@castelonia - You know, I would be interested in doing that armor on commission. I designed it to be modular, with each piece independent and removeable from the others. I also have four more finished helms that I didn't preview. Shoot me a PM? :)
It's true that existing character assets won't line up to the new animations-- but the old idle and the first frame of the new idle will match, so the original designs can remain. Hair and helms will need to be altered as well, as I've taken a few pixels off the head to make it smaller. (Though since I'm separating the head from the body, including the old head as an option will be easy.)
When I do finish these, I'll be releasing it with a how-to guide, dopesheets, a color palette, and at least a few outfits. I've also been repurposing and redesigning a hair set as well, aiming for variety. That should be enough to get people started.
So, I have some thoughts on the LPC set, after having worked on them for a while.
1. The LPC Character set and the LPC Asset set don't really... necessarily go together. As in, I can choose another character sprite and use the LPC terrain / houses, and provided the colors worked, it'd do just fine. The same is true in reverse. So we can probably split any LPC discussion in two. Assets and Characters.
(I'm going to leave all non-character stuff to other creators. It's much too big for me, and my best work has always been focused on characters. That said, I do have some color palette work going on, so more on that in a bit.)
2. The LPC set was designed to be easy to create for, easy to replicate, easy to use. There is nothing dynamic about it. The bodies don't twist. We don't use dope sheets, and barely any smears.
Unfortunately, this lack of twisting puts a high focus on precision that maybe shouldn't be there. If nothing's twisting, then the blouse should stay perfectly still and even the slightest change upsets it. But the thing is-- a twisting body has way more leeway than a static one for nitpicky details. The important thing is to animate the seam lines and centerlines consistently. And that's something that can be templated.
The downside is-- smears, dope sheets, twisting poses aren't as accessible to beginners. On the other hand, I don't think adding a lot of new animations (which we desperately need for this set to continue to expand its versatility) are beginner friendly either. Sticking to a palette is also a branch off from the standard LPC set.
3. ...Well. I was going to wait a bit longer to announce this (I'm recovering from a long-term illness and it makes me unreliable), but... ah well.
I'm working on a complete LPC character overhaul. My current working title for it is LPC Revised.
I'm also planning on a two handed swing, a two-handed thrust, a lunge, a hit/impact animation, and maybe sprucing up the base walk a bit. The important part, however, will be those animated center / seam lines I'm showing on the run animation. Those will be the guides to adding in new apparel smoothly. Where the arm starts and stops has already been animated for you. I may do the same for drapery-- animated lines for long hair movement, cloaks and long coats.
Also, dope sheets are kind of required. There's a few 3-frame holds on that one-handed swing animation. I'm also using 24fps as my base.
The palette is also very much a WIP, and it's a bit less gaudy than some of the originals. I'll be revising it and tweaking it as I use it moving forward.
4. This is what I'm doing, but obviously no one else needs to adopt my standards. The head / body split will make it easy for someone using the original LPC set to plunk the old head onto my bodies and add my animations to projects that use the old sprites. Which should work just fine, though the change in style might stand out a bit.
@Evert: So few people are aware of chronic illness, it's really nice to hear that. Thank you!
We'll see what happens with the LPC set. That palette is probably next on my list; I'm thinking a 96 color spread at the moment, but we'll see. Might have to bump it to 128, but I don't want to go higher than that.
Otherwise, I've made my unisex model the primary base, reduced the head size by a few pixels, painted a bunch of new hairstyles, more realistic plate armor with a much reduced metallic ramp, made a new one-handed swing animation with a good amount of torso twist and weapon smear, and I'm close to finishing a smooth, weight-shifting run. None of this will get used if I don't release it with a solid base assets kit, though, so... we'll see. :)
Yeah-- sorry about that. I got really close to finishing it, too. :(
Unfortunately, the reason I had so much time to devote to it was the same reason I disappeared: I was seriously sick for about four years. I found myself stuck in bed 24/7, taught myself C#, the Unity engine, and pixel art and had at it. Eventually my condition progressed until I couldn't do... pretty much anything.
The good news is that I'm in remission!
I probably won't recover fully for a good while, so I'm loathe to make any promises about projects, that said. I've also peeked at my code and was appalled at the hack and slash under the hood. I was programming on some serious brain-fog back then; it'd probably be better to redo it from scratch.
The other issue I have with the character creator is some issues with the LPC set itself. It's a community project with no set color palette or ramps, and curating my own standardized set has a lot of challenges. On top of that, I'm finding myself wishing that the animations were much more dynamic.
I may remake the Character Creator for a new, smaller, revised LPC set with much stricter restrictions, but again... that's ambitious, I'm not recovered, and I've learned not to promise too much while I'm still shaky. We'll see if it goes anywhere.
(But I suspect people might very much like the new animations I've made so far.)
Sofas! All the sofas! Oh, that's amazing. I'm really loving where you're taking this! I'm guessing that's a walnut and pine variation for the wood? That's a really solid base to start with.
I'm also really excited to see more furnishing positions, though-- it's great to hear you mean to expand it that way. You're doing an amazing job.
Well... not necessarily. Snow covers a _lot_ of terrains. We already have an ice tileset for water. We could just impose patchy-snow bits with transparancy over the others? Then you'd just need a brownish-gray, dry grass.
As for the assets... A full, complete, wide-encompassing set would have all seasons for the plants, but snowy variations of the others. Eventually I'd like to make front / side / back views of as much as I can, so items can be rotated and placed, like a base-builder. It's one of my own art goals, anyway.
Here's the swing in more detail-- note that it's not finished yet! I also haven't drawn my seam / center guidelines yet.
8 unique images, anticipation, action, and recovery marked. For fast repeated blows, the first two images can be omitted.
You know, would anybody be interested in a Discord server for the LPC set? We could share WIP and concept work directly pretty easily that way.
@castelonia - You know, I would be interested in doing that armor on commission. I designed it to be modular, with each piece independent and removeable from the others. I also have four more finished helms that I didn't preview. Shoot me a PM? :)
It's true that existing character assets won't line up to the new animations-- but the old idle and the first frame of the new idle will match, so the original designs can remain. Hair and helms will need to be altered as well, as I've taken a few pixels off the head to make it smaller. (Though since I'm separating the head from the body, including the old head as an option will be easy.)
When I do finish these, I'll be releasing it with a how-to guide, dopesheets, a color palette, and at least a few outfits. I've also been repurposing and redesigning a hair set as well, aiming for variety. That should be enough to get people started.
So, I have some thoughts on the LPC set, after having worked on them for a while.
1. The LPC Character set and the LPC Asset set don't really... necessarily go together. As in, I can choose another character sprite and use the LPC terrain / houses, and provided the colors worked, it'd do just fine. The same is true in reverse. So we can probably split any LPC discussion in two. Assets and Characters.
(I'm going to leave all non-character stuff to other creators. It's much too big for me, and my best work has always been focused on characters. That said, I do have some color palette work going on, so more on that in a bit.)
2. The LPC set was designed to be easy to create for, easy to replicate, easy to use. There is nothing dynamic about it. The bodies don't twist. We don't use dope sheets, and barely any smears.
Unfortunately, this lack of twisting puts a high focus on precision that maybe shouldn't be there. If nothing's twisting, then the blouse should stay perfectly still and even the slightest change upsets it. But the thing is-- a twisting body has way more leeway than a static one for nitpicky details. The important thing is to animate the seam lines and centerlines consistently. And that's something that can be templated.
The downside is-- smears, dope sheets, twisting poses aren't as accessible to beginners. On the other hand, I don't think adding a lot of new animations (which we desperately need for this set to continue to expand its versatility) are beginner friendly either. Sticking to a palette is also a branch off from the standard LPC set.
