Animation quality - any thoughts?

Bearing in mind that all the animations we have seen so far are of course unfinished, what are people's thoughts on the quality of the animation?

On the plus side I like the fact that Chucklefish are animating so much (even the trees) - it really brings everything to life. This adds to the immersion.

On the negative side, I don't think that the animation, as it is, is particularly good. Here's two examples to backup my (constructive!) criticism and both actually break the immersion for me:

a) Character/creature animation - I really don't like the way that all joints are so crudely 'hinged' - in other words it looks like the animators have taken, for example, a torso and virtually 'stuck' the limbs on using a virtual nail. It looks incredibly crude, just like very simplistic amateur films where the characters are made of paper and cardboard.

b) The trees - it's nice to see them blowing in the wind, but the obvious 'hinge' near the top is a real deal-breaker - if the trees are going to blow in the wind then the whole tree should move (more at the top of the course than at the bottom).

I do hope that these issues are fixed before the Beta is released.

Just my thoughts. Feel free to flame me.

 

I think it is a great step up from terreria.

 

a few days ago was released a video stream of the developers who did see the animations and I'd say we're in really good

 

I like them, they look pretty smooooooth.
Though I'd like less static parts, the head and torso for example.

 

I've never thought there was anything wrong with the animations. I like the look of the segmented/hinged trees because it is indicative of their segmented nature---the hinges show where the tree cuts, so to speak. As for the people, I simply don't think you are correct in your assessment. In twitch.tv/tiyuri/b/396827077 (skip to the 15 minute mark or later) it can clearly be seen that the capes move, the torso bends, the head bobs, etc. The creatures found in other videos have bodies that bend and stretch as well.

What you see in the videos aren't issues so much as they are the style of the game; hence they can't be "fixed".

^ This x 100.

 

The trees won't blow around very much, even in extreme wind. Really, the animation is supposed to just be minor rustling of leaves. Tiy was just showing off how the animation breaks down in extremes because the game isn't designed to have such high amounts of wind without hacking.

I actually like the character animations. For a character that is only 32 pixels tall, they are remarkably good. To put it in perspective, that's the same size as Samus in the original Metroid for the NES. Not Samus in Super Metroid, just regular Metroid. Here's a video:

The blocks are 16x16 pixels. In Starbound the blocks will be smaller, only 8x8 pixels.

If I had any constructive criticism to add, it's that the weapon animations need to be very smooth and have good variety. So far the animations for the swords haven't seemed very smooth to me, especially the ones that are NOT swung above your head. They look like they are maybe two or three frames of animation that are split up over too much time. I think it would be better if these horizontal slashes were also higher up, closer to your character's shoulders, because it looks much more natural and realistic (the current animations look like they are closer to the middle of the torso or even the waist). Using Castlevania games would be good as a model, and the devs shouldn't be afraid of forcing the player to duck to hit enemies that are close to the ground.

I also haven't seen any animations for Whips or Punch weapons, so I might just add a few to my race suggestion (the Urumi and Bagh Nahk fit their theme). Other melee weapon animations that we haven't seen include plunging a sword or spear into the ground, or downward thrusts with daggers.

 

I also think the animations are great, especially when you think at how big this game is. Everything just blends really well in my opinion.

 

To be fair, though, that was in the NES-era and games had a very limited palette. There's only so much you can do if you've only got a couple of colors to work with.

 

Well Animation for some stuff is awesome, for others feel simply, not animated.

I'm talking about Character animation, where I feel it's just a simply image, no animations for when you are stopped, and the environment around you seems very static.
Even if it is better than Terraria was, I felt as they are right now, they could have done something more immersive.

But I assume every games of this kind are like this because the graphical limitations and the work to add extra sprites.

 

I have to say that I think that most of the animations are great, especially considering how much is procedurally generated. It's a huge leap forward over Terraria at any rate, having proper crouching and swimming animations etc. Some of the stuff is still a work in progress though, which explains some of the odd looking monster animations which I assume they'll work on.

