This week I’ve been working on some art and animation for our game, Desolate Echo (subject to change). We’re going to have a giant crystal-encrusted, spider-like boss that can perform various types of attacks, the most common being swipes and stabs with its front legs.
One of the artifacts that I’ve been working on this week is an animation for one of the stabs. So far it looks like this:
This is the “praparation-for-attack” animation that will give the player some time to react and move out of the way. I wanted to create an organic feeling to the movement, if you look closely you can see that the topmost leg segment stops its movement a moment before the lower parts do, this to create a feeling that the leg is “unfurling” in a menacing way. I also put little green dots on each joint to make it easier to see the idea of the movement.
I use a program called GraphicsGale to make pixel art and animations, since it is easy to use and specifically created for these tasks. It can work with layers and frames, it has opacity and onion skin functions, as well as many useful tool options.
The way I made this was by:
1. Creating eight frames
2. Draw the first frame
3. Copy and tweak the image for each subsequent frame by cutting up the leg and rotating the pieces (I made sure to capture the flow of the movement before moving on to the next step)
4. Some clean-up is always required as pixels will jitter around when images are rotated.
5. Checking and double-checking that the shape of the leg is kept throughout the animation
Another piece I worked on this week was a base sprite for one of the smaller monsters the player will encounter in the game, the Spyderling. They will mostly hang out around the boss and attack the player in swarms when approached.
The two variants I’ve been working on look like this:
(I apologise for the small size)
The one on the left would take up an area of 128×96 pixels and the one on the right “only” 64×64. The left one has – in my opinion – a nicer look to it, but it is also HUGE when compared to the player avatar, which is a measly 32 pixels long. So either I go with the one on the right or I make an even smaller sprite. It will be somewhat more difficult to get a good level of detail, but maybe that won’t matter as much since there will be a swarm of them and they will move around a lot.
Well, that’s it for this week. More to come.
GameDev Shenanigans 
Well done on the attack preparation animation so far. I think you managed to get the organic feeling that you wanted, pretty well. You can tell that it belongs to a spider or at least an insect even if you’re just showing the leg. It would’ve been neat to see how it’d look like on the boss itself but you might not have gotten there yet or if it’s someone elses job but whatever the reason, I’m still looking forward to seeing how it’ll turn out later on. The only thing that’s missing would be the detailing and shading because right now it does look a bit plain. Since it’s not done yet though you might already be planning to add these things later on. Also both your Spyderling designs look great, I’d go for the smaller one even though the left one does have a nicer look to it as you said. Maybe make the legs pointier and bendier like how it is on the left one but in a smaller size. Of course, this might just be my own personal preference though but both still look great.
All in all I think you did a good job explaining what you did and how your process looked like when doing it as in how you mentioned that you used GraphicsGale and why you used it as well as explaining some of its basic tools and fuctions. Personally I use Asesprite and Photoshop even though how bothersome photoshop could be when working with pixel art but hey whatever works in the end right? Though I will definitely try out GraphicsGale.
Looking forward to seeing how your animations will turn out like as well as the game. Keep up the good work!
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