Weapon Sprites

[Lucifer]

Why is there a blur when he moves the sword down slightly but not when he swings it across?

I would guess that's because the blur indicates where the sword is actually being swung quickly. If you were to swing a heavy great sword at the same fast speed for the entire swing, you'd probably end up having it fly out of your hands.

[DivineLegend]

remember, he doesn't have to have his feet anchored to the ground to swing a sword

[leviofoley]

As to why the weapon blur is where it is, there are three reasons:
1. As Luci said, that is the frame where the sword moves the fastest.
2. For S.O. melee weapons, the attack is supposed to be in front of the stick figure, not underneath or behind it.
3. I didn't want the weapon blur to go "underground"

@DivineLegend: you don't have to have your feet anchored to the ground to swing a sword, but you can (e.g. the katana & short sword).  I don't think this is really a problem :/

[DivineLegend]

yes, but those are smaller swords, this thing is huge, to be able to hold your balance like that, i think it should be redone, but the sword it great

[T-Rok]

If you play it in reverse, the middle of it could work as a stabbing motion. xD

[leviofoley]

Bump for update.  Trying out a new weapon blur, and tweaked the legs so that they don't get closer together when the stick figure swings the sword.

[ARTgames]

I don't like it. I dont like the look, color or animation.

[Trogdor]

It's a pretty decent sprite, but a few things don't come off looking quite right.

Firstly, the setup and recovery of your sprite seem a little too long. You should concentrate on making the setup or recovery long, and leave the other reasonably short. I'm assuming you're going to want this to be a high-damage, somewhat slow weapon, so I'll offer a few examples. With the Great Sword, there is very little setup due to the sword already in swing position. To counteract this the recovery is much longer, balancing out the weapon. An example of a very long setup with relatively short recovery is the Wooden Hammer, where the majority of the sprite is pulling out the hammer and raising it above the stick's head. When you have a high power weapon, you'll want to demonstrate its power with either a prolonged recovery (a stick being thrown off-balance by a mighty Great Sword swing) or setup (a stick slowly winding up a hammer swing and focusing all of its strength on where it will land).

However, it all depends on the rarity of the item. The above explanation is useless if it's for an end-game weapon, such as the Spire with virtually no setup or recovery, or Stone Hammer with a boost in power from the Wooden Hammer and less frames for the full weapon swing. End-game weapons take much more time to obtain, but are also a step ahead from their uncommon or semi-rare counterparts, making them ?end-game?. You should definitely consider the rarity of the weapon before making its sprite.

Secondly, your weapon blur seems misplaced to me. Between frames 6 and 7 where the greatest displacement of the weapon occurs, there isn't any blur. Instead you placed the blur between frames 5 and 6 even though the distance the sword travels is about the same as frames 4 and 5. Perhaps you could omit a few extraneous setup frames to create a maximum distance the sword travels, and place the blur there. Another solution could be extending the blur to connect frames 5 and 7, though that would resemble the Slasher's blur. Assuming you want to create a unique sprite for the game (or a sprite you simply want to share) changing the starting position of the sword would be your best bet, though that would require you to completely change the sprite. A slash doesn't always have to be top to bottom. It could be bottom to top, background to foreground, foreground to background, bottom left corner to top right corner, inside to out (outside to in?). Just be sure to adjust the blur's thickness on where the slash is occurring, such as making the blur somewhat thin if the weapon is being swung across the stick's body, or maximum thickness if you're sticking to the tried-and-true top-bottom approach.

Lastly, it seems like there isn't enough stress being placed on the stick from the sword swing. Maybe arching its back a bit forward in the setup frames and throwing out its back leg while leaning slightly forward could fix this. You would also want to show a great emphasis on the front leg bending under the weight of the full swing. Try to ?curve? your entire stick to demonstrate the power being built up before the swing or the strain the stick will experience after. Unless you absolutely want both feet planted firmly on the ground, lifting a leg off the ground in the before and/or after swing couldn't hurt.

Other than those things, it's a great sprite. I'm not a spriter in any way, so my opinion on how a sprite should look holds little to no water. This is just what I've noticed from the three years playing Stick Online, and my knowledge of spriting is limited to observing Stick Online's sprites. I apologize if I come off as critical or if I over-analyzed in any way.

[leviofoley]

I actually do like the step by step analysis and constructive criticism, since it actually helps me decide on a direction for the sprites.  I'm actually not opposed to working your ideas into these sprites, but that does mean that I may have to redo the whole thing, or at least various frames of it.  The problem is, I basically tried to create something along the lines of a long sword, something that would be heavy and cause the stick to bend under the sword's weight, swinging the sword using gravity rather than its own muscle power, and recoiling due to centrifugal force after the swing.  Trying to make the forces acting on the stick very obvious was what caused the limb growth, which I corrected later.  Now people are saying the stick has to have one of his legs off the ground, which I couldn't really see happening until you mentioned that maybe after the swing the stick figure could lean forward, which makes a little more sense.

The swinging motion is not just from the top down (like the short sword or hammer motion), but rather from the top background to the bottom foreground (like a reverse katana motion).  I probably should have made this more obvious by putting the weapon blur between frames 6 and 7 as you said, but was afraid to put the weapon blur below the stick figure.
 
I think the easiest thing I can do would be to delete some of the setup and recoiling sprites, which I could probably do without any loss of fluid-ness (?). I do still want to keep it balanced, though.  I could then probably move the weapon blur just to see how it looks.  The hardest thing to do may be to get the stick to lift one of his legs, which may be a good idea, but may also just mess things up.

