I was wondering how you do the animation frames for a character walking on the screen. Is each frame individually drawn from scratch, or is there some easier method?

Ok, does anyone know of any links to making 2d art for games. I''ve looked in the links section here and most of it is for 3d art. I have also looked at the art tutorials, which are mostly doing letters/textures.... I tried searching, but didn''t find much...

3dpalette.com has some good 2d tutorials I believe. In answer to your original question though, Yes, for an animated character, the easiest way to do it is to draw each frame of the animation separately. Of course, for bits that dont'' move in the image, it works to just copy and paste that part into the next frame.

Alternatively, you can model the graphic in a 3d animation program and convert the output frames to bitmap files to use in a 2d program.


*oof*

thx.

Some painting programs (like painter 5.0) will let you draw on frames of a movie while seeing previous frames as faded images. You then draw the next frame slightly off from the previous one. Painter will also show a preview of your movie being played through so you can get the animation just right. I personaly use Painter 3.0. It has all the features I need.

E:cb woof!

quote: Original post by dog135

Some painting programs (like painter 5.0) will let you draw on frames of a movie while seeing previous frames as faded images. You then draw the next frame slightly off from the previous one.

You can probably simulate this using the layers function of Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or whatever you use. Import your
previous frame as a layer, and set its opacity to 10%, 20%, whatever is suitable. or change your top layer''s transparency to 80-90%, etc. I''m sure you get the idea... Just be sure to remove that layer before you save out the eventual bitmap.

Yeah, you can do that. But I still like the preview showing the actual animation.

BTW: WHEN is Photoshop going to add an animation feature? It''s my favorate graphics program but I can''t do animated Gifs with it. (easily)

E:cb woof!

Photoshop 5.5 comes with a program called imageready. It does web graphics and gif animation and is the closest thing photoshop is going to get to animation. But you already knew that.

Edited by - twelve on 3/26/00 4:32:55 PM

My favorite animation utility from back in the day was called DeluxeAnimate, an advanced form of DPaint. (EA)

Unfortunately, it could only work in 256 color palletes and 320x200 screen size...

Still, it had a number of impressive features and good functionality for its day. (circa 1990)

There are days when I miss it.

$0.02

Huh, I have PhotoShop 5.0 not 5.5. Maybe I should upgrade. Is Imageready a well written program in your opinion, Twelve?

E:cb woof!