It's a Mock-up.

I'm doing another Game Jam thing - no more of it, because there's a decent chance I won't make it in time. In any case, I was doing some mock-ups, mainly to determine the style of palette to use.
I kind of like the one here, since it has this, sort of Commodore 64 vibe to it.

The strong orange-yellowish colors remind me of the first Castlevania, though.

The palette in the top-left corner is my initial one, trying to figure out the color harmonies. I ended up with this one after a bit of tweaking, increasing contrast and reducing lightness.

The original palette was kind of pastel-y.

I painted this mostly using the rectangle tool. It's kind of fun.
As you can see, I did poke around with some filters and adjustments.
This is about the correct size - I'm targeting 800x480, and going for the main character sprite to be around 64x96 pixels.

Worst case, this is all I'll have to show for it, but... mmh.

As for designing the characters, I want to think of them as designing toys. Part of the idea is trying to shut down my inner critic.

Mm... Locations, moving parts... Should be interesting.

Part 2:

Movement cycles

So, I was in need of a jogging cycle. I have done one before, but that one was really stiff-backed. I intended to go for 8 frames, but for some reason, I drew one with 6 frames - it's at the bottom.

I ended up inserting them in the computer, it looked strange without them. Oh, and I used this paper earlier while pondering other animation thingies.

What I had to do was:
1. Scan this sheet.
2. cut every frame into  individual png:s,
3. Import pngs as layers in gimp. Make canvas size equidistant
4. Open the images in graphicsgale, tweak around, add missing frames
5. Export as strip for further painting.

The biggest strenght of Graphicsgale is it's ability to port to and from spritestrips and spritesheets, in my opinion. You can paint on a spritestrip with anything, and if it's created properly - IE, all frames are the correct width - you can pull it back in to GG.

For actual animation, I still think Plastic Animation Paper is great, but it's one of those where you need to learn the keyboard shortcuts by heart.

My RSI is acting up something fierce - I have decent wrist support, but my keyboard is an extra-cheap Logitech one, and I could really use something nicer. While I'm indoctrinated into the Keyboard Cult, and drool after mechanical switches, I'm currently lookin at Microsoft's comfort offerings, mainly due to their christmas rebate deal.

Part 3:

Indeed, I didn't make it in time. Ludum Dare 28 is next weekend, though, and I've pre-committed to doing that.

Anyway, Runcycles.
Here's an old one I did wayback, with PAP.

I HAVE SUCH A CRAMP IN MY BACK

And here's the new one in it's current incarnation.

The master file is way way bigger, this one is 80x64, which is decent, but System 3's Myth: History in the Making on Commodore 64 had this really great looking character that was, I believe, 16x20 pixels.

Side note: This game is gorgeous. In my opinion it looks better than it's Amiga port, even.

The new one is much more relaxed, but it seems a bit glitchy, as if it's limping or something.
The master file is almost 500 pixels tall, and has a separate layer for each limb as well as torso. I want to have something I can tweak and paint over when creating different characters, I think.

Oh, Aseprite is quite cool. I haven't poked around with it enough as of yet to be certain whether I prefer it to GraphicsGale or not.

And this is me fiddling around in Asesprite.

A Tiny Pointless Animation.

There are two parts to an animation: The motion, and the image. This is just the motion, clearly. Toolchain was PAP - Export individual frames - Paint.Net with GIF plugin.

A total of 37 frames, which is about 3 seconds in twos. One of my bigger problems is doing consistency and camera pans. My timings are far from perfect, but I can do them, if necessary.

If this doesn't work, I'll have to go and put it up in Youtube, I guess. Or try Blogger's embedded video thingy. AVI created with Virtualdub, although from the GIF. My toolchain is not all the way there, yet.

Youtube has some interesting things, naturally, such as Animator's Survival Kit clips, as well as plenty of Glen Keane clips.

Zero no Tsukaima has god-awful animation, by the way. The character designs are fine and such, but I really noticed the low quality when watching Princess no Rondo.

Galactic Destroyer Beast Landing Sequence Continued

 I'm especially liking the first two frames here

and...

I couldn't leave it entirely unfinished, now could I?

I had some scanner issues, the last image should use the correct settings, now. I think I drew this out to satisfy my animation bug - I do relapse every now and then. It might a sequence I might actually have some success in animating. I've done walk cycles, attacks, idle animations and such, but not much in the way of successful sequences. If I do, I'll probably go for Graphire + Plastic Animation Paper 4, which is free these days.

Also, Onepunch-Man's  - specifically the version drawn by Murata Yuusuke - decompressed sequences are somewhere in my head, too. So there.

There's another sequence in the image used in this post, although it's not quite as decompressed, in addition to being almost indecipherable.

Pixels 'n links and stuff

I've become unsatisfied with Graphicsgale. I mean, it's not a bad program by any means, but outside it's animation capability, I feel that Paint.net or Paint Shop Pro 9 ( the one, the only, the best ) does the job better. Since I now have Ubuntu as a boot option, I've been giving GIMP another look, too... it can be quite good with a bit of customization. And then, of course, there's my own paint app... But that sucks, so nevermind. 

The problems in KZ sprites are too deep to be fixable with tweaking, so I'll need to re-draw. I think I'll go through the hand-drawn -> scanning process this time, it'll give me a better pose, and animation is easier, too...

Speaking of which, Pencil is relatively impressive. I'm not sure which I prefer, Plastic Animation Paper or it. I guess pencil is better, but I like sketching with PAP4 a bit more. Well, maybe.
On the digital painting side, I still think OpenCanvas is probably the best.

I'm also itching to do something with Adventure Game Studio.... when I'm not swamped by studies.
Oh, yeah. I did complete the Chzo Mythos series, too. Although in wrong order. Once again, 5-7-notes-6. I played 6 as the second game, and whoa huge spoilers. T_T

New run animation

Simple four-legged run.

Missing some details, but should be recognizable. I'll need to do something relatively cleaned-up one day soon. ( read: within few years. )

It's not referenced, but I have seen a breakdown of a run before, a few years ago.

I've drawn a few portraits out of photos these last two days, but I can't really show them, wouldn't be proper if I did.

Last post contained a minor error, ByTheWay.

Animation nut!

As you may know, I dabble from time to time with animation. A while back I uploaded my old stuff to university's server, but I didn't make much noise of it. However, now there's a new bit of animation - done with PlasticAnimationPaper Free, so I thought I'd share:

Animation
New animation of trying to play DDR It's encoded with Xvid. ~80k or so.