The only thing I reallly don't agree with is that you should think of a weapon's rarity before you sprite it, since rarity is part of the implementation and programming, which definitely comes later and is not up to me at all.

[Trogdor]

Now people are saying the stick has to have one of his legs off the ground, which I couldn't really see happening until you mentioned that maybe after the swing the stick figure could lean forward, which makes a little more sense.

You could definitely pull off the entire sprite without lifting so much as a toe. It seems like a good portion of high-damage weapons include a leg coming off the ground, such as the Great Sword or Slasher, or both, like the final few frames of the Wooden Hammer. It would be interesting to see you come up with an alternative to expressing the power in a weapon swing, and I challenge you to make one. ;)

The swinging motion is not just from the top down (like the short sword or hammer motion), but rather from the top background to the bottom foreground (like a reverse katana motion).  I probably should have made this more obvious by putting the weapon blur between frames 6 and 7 as you said, but was afraid to put the weapon blur below the stick figure.

I didn't realize it was a background to foreground swing until you mentioned it. Upon closer inspection I saw the hilt overlap the stick, but it was barely discernible in the animated sprite. It would probably be a good idea to have the weapon blur or a frame with the sword overlapping the stick just to emphasize the back-to-foreground swing.

The only thing I reallly don't agree with is that you should think of a weapon's rarity before you sprite it, since rarity is part of the implementation and programming, which definitely comes later and is not up to me at all.

I should've been more specific. Based on just the sprite itself, which would you rather have: a Short Sword or a Katana? Or how about a Wooden Hammer or a Stone Hammer? By looking at the sprites from the former two swords, the Katana has a much faster swing and a more "forgiving" hit box (based on the blur) than the Short Sword, since part of the blur is behind the stick. From the latter two hammers, the Stone Hammer is much faster than its wooden counterpart by its lower frame count, and its delay is after the swing, not before it, allowing more precision and less timing in battle. The only way to implement these variations of weapons in the game is by decreasing their chance to drop from mobs, and adjusting their damage accordingly, which also should be considered when making a sprite.

Taking your sword as an example of a variation of an already implemented weapon in the game (lets say Great Sword, just for fun), we'd either have to:
     
     I) Consider its rarity compared to the Great Sword. If it's more rare, then we'd have to:
               
               1) Decide if it does more damage, which would require balancing part of the sprite, such as:
                         a) Lessening the hit box (editing the weapon blur) or
                         b) Lengthening the setup/recovery (adding more frames to the required area)
               
               2) Decide if it does less damage. There still must be an incentive to obtain the weapon such as a(n):
                         a) Larger hit box
                         b) Faster swing time
                         c) Ease of acquisition
                         d) Ability to multi-hit enemies
                         e) Knock back
                         f) Any other beneficial things to consider to adjust the sprite to meet said conditions.
     
     II) If it's less rare, we'll assume it will also do less damage than the Great Sword, then decide if it's for:
               
               1) Low level players. If this is the case, the sprite must tailor to the damage output of low-end weapons:
                         a) Consist of a poor hit box by way of a lessened weapon blur
                         b) A slow recovery/setup time by the addition of frames. The ease of attainability outweighs the cons.
               
               2) High level players. The sprite must give an incentive to use the weapon than a Great Sword by:
                         a) Providing a larger hit box, or a small extension behind for added "forgiveness"
                         b) A faster recovery/setup time by way of the omission of frames

I know I must've repeated a few things, but I wanted the list to be comprehensive. It's just a rough outline, but I hope you get the gist of what I'm trying to say. Anyways, I can't wait to see the adjustments you'll make to your sprite. ;D

[HamsterPants]

The animation is O.K, but not the sprite. First off we already have a great sword, would be nice if you were a bit more creative in the actual weapon. I don't really see any shading done whatsoever, the blur is just three very poor choices of color on top of each other. I would have liked the animation if it didn't look like he was cringing away from his own sword. Practice swinging a sword in real life, your arms wouldn't get so near your stomach. Doing so required you to bend your stick figure, which would also not happen while swinging a sword that way, and is not humanly friggin possible (hence the limb growth).

The number 1 rule of swordsmanship is to always step with your swings.
The Short Sword animation in SO is a perfect example of how NOT to swing a sword.
The Katana animation too.

And this animation.

[Lingus]

I think there's a difference between following rules of how to effectively swing a sword, and something that just does not look right. The short sword and katana animations don't look wrong, whereas this one kind of does. It probably has to do with the size of the sword. The fact that you CAN swing a sword as small as the short sword or katana without stepping, versus not being physically able to do so with a larger, heavier sword makes this animation seem implausible.

[HamsterPants]

I think there's a difference between following rules of how to effectively swing a sword, and something that just does not look right. The short sword and katana animations don't look wrong, whereas this one kind of does. It probably has to do with the size of the sword. The fact that you CAN swing a sword as small as the short sword or katana without stepping, versus not being physically able to do so with a larger, heavier sword makes this animation seem implausible.

I suppose after learning so much about swordsmanship, I've come to see a lot of animations as being unrealistic, but yes, it is possible to use a two handed sword of that size, but it requires a lot of training just to hold it right, and it really is impossible not to use something that large without moving a considerable distance anyway, so I see where you're coming from.

[jackel1994]

Thats crazy looking! Can we say SO has now been introduced to the lightsabre?!

[DivineLegend]

epic necro. plz don't do that unless it is a relevant post such as adding an idea or posting your opinion on the idea.