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Project Annie...In Motion!

southpawper said:
Her braids are still a bit confusing but I'll look at how you redesigned them.

Yeah, I'm never really quite sure what to do with the braids. All we can really do is infer as much as we can from the original igg backer images.

Tank said:
are the annie gifs you guys are making the actual size of the canvas you are working on in photoshop? if not, what is the size of the canvas you animators are working on? about how many pixels tall is annie in your animations? I want to try this out so i want to try to keep some uniformity if this ever goes anywhere.

I'm working on a canvas that is 3840 x 2160. I'll simply provide a sample image for you. Just make a document at the previously stated size and import the following image if you want to work in the same scale and size as me (the image should take up 100% of the document space).

AnnieIdleSizeReference.jpg

Keep in mind that when I export as a gif, I rescale the document size to get rid of empty space. After that, I then HALVE the document size. If you don't do this it will be too big to be viewed properly.
 
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Skullmageddon said:
Keep in mind that when I export as a gif, I rescale the document size to get rid of empty space. After that, I then HALVE the document size. If you don't do this it will be too big to be viewed properly.
I know this man's gifs are big because it kicks my obs down to 10fps when the starwulf swag wagon is on screen.

WORTH IT.
 
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Night Phyre said:
I know this man's gifs are big because it kicks my obs down to 10fps when the starwulf swag wagon is on screen.

WORTH IT.

Haha yeah, that gif is way too big...and the version I gave you isn't even at full size ;_;

Do you scale it down at all when you use it? If so (or if you'd like to) I can always send you a smaller, more optimized version of the gif.
 
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Skullmageddon said:
Haha yeah, that gif is way too big...and the version I gave you isn't even at full size ;_;

Do you scale it down at all when you use it? If so (or if you'd like to) I can always send you a smaller, more optimized version of the gif.
That would actually be great. I believe I'm at least cutting it in half, right now.
 
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Tank said:
Here's my attempt at a walk animation
annie_walk_animation_by_drsusredfish-d7aj6k1.gif
In this animation (rough though it may be), she's giving away the low center of gravity afforded to her by her lowered stance. She stands almost straight up, meaning that she's no longer able to propel herself in any direction. I could buy that on Parasoul's walking animation because her posture gave her a regal appearance, but Annie ha no such need.

Also, this is just my personal opinion, but I don't think Annie would go around crossing her feet like that. That's a no-no in most swordplay, and I don't think she'd be doing the oddball stuff where crossed feet are the norm (it's in Parasoul's animation because of its, "classy," look).

tl;dr looks too much like parasoul's walk

Thank you for making more animations!
 
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I knew that Night Phyre was going to be the first to reply to Tank, and I knew that he was going to be very critical.

You're getting very predictable Phyre, all I had to do was wait for it to happen.
 
Except he brings good points, especially with the feet. But it still looks nice. Good work!
 
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I think what Night Phyre meant was that it doesn't have Yu Wan's head on it; making it okay, but not perfect.
 
Denizen said:
I knew that Night Phyre was going to be the first to reply to Tank, and I knew that he was going to be very critical.
You're getting very predictable Phyre, all I had to do was wait for it to happen.
Lavama said:
Except he brings good points, especially with the feet. But it still looks nice. Good work!
Muro said:
Night Phyre, you're being very predictable by providing professional advice. Shame on you.
a23.png
 
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Tank said:
Here's my attempt at a walk animation

Lookin' good Tank! Take another look at Night Phyre's post because I agree with everything he said. Her stance and positioning are important, so keeping her low center of gravity is key. I also agree that she shouldn't cross her feet while walking. Consider the fact that she needs to be able to go straight into a fast, forward running animation and a quick back dash animation from this pose.

Keep workin' on it and keep posting back to us! It's great to see other people sharing their work.
 
thanks for the critiques. I think im gona try to do a sort of gallop like walk like the kendo fighters do but more sideways. Kinda like fillia's walk but off center and a little more bent down.
 
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Seeing all this animations makes me want to jump into trying a running cycle!
 
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maybe this is better.
annie_walk_animation_2_by_drsusredfish-d7angzp.gif
 
Tank said:
maybe this is better.
annie_walk_animation_2_by_drsusredfish-d7angzp.gif
Honestly, it's tough to tell due to the, "altered," nature of the animation. Were each frame animated originally, as in the game, this movement sequence might see more natural, but as it is now, she kind of looks a bit awkward.
 
It probably looks awkward because her top half is stiff as heck.
 
I haven't goten to the "draw each frame" phase yet. I'm a really nooby animator so the way i do it is to draw the start frame, or use skullmageddon's start frame, then cut and transform pieces of the frame to animate. After the general idea is animated i'll go and make things less stiff like swaying hair and moving arms and shoulders etc. This is still a rough though some of the lines look clean.
 
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gluemchen said:
Run should be something along the lines of Annie while running scraping the tip of the sword on the ground creating sparks. Climatic? Hope so.

Creating little stars*
 
Tank said:
maybe this is better.
annie_walk_animation_2_by_drsusredfish-d7angzp.gif
no offense but there's this awkwardness to her movements like she's gotta to the bathroom really bad
 
also there is a part in the middle where she looks like she hops a little bit. thats a terrible idea if you are actually fighting. once you take both your feet off the ground you are stuck.
 
Tank said:
I haven't goten to the "draw each frame" phase yet. I'm a really nooby animator so the way i do it is to draw the start frame, or use skullmageddon's start frame, then cut and transform pieces of the frame to animate. After the general idea is animated i'll go and make things less stiff like swaying hair and moving arms and shoulders etc. This is still a rough though some of the lines look clean.

This is a good way to go about doing something like her walk cycle because it allows you to quickly build a basis for your animation.

That being said, I have some thoughts regarding the latest attempt that I'd like to share. I can see what you're going for, but at the moment she feels a little floaty and here's why:

-She still doesn't retain her bent knees and posture throughout the cycle as much as she should. This would be a relatively fast shuffle and maintaining her bent knees is important, so her upper body would almost completely maintain the same height throughout the animation. Think of it more like she's using her back leg to push her body forward rather than a leap upward. There should still be some up and down movement in the whole body, but do it in a subtle way without rotating her upper body from the waist up. If anything, her upper body would dip down as she bent her back knee before pushing forward.

-Like evilben said, there's a decently long portion in which both of her feet are off of the ground. In order for her to maintain her pose she not only needs to keep her knees bent and center of gravity low, but she also needs to keep her feet on the ground as much as possible. Rather than stepping forward with her back leg first, try having her push with her back leg then step forward with her front leg. When moving forward all of her strength is coming from her back leg, not her front leg. There also shouldn't be any frames (maybe one frame at the most) where both feet are off the ground.

I'd like to hear what others have to say. Anyone agree or disagree with me? Also sorry for rambling, just trying to be thorough with my thoughts.

More importantly, if you haven't already done so try acting out the movement yourself. That's how I usually figure things out. Also try finding some good reference material to go off of. I don't know a lot about swordplay or stances, but try watching some fencing as a starting point.
 
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I think it wouldn't hurt to have annie turn and face her opponent while she's walking. lots of the characters do this like Bella and Peacock. it's not really a style thing its more of a flair thing she could have. she's so good she just casually walks over to her opponents stanceless.
 
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Sanoblaze said:
I think it wouldn't hurt to have annie turn and face her opponent while she's walking. lots of the characters do this like Bella and Peacock. it's not really a style thing its more of a flair thing she could have. she's so good she just casually walks over to her opponents stanceless.

That's a good idea as well. I hadn't even considered it.
 
Just make her walk forward like Ms. Fortune, the character doesn't need to be facing the screen the entire time.
 
Based on her current idle stance, I think this would be sweet for her standing HK. She's shorter than a lot of the cast, so a high kick makes sense. It could have wall bounce (like Filia or Parasoul) or you could even have it crumple/slow-fall like the guy in the gif :)
barboza-etim_finish_medium.gif
It's simple, but still has enough flourish to be a video game move. Hell, Parasoul just does a regular ol' sidekick.

1b968cbff32d8ecea96c64a6ad9f29b5_large1.gif
 
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y'know, you guys shoudl exchange skype usernames and brainstorm ideas in real time...

most artists here could go together and be an "annie dream team"
 
DukeMagus said:
y'know, you guys shoudl exchange skype usernames and brainstorm ideas in real time...

most artists here could go together and be an "annie dream team"
it is. its called spacewhale dreams
 
The Annie Dream Team Stream. It would be SUPREME.
 
If y'all are going forward with a project like this (which is awesome by the way) I have two suggestions:

1) You should probably make a document outlining how the character is going to move or act before you waste time doing an animation (even a rough one). There's a lot of content in this thread. It's kind of hard to go through it and find out what's actually been decided on. Will Annie have a badass Sol Badguy stance? Will she be cutsey? Will she always be holding Sagan or will he be walking beside her? Does she always hold her sword in a one handed reverse grip or does she switch to a standard broadsword stance for others?

These things should be written down in a google doc that can be referenced once they've been decided on. Even if you change your ideas later, you can just update the document. It's still very useful to have a single place to look for the general outlines of the character.

You can even embed a Google Doc in a thread now using the "Media" button in the post editor, so it could be stuck in the first post for easy access.

2) Stop animating stuff. Sketch out your ideas and discuss them before they're implemented, even in rough animations. It's a waste of time doing all the in betweens if it's just going to be shot down because it doesn't meet consensus.

Look at how LZ does it. (Eliza's ground throw courtesy of Emlan)

tumblr_n2ckqbpBP81skx39go1_500.png


Draw out the steps of a move and show them in a sequence - don't do the entire animation. This way is quick and very easy to discuss what works or what doesn't.
When it's done, Mariel and Persona do their thing.

index.php


After this they flesh out the actual animation.

When something is made like @Tank 's walking animation it's kind of hard to critique it because you don't want to make the guy feel bad after they've sunk so much time into it.
 
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Tank said:
maybe this is better.
annie_walk_animation_2_by_drsusredfish-d7angzp.gif

Have you considered having her slide her feet? A good way to keep balance is to slide and never cross your feet or legs. Think Baiken.
 
If I still had Flash I'd like to help with this. Maybe soon.
 
Cellsai said:
If y'all are going forward with a project like this (which is awesome by the way) I have two suggestions...

Nice suggestions, and a Google Doc would be useful depending on how we move forward. Until recently I was just kind of animating stuff for shits n' giggles, but now that other people are dedicating some time towards making some nice animations it would be appropriate to document and gather these things into one place. It would also help organize our thoughts and decisions.

Also, for anyone that's wondering, Cellsai's second suggestion is more or less how I break down my animation process. I do quick sketches to help me break down the basic movement and idea. Then I Illustrate the key frames to get down the timing and important movements. From there I simply do the in-betweens and clean up the remaining frames when done.

The reason I usually don't share things until I'm close to being done is because I don't like to treat this like a democracy. I like to hear peoples opinions on how things should/could be and I highly value criticism on the things that I share, but when it comes to actually making decisions on how something should be done it's never a good idea to leave it up to community vote. Even though this is all just for fun, I treat my decision making process like I would any other design project. It would be different if this were an official project or if we had a group of dedicated artists with experience working as a design group, but as it stands that is not the case.

Of course that doesn't stop any of us from making animations anyways, it just means that we have to take everyone's opinions with a grain of salt. After all, the only people who can make a definitive decision on the matter are the people over at LabZ. Anything and everything we do is pure speculation, no matter how we look at it.

So what do you guys wanna do? We can just keep doin' things the way we are, or we can try to be a little more organized. Cellsai has provided some good suggestions for moving forward, so what does everyone else think?
 
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Skullmageddon said:
So what do you guys wanna do? We can just keep doin' things the way we are, or we can try to be a little more organized. Cellsai has provided some good suggestions for moving forward, so what does everyone else think?
It's all well and fine to talk about getting more organized, bu the simple fact is that we have a gaggle of people who want to put out ideas, and only one person turning out pre-production level animations at this point. This kind of thing happens a lot in community driven projects (game dev, especially).

@Skullmageddon is basically the lone, "programmer," of this project. Without him, there is no project. Based on that value alone, I think it should be him that acts as, "CEO," of the project. If he wants to pick a program director, more animators, or more idea men, that would be his prerogative.

I'm working on the Annie fan game, and while I still have faith that it will eventually be completed, the fact is that it started with DOZENS of, "members," and it's now down to like, 3 or 4, not counting one-off volunteer voice actors. Projects that start with the Utopian ideal, "we'll all just chip in and it'll happen," do not end well.

I say all of this not because I'm trying to dissuade, but because I'm trying to help.
 
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Personasama just critiqued my Annie walk Annie-mation on the lab zero stream:) I'll post the link when it gets archived.

http://www.twitch.tv/labzero/b/512567630

@ 3:51:41 persona critiques and gives advice.
 
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