Like the title says, I was just trying to see which v cam I wanted to use. But it turned into me trying out some of the lighting and camera techniques from Maplemation's tutorials. It's not perfect, but the feedback I got helped make it much better than what it started as. For my next sprite animation I want to try learning a lot more techniques to help discover my own style, but I'm working on something else for a little bit. Hope you guys enjoy!
You have a very fluid animation with some nice lighting that helps with the atmosphere. I do have some issues with how you approach things though. To get this out of the way first, the way you spin your camera at the beginning and at 0:22 is strange and a bit disorienting. That is the most glaring thing I noticed. You could leave the orientation of the camera without it taking away much, to be honest. Now on to another issue with the animation. You have a strange way of approaching physics. Your characters are very floaty and stay up in the air for way too long. The tutorial on tweens and movement helps cover this but I would like to provide examples too. The part at 0:35 when your character jumps, it has him basically floating in the air for too long making it seem like he is just an air balloon, or in the moon. Try and make the jump seem quicker and not having your character just placed in one place without any motion would help a lot. Also, the sequence 0:35 is a bit strange to look at as they are covering a lot of area in just a straight line. Add some arcs to the movement, like at the end of it after the slice. I tried to draw out a curve to show you an example. After their attack, they shouldn’t be exempt from the influence of gravity. Another issue with the animation is the pacing. The tutorials also covered that subject but know that it is very tricky to nail. There are plenty of instances where the characters just stand in one place holding the same key poses for too long between attacks. If you are aiming at a faster pace, you can just cut the number of frames between each attack. If you are aiming for a slower pace, try and add more poses to transition between attacks. Anything but holding a frame for too long. Just try and avoid these awkward pauses. Also, you use a lot of cuts between characters which takes me a bit out of the whole animation and hurts the pacing a lot too. When cutting a lot during action scenes, I try my best on making the cuts seem seamless, so it doesn’t take the viewer out of the action. Your camera work also could use some work. This is something that I also try my best to improve upon. A lot of the time the camera is just in one place and doesn’t follow the action, which can make the shot look bland. One of the things I want to point out is the shot at 0:22. The camera isn’t doing anything until it suddenly starts spinning, making the whole sequence look weird. What I would do is just have the camera slowly zoom out and then cut to a close-up shot of your character. Simple but works. Overall, the animation is fine and fluid, but it’s held back by floaty physics, weird camerawork, and pacing. Just try and be mindful of these things going forward. Pacing can be hard so don’t be too discouraged if it doesn’t feel right at first and try to experiment around with the timing of things. Hope this helps you moving forward!
Thanks Vince! I wasn't expecting such a detailed critique of my work. I'm glad you appreciated the fluidity and lighting at least! Resizing characters was a bit of a pain but making Fource and the twins move with different effects was interesting. The lighting is all thanks to the tutorial. Anyways, about your feedback. I've heard before that the camera spin is disorienting. With some previous Vcams turning the camera at all wasn't possible, so I had some fun playing around with it this time. I still think it's possible to use it in an interesting way, but since most people don't like it, I'll try not to go overboard. As for the physics, my animation style is somewhat inspired by the game Muramasa: The Demonblade. In that game your main weapon is a sword and if you knock an enemy into the air you can do rising zig-zag slices at high speed. Which is why the twins move like that and characters seem to 'float' for a bit. But they are actually always moving in a direction, it's just that at the apex of their ascend and/or just before they descend they move very slowly. But I did forget you could have characters follow guidelines like the one you depicted, so that's certainly something I'll try out! Now I know my camera work needs improvement, this was a test afterall, but I have to disagree about the camera not following the action. At several points in the animation I have the camera move in the same direction a character is. Or moved the camera across them as they spoke/performed an action. I have a friend that showed me examples of how great directors depict scenes, so I understand what you're getting at. If I didn't move the camera it's probably because I lacked space on the arena or I just wanted to focus on a character that was standing still. Managing the camera so it's not moving too much, but but being too still is tricky. But next time I'll try to plan ahead so I have enough space to move the camera where it fits. And as far as poses go, the twins' sprites took a bit of editing on my part, so I don't have quite as many poses as I'd like. I should try rigging them more though. That's something else I'll need to work on so the scene doesn't feel stale when a still camera is focused on them. Thanks for all the feedback! I'll be sure to check this again when I start working on my next sprite animations. I appreciate it. Oh, and here's an example of Muramasa gameplay as a reference:
