I was recently working out some of the details of my game project with my fellow programmers....but the truth is I'm having trouble with certain Animation Elements.
Basically I want my Ship to be able to transform into several "modes" or variations of the ship...kinda like how Robotech does the Gerwalk to Fighter plane thing, but more like Ship to Ship. So far the only thing I've managed is a Fade-to-White...but that's kind of visually cheating (Example Dragonball Z: Budokai 3 does it when characters transform). Does anyone know anything about Mecha Transformation Mechanics and how that would work out?
Ship Transformation Animation Mechanics
Ship Transformation Animation Mechanics
The world would be a better place if there were less shooters and more dot-eaters.
Jesus' BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS:
1. Pure, Mournful, Humble Heart
2. Merciful Peacemaker
3. Suffer for Righteous Desire
Jesus' BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS:
1. Pure, Mournful, Humble Heart
2. Merciful Peacemaker
3. Suffer for Righteous Desire
Basically the first set of 4 ships is Player 1 and the second row is Player 2....they each have 4 modes. I know the colors are different, but I was thinking of possibly fading the color during tranformation to opaque (grey/white/black)
The world would be a better place if there were less shooters and more dot-eaters.
Jesus' BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS:
1. Pure, Mournful, Humble Heart
2. Merciful Peacemaker
3. Suffer for Righteous Desire
Jesus' BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS:
1. Pure, Mournful, Humble Heart
2. Merciful Peacemaker
3. Suffer for Righteous Desire
I think fading or some type of organic morph would work best for these, if you could animate the triangle shaped segments sliding and growing out from under each other, while the colors cross fade, that would probably look nice.
I kind of think the 4 modes look too different, it seems like 8 ships for the player to choose from rather than 2 base ships with 3 extra modes.
The 3rd from the left on the top and bottom (yellow white) stand out the strongest to me as something I can imagine transforming between, even though they aren't in the same set of modes.
The ships themselves mainly look cool, although they weren;t what I was expecting in terms of transforming ships. (i was thinking mechanical where a few important features of the ship would be transferred over into each mode, the way it looks now is more of an organic or crystal type thing which wouldn''t use mechanical movement in transforming)
Something you might want to try doing is thinking about the outline or silohette of the ships before filling in the details.
you can do this by making the current 8 designs solid black and looking at them and seeing what you think, you want designs that will stand out from the background and action and look interesting enough just based off of it's shape and outline.
Also before somone else says it, you dont want to get too caught up on the graphics unless you're ready for focusing on them (having basic level roughly playable with temp art)
*edit*
actually, based on the ships above, IMO the coolest and easiest thing to do would be quickly flashing the ship solid white like you were thinking (like its glowing) and then having a few frames of the solid white silohette shifting into the silohette of the next mode, with the base colors of the first mode kind of shattering or falling off as the new ship's details fade in.
The shattering thing I mean just a basic animation of a small jagged rotating triangle shape that breaks apart into smaller peices down to a couple pixels, you would just create a bunch of those sprites on the ship, setting them to the proper color and have them falling off the screen behind the ship.
I kind of think the 4 modes look too different, it seems like 8 ships for the player to choose from rather than 2 base ships with 3 extra modes.
The 3rd from the left on the top and bottom (yellow white) stand out the strongest to me as something I can imagine transforming between, even though they aren't in the same set of modes.
The ships themselves mainly look cool, although they weren;t what I was expecting in terms of transforming ships. (i was thinking mechanical where a few important features of the ship would be transferred over into each mode, the way it looks now is more of an organic or crystal type thing which wouldn''t use mechanical movement in transforming)
Something you might want to try doing is thinking about the outline or silohette of the ships before filling in the details.
you can do this by making the current 8 designs solid black and looking at them and seeing what you think, you want designs that will stand out from the background and action and look interesting enough just based off of it's shape and outline.
Also before somone else says it, you dont want to get too caught up on the graphics unless you're ready for focusing on them (having basic level roughly playable with temp art)
*edit*
actually, based on the ships above, IMO the coolest and easiest thing to do would be quickly flashing the ship solid white like you were thinking (like its glowing) and then having a few frames of the solid white silohette shifting into the silohette of the next mode, with the base colors of the first mode kind of shattering or falling off as the new ship's details fade in.
The shattering thing I mean just a basic animation of a small jagged rotating triangle shape that breaks apart into smaller peices down to a couple pixels, you would just create a bunch of those sprites on the ship, setting them to the proper color and have them falling off the screen behind the ship.
Links would be helpful, thanks ahead of time.it290 wrote:There are some freeware programs out there that can do morphing effects. You could try those if you don't want to hand animate everything.
The world would be a better place if there were less shooters and more dot-eaters.