I have to say that I agree about the trees though, and that was one of the things that really stood out to me in the videos. I think it also doesn't help that they appear to hinge slightly out of alignment, and it would look much better if the top part was a pixel or 2 shifted over. I hope that for the final game they iron this out a little bit. I'm not expecting any greater animation but just slightly more polished feel to it really.

 

In the streams I've seen I didn't really like the monsters animation, was really excited about them but the animation they shown killed it for me. Yeah they got all kind of shapes and forms but they look static and the way they move around (animatE) doesn't look interesting. Of course just my view on it for now, who knows what'll happen till release.

 

At about 7:10 in this video you can see some of the current progress of 'animated trees': click me

Personally I think it looks fairly good; considering (like creatures) the trees are also procedurally generated entities. In that video we can see a style of tree in which the trunk moves very little (save near the top) and it is mostly the layers of the branches and their foliage in which motion is imparted. I think expecting anything more beyond what is shown here is perhaps asking for a bit too much in terms of animation quality.

Likewise with the fully animated & dynamic creatures we have seen, the animation quality is actually rather high; again given that the creatures are being assembled procedurally. Legs and feet move in a sensible pattern (as do the arms/etc.) and all the pieces are in rough sync with one another for the motions being imparted.

For the level of animation in the character sprites; I am not sure what greater level of quality could really exist there. We have good ranges of motion between the frames, making their walking look fairly good considering the artistic medium being employed. The only time the arms of player sprites behave in an unusual fashion is for weapon (ranged weapons for the most part) aiming, in which they do indeed behave like they are nailed on limbs; at all other times their behavior is fairly normal.

Edit: Oops forgot this bit. In brief I disagree with the op. I personally rather like the animation styles & feel as shown; any improvements from this point (say to creature animations) will be lovely of course, but we will have to wait and see.

 

I actually really enjoy the animation quality, I think it fits the pixel style game.

 

My only beef is that there isn't very much torso movement when it comes to running/crouching/swimming. I can understand why it isn't very much 'noticeable', however, as that requires more effort, not just in animation, but also in drawing the frames, possibly coding the individual sprite parts to connect to each other [i.e. the limbs connecting to the torso, head connecting to the torso].

Not to mention animation via pixel-art requires more 'thinking' than vector-based and most other raster graphic animations. Pixel placement is one single move, but has a great impact on the sprite as a whole. Imagine being able to draw an entire hand by poking your paper with a pen

 

It's exactly what they did. Many sprite-based games secretly do this, including Double Dragon and RCR. It's a little more apparent here because they allow rotation, and it's really the only efficient way to handle this kind of animation.

For my money I hope they tune up the jumpcycle. The timing looks weird somehow, like it's desynched with what the character is actually doing.

 

I think they are ok and they fit the environment. You get used to it.

uhm, well, yes. And the rain is wet. This is exactly how it works. It's virtually basics of monster generator. And since monsters are put together from random parts, it probably stays this way. It can be improved in other games.. in some way.. if you do that for specific models. It's pretty hard to do it when you have no idea what parts you get together in the end. And it's definitely not worth the development time nor computing time. Again, you get used to it pretty quick.

no. It's that simple.

 

i think the reason for "static" head and torso is simple: if they changed with every frame, you would also have to redraw all the helmets and chest armor pieces for every frame, which is a huge amount of work. currently, only the limbs need to be redrawn for each frame, which is considerably less work.

as for how the animations look: personally, i don't mind how they look right now.

 

No one said anything about the palette. DeadlyLuvdisc is referring to the quality of character animation you can fit into that small space.

 

That's true, but I'd say color is a huge part of quality. The original Mario (from Super Mario Bros) had a total of three colors. His skin was orange, his shirt and hat were red, and his pants were green. He looks flat because of the limited palette. In comparison, the Mario in Super Mario World has 16 different colors in approximately the same sized character. It allows for shading that makes the character seem more real. Palette absolutely has a huge impact on the quality of the graphics.

I'm not disagreeing with him on the quality of the Starbound sprites though. He's right, they're very nice!

 

Its a great step up from what has been done so far, and i COMPLETELY understand you, but don't give Tiy any more to think about or it will be
ESTIMATED RELEASE: 2014