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Æther: The Animation Showcase

GraphicsSuper Mario WorldArt

Last summer I introduced a small demo for Aether, but this time I'll be showing off something that's fairly small for now, but the scope of this will be quite massive. With the help of Maarfy, we've been radically revamping the player physics and animations into something that goes far beyond the simplicity of Super Mario World's. With over 500 possible frames possible, there's a whole lot of wiggle room when it comes to animation, as well as giving those animations dumb names for a lark.
So, just a small sample of what will be going into the hack sometime down the line, as well as expectations of what to deliver in the future:


Eszett's fidgety little idle animation.
Modest as-is, but eventually she'll be going into secondary idle animations when left alone for too long.
These will even be area-dependent, allowing for Eszett's idling to change with her environment.


Eszett rushing at full speed towards someone that's two seconds from getting decked.
The belt-thing on her hat will change a few times because I'm undecided on the color. I won't mind your thoughts on that.


Eszett defying, and later obedient to, gravity.


Eszett attacking, and later falling victim to, a ceiling


Eszett landing in different contexts, including jumping around and having a great time in a tiny corridor.


Eszett finding something she stowed away in her bag.


Eszett carrying precious cargo. This is in her cape form for important science reasons.


Eszett hurling whatever she's carrying for a grand ol time


Eszett frisbeeing whatever she's carrying because she can


Eszett battling her inner demons on which way she should face.


Eszett looking upward at something real interesting.


Eszett also looking up, but differently. The up button makes you look up, but it's also something like an investigation button to interact with background elements, so I made two different versions.



Way more animations are still to be made, but hopefully a whole bunch can get completed and inserted into the game proper by next C3!


Other Submissions of mine!
I hate having to draw animation frames, and here you are going out of your way to make a couple hundred more. #tb{''}

These are all excellent, and it's incredible how much character they add. If I had to complein about something, it'd be that the shape of Eszett's hair is pretty jagged and hard to grasp, and that orange might not be the best color for the ribbon on the hat.

Excited to see how well all of these will read in-game!


 
Is her color scheme subject to change? Other than looking totally just like "default fire luigi palette", it's a pretty weak combination of colors overall. Also, there's something I find unnatural about her skin tone... I can't quite put my finger on what exactly, but I'm assuming it's because the colors being used lack a sort of warmth to them; like, it's kind of a dry sort of lifeless yellowish brown that I don't think works that well for tan skin tone, I don't know.

The animations are absolutely stunning (that subpixelling kills me it's so damn good) but you probably already knew that #tb{;)}.

E: Oh yeah, my problem with the green is that it seems too "pure" and, because of that, lacks some personality. Like, it doesn't have much influence of any of the adjacent hues (except for the darkest shade) and it's also at max saturation so due to both of those things it feels to me like it's saying "Hello, yes, I Am Green™" because it aligns so perfectly to what a mental image of the color green is like so it's like there's no subjectivity to it... or something... aaaaaa I'm aware this all sounds really weird and abstract and probably not very clear at all?? But, uh, hopefully I made some sense. Sorry #tb{''}

E2: But that's, like, speaking of the green in isolation. Even if you changed it I still think it'd be a weak scheme because analogous color schemes aren't really the most interesting. Like, they can be nice, certainly, but I don't think one is the most appropriate for a main character.

I absolutely adore these animations. All the captions are just as cute and fun to read! The animations are so smooth and just like with Magi the subpixelling has just killed me so yeah C3 is over for me now. (seriously though, great work!)
// Layout by Maxo
Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg
I hate having to draw animation frames, and here you are going out of your way to make a couple hundred more. #tb{''}

It's going to kill me and it will hurt the entire time I'm dying, but dammit it'll be pretty.

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg
Excited to see how well all of these will read in-game!


You can see a preliminary version that Maarfy created and shared with me that I didn't have the foresight to share in my first post.


We haven't included certain features like animations that play at faster or slower rates depending on speed, or certain transitional animations to make things a bit less choppy, but I say that it's already looking pretty smooth and funky even in this very early state.
____________________________

Originally posted by Magi
Is her color scheme subject to change? Other than looking totally just like "default fire luigi palette", it's a pretty weak combination of colors overall. Also, there's something I find unnatural about her skin tone...


I did restrict my palette to Fire Luigi, yeah. Skin tone and all. Hadn't thought it crucial at all to deviate from the default palettes, but it would suck to have someone bring up an observation like this after 500+ tiles have been inserted, so dealing with it early on would be preferable.

