$12256 / $11500
I'd like to try messing with the animations for flare-game's source blend files, as many current animations leave a lot to be desired (that said, I applaud and respect the artist(s) for their work on the meshes themselves, not to mention getting that [i]amount[/i] of art out in such timeframes).
I'd like to download just, but all of, the blend files in the flare-game source. Unfortunately, I'm essentially entirely unfamiliar with github and any similar software/services.
Another concern is that, of course, any modifications to the base animations will require rerendering of all of the equipment animations, which I understand are packed in separate files. I do have a little experience with Blender (mostly making simple meshes and animations), but am not sure what tools are available to help in making sure that all of this is handled correctly.
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Unfortunately I cant answer your question about equipment animations, but of course, it would only affect the player model. You should be able to make changes to the enemy models without bothering with equipment. Aside from the existing game graphics, the below models would benefit from completely new animations. They were originally copied from the flare zombie and still have the zombie animations.
http://opengameart.org/content/flare-zombie-mod-pirate-crewman-ghost
http://opengameart.org/content/flare-zombie-mod-pirate-officer-ghost
If you need any help with github, or with viewing your changes in-game, please ask.
Github has some pretty good tutorials on getting set up and cloning a repo. If you follow them, the main hitch you will run into is needing to pull two separate repos: flare-engine and then flare-game (for game data files). The blend files are in the flare-game repo.
What's lacking with the current animations? Just lame style? If so that's understandable. But the amount of work to re-render everything is probably too high a cost at this point.
We can't really add more frames of animation if that's what you're considering. All the permutations for 8 directions, several animations, and all the equipment means the game already takes a considerable amount of memory. If we roll out the "hdcore" version with no new frames the game will require 1GB of video memory which is steep for such a simple 2D game. (actually more than my dev machine has).
Some of my thoughts on Flare's animations. I made most of them and I'm open to specific critiques. I'd like to work on new upscaled core art soon so this kind of feedback is valuable.
The animations are better than a ton of other indie games. I see lots of games like this that look great in stills but look awful when moving.
Some of the creatures have poor animations (e.g. the skeleton especially). Given infinite time I'd redo some.
I don't like the hunched over male pose. That's probably the oldest animation in the entirety of Flare. The female's stance is a bit better but is unnecessarily feminine (she stands and moves like a model, not like a warrior).
The attacks could all use some unrealistic momentum, if the game needs to go that direction (fast-paced gamey combat). The wind-up and swing should be all moved to the first half of the animation, and the second half should be follow-through and rest. I noticed this a lot in Diablo 3, and how much it added to a aggressive crunchy combat feel. This is harder to do with only 4 attack frames.
I don't do a great job of moving all the bones when animation. So a lot of the running feels more like sliding than actually a heavy stomp wearing full armor. I'd like to study the running animations in Dark Souls cause I think they nailed it.
Finally it's a question of how much detail is retained when rendering the heroes at ~60px tall. We don't expect these animations to e.g. work in 3D third person. They just need to look nice for the output sprites.
Some animations don't work (for heroes) at all with the current layer system. E.g. can't have a spinning attack because that required reordering layers per frame, instead of how it's currently done (by facing direction). Even the attack animations have to be crafted in a way so that they don't violate draw order. We could change this if and only if the actual requirement comes up (support per-frame layer orders).
What's lacking with the current animations? Just lame style?
I suppose that's one way of putting it. Your later comment on often not taking advantage of all joints is relevant - a lot of the main hero animations are rather stiff and unnatural.
The animations are better than a ton of other indie games. I see lots of games like this that look great in stills but look awful when moving.
I can't say I've seen much in the way of comparable indie games - most art I've seen is sideview, or, even if top-down, much more stylized, often hand-crafted pixel art. It doesn't really seem entirely relevant, though - if it looks good or bad or whatever, then that's how it looks, regardless of what others have done.
But the amount of work to re-render everything is probably too high a cost at this point.
Too high a cost to whom? So far as I can tell, the only person it would cost for me to tweak some animations is myself.
Finally it's a question of how much detail is retained when rendering the heroes at ~60px tall. We don't expect these animations to e.g. work in 3D third person. They just need to look nice for the output sprites.
I'm not really sure what you're saying here, though I can confidently state that pixel resolution is a primary limiting factor in the quality of sprite animation. Honestly, two of my favorite games, from a visual perspective, are Diablo II and Starcraft, which are only moderately higher and indeed much lower, respectively, in terms of typical pixel size.
Some animations don't work (for heroes) at all with the current layer system. E.g. can't have a spinning attack because that required reordering layers per frame
I have to admit, that's not a limitation I had considered previously, though I don't expect it to be of much concern to me. The particular example of spinning is, I think, an overused thing and quite silly in many cases.
We can't really add more frames of animation if that's what you're considering. All the permutations for 8 directions, several animations, and all the equipment means the game already takes a considerable amount of memory. If we roll out the "hdcore" version with no new frames the game will require 1GB of video memory which is steep for such a simple 2D game. (actually more than my dev machine has).
I can state, rather less confidently than before, that I think temporal resolution is also not a primary limiting factor. Although attack animations are a much different case (shorter in Flare, and longer in Diablo II), e.g. running animations are the same number of frames in both games. (I've been staring at its animations frame-by-frame a lot in working on similar artwork unrelated to this thread)