The Joys Of Sprites

The frustration with drawing sprites is like no other. There's no cursing, swearing or kicking. Or even throwing books and mugs of coffee at walls. No, when drawing sprites there is a lead up to the frustration. As if, it's luring you into a false sense of security before it kills you.

The last month or so (yes, it takes that long) has been spent drawing a little sprite person who hasn't even got a name. Funny really as I know him better than most people. Unfortunatly, I don't know the little beggar enough to make him fecking walk! First I tried using Guybrush's walk cycle as a template and using his walking poses. This looks stupid, as Guybrush seems to run rather than walk. This therefore led me to believe that screenshotting Beneath a Steel Sky would be a good idea. The walk cycle is perfect, and I manged to get enough shots to create a decent cycle to use as a template.

All was going great then. I'd drawn a good few frames and I was checking them as I did them, the animation was comming on fine. Well... that's until I strung them all together at the end. The resulting animation looks like my character is jolting to particually bad music, whilst parts of his clothing disappear and reappear around him. It looks shite! And it took me so much effort! Grrr!

I don't think the actual individual sprites are really that bad, especially as this is my first real experience with them. It's just so difficult to produce a successful walk cycle!

Well, enough of my whimpering and sulking, it's back to the Paint Shop Drawing Board to add some more frames to the animation, see if that works.

If you would like to bail me out by giving me loads of cool advise and maybe even drawing the bugger for me, you can find me at Gibbage Forums. Or leave a comment of course...