3. ...Well. I was going to wait a bit longer to announce this (I'm recovering from a long-term illness and it makes me unreliable), but... ah well.
I'm working on a complete LPC character overhaul. My current working title for it is LPC Revised.
LPC Revised Preview: https://imgur.com/a/iZs3mZq
I'm also planning on a two handed swing, a two-handed thrust, a lunge, a hit/impact animation, and maybe sprucing up the base walk a bit. The important part, however, will be those animated center / seam lines I'm showing on the run animation. Those will be the guides to adding in new apparel smoothly. Where the arm starts and stops has already been animated for you. I may do the same for drapery-- animated lines for long hair movement, cloaks and long coats.
Also, dope sheets are kind of required. There's a few 3-frame holds on that one-handed swing animation. I'm also using 24fps as my base.
The palette is also very much a WIP, and it's a bit less gaudy than some of the originals. I'll be revising it and tweaking it as I use it moving forward.
4. This is what I'm doing, but obviously no one else needs to adopt my standards. The head / body split will make it easy for someone using the original LPC set to plunk the old head onto my bodies and add my animations to projects that use the old sprites. Which should work just fine, though the change in style might stand out a bit.
Thank you everyone! I appreciate it!
@Evert: So few people are aware of chronic illness, it's really nice to hear that. Thank you!
We'll see what happens with the LPC set. That palette is probably next on my list; I'm thinking a 96 color spread at the moment, but we'll see. Might have to bump it to 128, but I don't want to go higher than that.
Otherwise, I've made my unisex model the primary base, reduced the head size by a few pixels, painted a bunch of new hairstyles, more realistic plate armor with a much reduced metallic ramp, made a new one-handed swing animation with a good amount of torso twist and weapon smear, and I'm close to finishing a smooth, weight-shifting run. None of this will get used if I don't release it with a solid base assets kit, though, so... we'll see. :)
Happy holidays, everyone!
Yeah-- sorry about that. I got really close to finishing it, too. :(
Unfortunately, the reason I had so much time to devote to it was the same reason I disappeared: I was seriously sick for about four years. I found myself stuck in bed 24/7, taught myself C#, the Unity engine, and pixel art and had at it. Eventually my condition progressed until I couldn't do... pretty much anything.
The good news is that I'm in remission!
I probably won't recover fully for a good while, so I'm loathe to make any promises about projects, that said. I've also peeked at my code and was appalled at the hack and slash under the hood. I was programming on some serious brain-fog back then; it'd probably be better to redo it from scratch.
The other issue I have with the character creator is some issues with the LPC set itself. It's a community project with no set color palette or ramps, and curating my own standardized set has a lot of challenges. On top of that, I'm finding myself wishing that the animations were much more dynamic.
I may remake the Character Creator for a new, smaller, revised LPC set with much stricter restrictions, but again... that's ambitious, I'm not recovered, and I've learned not to promise too much while I'm still shaky. We'll see if it goes anywhere.
(But I suspect people might very much like the new animations I've made so far.)
Sofas! All the sofas! Oh, that's amazing. I'm really loving where you're taking this! I'm guessing that's a walnut and pine variation for the wood? That's a really solid base to start with.
I'm also really excited to see more furnishing positions, though-- it's great to hear you mean to expand it that way. You're doing an amazing job.
Well... not necessarily. Snow covers a _lot_ of terrains. We already have an ice tileset for water. We could just impose patchy-snow bits with transparancy over the others? Then you'd just need a brownish-gray, dry grass.
As for the assets... A full, complete, wide-encompassing set would have all seasons for the plants, but snowy variations of the others. Eventually I'd like to make front / side / back views of as much as I can, so items can be rotated and placed, like a base-builder. It's one of my own art goals, anyway.
No critique here-- these look amazing, BlueCarrot! I'm looking forward to building off of them, when they're ready!
Yeah, that's my GitHub account. I haven't used it since I got sick, so I'm super rusty, but it's got the right email and such.
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