Back On Track (Elements Progress and Preview 3) (Patreon)

Hello!

It's been a long time since I've put serious work into these. But like I said recently: it's time to really get going on these, now that Time Fantasy Animals 2 is finished as the final Time Fantasy expansion.

So this week I've gotten back into the flow of the elements style, and returned to working on the character base animations and organization. To be honest, it was useful to get a break from these and back at it with some fresh eyes-- I also revisited the comments and suggestions from the previous preview thread.

Like I've mentioned back then-- it's vital to take the time to get the base right, and figure out how I'll arrange all the different pieces. Otherwise a small change later on would be a huge problem as it could affect hundreds or thousands of individual frames.

Let's take a look at where I'm at now-- first up, I've made some organizational changes this week for the sprite sheet, and it's a little bit different from the previous update.

I'd like to get your thoughts on these ideas.

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1. Heads

Previously I had the idea to put a head and face on separate layers. In practice this is fairly complicated. I still don't like the idea of putting the hair separate though (for reasons I've explained before) -- I think that instead, I'm just going to have the entire head as a single piece-- hair, face, ears, all.

On one hand, it will make for slightly less customization for mix-and-match pieces. But on the other hand, it will allow for higher-quality art and it'll be a lot less complicated for me to create compatible pieces, and less complicated for users to work with. I think that in the end it's worth it.

Plus, we can still allow for accessories to be layered on top of the head, for things like glasses. I can imagine an "accessory"-layer image like closed-eyes could work similarly.

So, we're going to scrap the "face layer" idea, and keep it simple: heads, torsos, and legs. With additional layers for accessories. This should still be enough to do things like visual equipment where your players can swap out armor pieces- it will just be done in a simple way for the core asset pack.

2. Female Body Base

Another thing on my mind was the female body base. I really REALLY wanted to avoid making separate animations for a female base, because that would lead to a tremendous amount of extra work and more than double the scope of the project.

Here's the example from the sprites that I was working with: the female from has more slender arms and different proportions for the hips and legs.

Note that this goes for alternate body types in general (the female base is just the most obvious example). Any sort of character piece with different proportions wouldn't fit right on the main base animations.

But THEN I realized that this wasn't even a really an issue at all. I was overthinking it (as usual... =_=)...

When I imported the girl pieces and flicked through the layers, the solution seems pretty clear: the final sprites won't have a fixed base at all. Instead they'll just assemble from pieces. Here's how it looks:

(tbh... this is probably obvious, right? for some reason my mind was stuck on "overlaying" the pieces on top of the base, with the base forced underneath the other pieces. I feel kinda dumb for letting myself get stuck on that idea. but this is obviously better (probably something that you might have assumed anyway)-- the base will mostly just be used as a guide for developing and animating)

So: I think that we're solid with the organization and layout of the layers.

Onto the next thing:

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New Animations:

Based on patron suggestions and feedback, and considering how to make this be complete for a full game without absolutely killing myself. Here's the new animations that I think are easy and will be adding to the base sheet.

Arms Up

Arms up can be used for a few different things, which is why I wanted to include them.

Could be used for holding up items-- either displaying an item-get, or carrying puzzle elements around a scene. Could be combined with the attack animation (unarmed) and look decent for throwing items around (smashing pots Zelda style). The arms-up pose has also been used for channeling magic. 

Lastly it could function as a generic frame showing a shock or surprise emotion in a cutscene. I'm considering changing the hands for this reason-- maybe a more neutral hand position would be more useful for this pose, without taking away from the other uses.

Also note that the bottom piece here would be able to use the same legs as the main walk animation, so including this is less of a time commitment than other full animations would be.

Climbing

Simple. We only need the one direction-- given the perspective we're working with, the vast majority of these types of games will only have north-south ladders. The player would just snap into this animation regardless of if he's going up or down.

The only interesting thing about the climbing animation is that I'll have to reference it when I'm working on the final tile sets, and set it up so that any ladders will line up properly with the character.

Crouch, Jump and Anticipation for the Attack

I've talked about these ones in a previous progress report. 

Just putting them here as a note for the way I see them being used: the crouch is designed as a single-frame that can have multiple uses, while ALSO being used as an anticipation for the jump animation.

Similarly, the single anticipation-frame is optional, and could be useful for some tool animations, heavy attacks, or even fishing, while the attack animation without the anticipation frame would make sense for action sword swings, etc.

Bow(?)

I've had some problems with this one. 

HONESTLY-- right now I'm inclined to put it aside, and focus on the stuff that I've already outlined here. Maybe we can revisit this for a future expansion that has bows, crossbows, and gun animations with weapon overlays.

Should I try again... Is it necessary to be in the base set????

Lastly, this new sheet has three down poses. One of them could even be flipped left/right, so we could potentially count four poses. Could be used for sleeping, KO, dead, etc etc.

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So, here's what the Updated Base Sheet looks like. Right now this is the plan for the animations and frames that I'll be using for the time elements characters.

Do you have any thoughts on the layout or organization of the frames on the sheet? What would work best for most users?

Note that the end product will likely include the sprites in sheet form and also in a folder with individual frames (I'll have to work with a friend to help me automate that export process).

Here it is with the proper transparency and without the labels on the side-- this image is an actual useable sprite sheet:

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All right-- give it to me. 

I'm planning on giving this a last pass and then finalizing it next week. Last chance for suggestions. Let me know if I'm missing something-- an animation, a pose, something in the organization of the layers or pieces. I'll be checking back to this thread, so please don't hesitate. 

I want to get this right before proceeding to make thousands of individual frames for the character parts.

Have a good weekend. See you soon. Thanks!