Jesus' BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS:
1. Pure, Mournful, Humble Heart
2. Merciful Peacemaker
3. Suffer for Righteous Desire
Jesus' BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS:
1. Pure, Mournful, Humble Heart
2. Merciful Peacemaker
3. Suffer for Righteous Desire
Haven't used this one (I haven't done any of this morphing stuff for about ten years), but it looks good:
http://www.debugmode.com/winmorph/
http://www.debugmode.com/winmorph/
For me cloud phobia had some of the coolest transformation effects I've seen, on the bit where you first fly upwards, and have to fight the four ship/mech things. As a coder myself though I know I wouldn't like to try making that, the rotation they used is insane.
I think the glowing white idea is cool. Reminds me of R-Type III, I think about the fifth level, where you have to fight loads of bosses in a row. They fade to white and the outline morphs into the shape of the next boss. I had to use a fair few savestates to get there though.
I think the glowing white idea is cool. Reminds me of R-Type III, I think about the fifth level, where you have to fight loads of bosses in a row. They fade to white and the outline morphs into the shape of the next boss. I had to use a fair few savestates to get there though.
For each ship, isolate what exact parts are to transform, and make them as separate parts per ship-graphic,
use mirroring - unless you aren't doing symmetrical morphs, then you only need to animate one side, the other side is the exact same anyway
and then its a case of deciding what each section that can transform is going to 'fold-and-click' into (ie where it will move to) and animating that, paying attention to perspective, then adding shadows and shading and highlights to it later.
this is for 2D sprites of course! 3D you'd need a 3D model, and similarly make the transformable parts as if on hinges or just as separate elements per model (moveable parts). Same as with any animating, it doesn't need to actually be correct by real engineering, bit it can still look like it is (ie - for real, you obviously can't just fold a wing part into where the engine would be or the cargo bit or whatever, but in a game you can).
For ideas, apart from mech figures that transform and cartoons of same, look at cars that have these features already - mostly things like the doors and automatic convertible roof, might be stuff online showing videos of these features on manufacturers and salesroom websites.
use mirroring - unless you aren't doing symmetrical morphs, then you only need to animate one side, the other side is the exact same anyway
and then its a case of deciding what each section that can transform is going to 'fold-and-click' into (ie where it will move to) and animating that, paying attention to perspective, then adding shadows and shading and highlights to it later.
this is for 2D sprites of course! 3D you'd need a 3D model, and similarly make the transformable parts as if on hinges or just as separate elements per model (moveable parts). Same as with any animating, it doesn't need to actually be correct by real engineering, bit it can still look like it is (ie - for real, you obviously can't just fold a wing part into where the engine would be or the cargo bit or whatever, but in a game you can).
For ideas, apart from mech figures that transform and cartoons of same, look at cars that have these features already - mostly things like the doors and automatic convertible roof, might be stuff online showing videos of these features on manufacturers and salesroom websites.
Or you could cheat, Psyvariar-style, by creating a flash of light that covers the ship temporarily, and when the light disappears, the ship has changed shape ^_-
Animating the transformation is a lot harder though. You'd have to isolate each part that will change, and then ensure that the animation is very fast and smooth, so that it doesn't disrupt the gameplay (unless you want it to, like in Brave Blade and Hyper Duel, where you get a split second lag when the ship transforms).
Animating the transformation is a lot harder though. You'd have to isolate each part that will change, and then ensure that the animation is very fast and smooth, so that it doesn't disrupt the gameplay (unless you want it to, like in Brave Blade and Hyper Duel, where you get a split second lag when the ship transforms).
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pixelcorps
- Posts: 797
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use winmorph, but only apply it to half of both images, then mirror the other side using the animations winmorph gave you, the symmetry will really help.
either that or fade the ship up to white, and morph the white ship, then fade it back down again....
to get the full mecha style transform you ideally need to design one ship , but break all the elements down into parts, that way you can move parts about that "open up" revealing other parts...
the designs you have so far seem to be too far apart from each other in terms of similarity and parts, especially with the colour scheme.. so youre gonna have a hard time....
you could even try making paper pieces of the ship bits, and move em around til you have a nice design, then shift em around again to make a second...
either that or fade the ship up to white, and morph the white ship, then fade it back down again....
to get the full mecha style transform you ideally need to design one ship , but break all the elements down into parts, that way you can move parts about that "open up" revealing other parts...
the designs you have so far seem to be too far apart from each other in terms of similarity and parts, especially with the colour scheme.. so youre gonna have a hard time....
you could even try making paper pieces of the ship bits, and move em around til you have a nice design, then shift em around again to make a second...
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Diabollokus
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- Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 3:22 pm
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- Contact:
your ship designs look great, love the red/yellow 3rd 1p ship.
What I would do is:
Have the ship shrink as a white light envelopes it, and as the light dissapaits the second form emerges in its shrunken form and enlarges as the white light retracts. No animation needed, just shrink the sprite and enlarge the next one. Think a ship coming out of a black hole.
What I would do is:
Have the ship shrink as a white light envelopes it, and as the light dissapaits the second form emerges in its shrunken form and enlarges as the white light retracts. No animation needed, just shrink the sprite and enlarge the next one. Think a ship coming out of a black hole.
Vidi Vici Veni