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Reduce animation choppiness
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 4:46 pm
by Trevor
I'm making a fighting game similar to Mortal Kombat (1992) and as such I used stop-motion photography for the sprites. Unfortunately, some of the sprites don't have enough frames and look choppy while animating - changing the delay helps, but it's not enough. I know this isn't the fault of either LOVE or AnAL, but I was wondering if there is something that can be done programmatically to improve the look of these animations.
Re: Reduce animation choppiness
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 4:53 pm
by kikito
"Choppiness" is a very generic term. What do you mean, exactly? Can you create a .love file showing the issue?
Re: Reduce animation choppiness
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 5:00 pm
by retrotails
Trevor wrote:I'm making a fighting game similar to Mortal Kombat (1992) and as such I used stop-motion photography for the sprites. Unfortunately, some of the sprites don't have enough frames and look choppy while animating - changing the delay helps, but it's not enough. I know this isn't the fault of either LOVE or AnAL, but I was wondering if there is something that can be done programmatically to improve the look of these animations.
Maybe have in-between frames made up of the frames before and after blended together with love.graphics.setColor(255,255,255,128)
Re: Reduce animation choppiness
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 5:10 pm
by Trevor
The main game is now 15MB because of the sprites and music, so here is just one sprite animating. Perhaps the delay could be better optimized, but I think it gets the idea across.
Re: Reduce animation choppiness
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 5:43 pm
by Trevor
retrotails, that sounds like it could work, but I don't know to implement it. Can you provide a small example? or a more detailed explanation?
Re: Reduce animation choppiness
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 6:18 pm
by retrotails
Trevor wrote:retrotails, that sounds like it could work, but I don't know to implement it. Can you provide a small example? or a more detailed explanation?
I've never used an animation library other then my own, so I don't know if it's possible with AnAL. Also this is nearly seizure inducing so its not that great.
edit:
Change love.update to this to see the effect more clearly
Re: Reduce animation choppiness
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 6:35 pm
by Trevor
Nearly seizure inducing indeed. Thanks for the help. I guess there isn't anything that can be done for a poorly made sprite. It has an interesting effect on the animation, but it doesn't appear to improve the smoothness. Thanks for suggesting slowing it down to see it more clearly.
Re: Reduce animation choppiness
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 9:27 pm
by kikito
The only thing I can think of for making it "less choppy" is making it smaller.
While smooth animations are always a great thing to have, a small number of frames is quite noticeable on big animations.
Here, have some inspiration:
http://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/dan-a.html
Re: Reduce animation choppiness
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 10:21 pm
by Trevor
Thanks kikito, where possible I'll reduce the size.
Re: Reduce animation choppiness
Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2013 2:43 pm
by vitaminx
There's a free application called SloMo Video for Windows and Linux:
http://slowmovideo.granjow.net/download.php
I've tried it once and it does a *very* convincing job in calculating frames "in between" and producing a smooth animation.