I can think of a pretty decent slate of evocatively-angled yet lumbar-friendly 2D walk cycles. Some great ones, even, particularly from Capcom and Sunsoft's late 80s/early 90s output. If I could be arsed with emulators anymore, I'd shortlist n' GIF Kevin from 2010SF, Cody and Guy from Final Fight, Bats from FC Batman, and Yumetaro from Gimmick. Yeah I know, the latter is a green gumdrop thing, but he keeps what would be his chin up and shoulders back like a man should. Let's chuck in Utata Kiyoshi's titular Storm Gunner from IREM/Tamtex's Gravity Armor: Metal Storm, too. Technically a 15ft behemoth, but clearly very comfy.BryanM wrote:Video game art is actually rather cursed on the whole. Because you want to have an angled view of a torso (it looks cooler), which is in conflict with the entity's (and reality's) desire to walk directly forward, you get a lot of pretzel spine. There's also a huge problem with using the far away hand for attacks; having it pass through the front of a torso muddles everything and looks like crap, so you have to pretzel twist in the opposite direction to have a cool-looking animation.
Arthur's Ghouls n' Ghosts' run cycle is a beautiful example of all this. You generally only remember the extreme ends of this with either leg extended because they intentionally linger longer on those... but those in-betweens, man. If you pay too close attention to them all, it's kind of like a ball of trash rolling down the stage. Tumbleweed knight.
I hadn't really noticed this until a couple months ago when I started making some janky sprites again...
Speaking of Kiyoshi, though AFAIK he worked on the first game only, Strider 2's Hiryu is fuckin baller. "EVERY MOVE HE MAKES IS SUPERHUMAN" says the original's flyer, which is pretty true, but its middling walk is a weak link. Strider 2's superhumanly imperious walk cycle, both hands straight down is, as we know, not ideal for a man advancing on his target...
Owch!
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...but when your nanosecond draw sees motherfuckers' throats opened like muppet's mouths before they can so much as say "ACHTUNG," you can afford to stride on em a bit.
Tell your "master" that I am the hunter, and he is my prey.
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Run cycle and the associated somersault/doublejump frames embraces the outright superhuman, again something the first game (an absolute redline techno-artistic achievement in its time) couldn't quite capitalise on.
Rolling! Turning! Diving! Going In Again!
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As to pet peeves... OG Simon, Ralph and Grant have always appeared to be walking with limps to me. And I love Taniguchi & co more than is healthy, but same for Kage's Hayate and Kaede, something Shatterbrain largely fixed. OG Ryu Hayabusa gets around this with a nice cleanly-pedalling run cycle, paired with a static yet plausibly iaido-geared upper body posture. It helps that you can't run and slash in his games, creating the illusion of forward momentum channeled into a learnedly explosive draw.
GNG I always filed on the willfully cartoonier side of things, slightly further along the continuum to pure cartoon than Metal Slug and its forerunner Saigo.
Professional hobbits, do not attempt
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Arthur totters (in OG) and runs (everything else) like each and every step is a manful struggle, hurling his arms and legs forth, his body and head just kind of tagging along. Figures, in full plate armour - not known to aid sprinting. And in his drawers... basically anything he does is gonna look ridiculous. Might as well make it consistently so.
(I'd have loved it if Resurrection added a third damage tier, just flat-out butt-ass naked Arthur with realtime mosaic censoring. )
Speaking of AKIO and walk cycles, how'd you get along with Saigo? I'm way the fuck behind on everything. Would've asked earlier, but I've been lugging my nerd shit cross-country, and I was worried a bird might shit all over itYou'll be relieved to hear I've finally put in a couple hours into Saigo no Nindou.
Superbly detailed reportage as always, marked for index! Wolf Fang is one of those games I was in love with some fifteen years ago from ~2CC standpoint, but haven't revisited in more disciplined terms, since. I was also playing the PS1 port, which while pretty nice, I know does have some aesthetic differences at the least... I wonder if it was toned down at all. I have to revisit, at any rate. Tons of macro is what comes to mind most immediately.BareKnuckleRoo wrote:I've put a lot of time in Wolf Fang this week, even considered picking up the PCB.
Jesus, speaking of pet peeves, why's it so hard to find decent GIFs nowadays? Time to get back on active duty I suppose. Mucho manloves @ posthumanwanderings.tumblr.com