most platformers use two-legged characters.

If the player is standing on the edge of a ledge, then you have issues with overhanging feet, such as this image of Charlie from Deadeye's tutorials:

<img src="http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/Temp22012-01-0913-29-26-32.jpg" border="0" />

Presumably, this isn't too difficult to fix, since you could use specific animations to bring feet together, or leave one visibly dangling, when the player is close to a ledge's edge:

<img src="http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/pics7/sonic_2_crop.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/pics5/sonic-2-hd-remake-2.jpg" border="0" />

But I'm struggling to think of ways to address this issue with a four-legged animal. He's so long that the 'edge' detection would have to be pretty huge, and switching him to a balancing animation would probably lead to odd teleportations of the sprite - bringing him closer to the edge than he really is, just because his front legs are close enough. Having no balancing animations at all could easily lead to 90% of his length, and three of his four legs, seeming to stand on thin air, just because one of his paws is still on a platform...

<img src="http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/Wolf.png" border="0" />

Any suggestions?

Ahhh yeah, my bad. Thanks!

So using this, it would be possible for a player to select a resolution from this list, and the game update its display to reflect that decision?