Originally posted by Magi
E: Oh yeah, my problem with the green is that it seems too "pure" and, because of that, lacks some personality. ... I'm aware this all sounds really weird and abstract and probably not very clear at all?? But, uh, hopefully I made some sense. Sorry #tb{''}

E2: But that's, like, speaking of the green in isolation. Even if you changed it I still think it'd be a weak scheme because analogous color schemes aren't really the most interesting. Like, they can be nice, certainly, but I don't think one is the most appropriate for a main character.


Is your thinking that Eszett's color scheme relies too heavily on one color, and has too much of a single shade? That's going to be an interesting thing to tackle and make it look better, since I'm so used to seeing her in this one particular way. Not to mention that the animation kind of relies on having a solid sheet as a backdrop, so that the sleeves or backpack don't get lost in the shuffle as they fly all around. Maybe it's worth a discussion or two elsewhere?

And if you're curious at all at how the other vanilla palettes would look:

(Please don't mind the face, that's in there because that's intended to frighten you away if you open it up in lunar magic)
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Originally posted by Tob
just like with Magi the subpixelling has just killed me so yeah C3 is over for me now. (seriously though, great work!)


Please your honor you don't understand it was the subpixelling that did it please believe me

I'm glad you two liked that enough to bring it up, because it generally relies on hours of tinkering with an animation until I can get it to stop spazzing out in a bunch of directions quite as hard.


Other Submissions of mine!
Holy crap, this is in SMW? Fantastic work. These animations are very, very detailed.
Currently working on:
Super Kekcroc World 4 (lol jk)
Whoa, pretty nice animations.
Makes me wonder how many frames of animation you can fit into the player graphics before you start having issues.
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam.

These are some pretty smooth animations.
Really love the running animations as it gives the character so much energy and charm.

You better finish this project as its potential is already so huge.

Awesome work. #smrpg{:D}
When I first saw the animations. Geeze! How much ROM space did that even take?! Over 500 frames are 0x3E800 of ROM space, almost 7 8 LoROM banks! Of course, this isn't actually much if you consider games like Donkey Kong Country and like but that's still much for SMW.
2nd page thread...
I'll BUMP IT
NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW

Originally posted by Knucklesfan
Holy crap, this is in SMW? Fantastic work. These animations are very, very detailed.

A personal goal is to make people ask that question a lot. I don't think this hack will fool anyone into thinking it's a purely original homebrew project, but
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Originally posted by ShootingStarr
Whoa, pretty nice animations.
Makes me wonder how many frames of animation you can fit into the player graphics before you start having issues.

Maarfy says that he understands it well enough to insert new pages of animation frames until the ROM overflows, so I have to think that's a lot.
I'm totally clueless about the actual code side of things, so I feel like some little kid getting assistance from Merlin to be totally honest.
__

Originally posted by 1UPdudes
You better finish this project as its potential is already so huge.

Well shoot, guess I have no choice now.
There's a lot of momentum that needs to be overcome with this project, since so much of it is creating original assets and animations. Eventually there will be a great flow to things when it progresses to the point where assets can get reused without being repetitive and I get a hang of tools that I struggle with now (namely VWF Dialogues).
Maybe it'll take a while, but I promise to get there.
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Originally posted by MarioFanGamer
When I first saw the animations. Geeze! How much ROM space did that even take?! Over 500 frames are 0x3E800 of ROM space, almost 7 8 LoROM banks! Of course, this isn't actually much if you consider games like Donkey Kong Country and like but that's still much for SMW.

Hopefully Maarfy has a riveting answer for that, although if any problems do arise, at the very least I still have the old animation map that only used one page. It'd be a shame to have to go back to it, but it's there.


Other Submissions of mine!
Originally posted by MarioFanGamer
When I first saw the animations. Geeze! How much ROM space did that even take?! Over 500 frames are 0x3E800 of ROM space, almost 7 8 LoROM banks!

You are correct, Eszett's frames presently consume 8 LoROM banks. The system is malleable enough to expand to whatever size we need, but I recommended about 500 frames such as to strike a suitable balance between quality of animation and devouring the ROM.

Originally posted by Magi
The animations are absolutely stunning (that subpixelling kills me it's so damn good) but you probably already knew that #tb{;)}.

He probably already knows that, but let's play it safe: Deeke your art and your animations are really, really good! I'm honored to have the opportunity to use my code-powers to bring them, and by extension Eszett, to life.

Originally posted by Deeke
I'm totally clueless about the actual code side of things, so I feel like some little kid getting assistance from Merlin to be totally honest.

Get me to draw something and you'll see what clueless is. But if we're talking wizardry, I'm not the one who killed a man with subpixelling (shed a tear for poor Tob...).
This brings character animation to a total new level. using 8 LoRom banks for this is insane, but also brilliant.

Honestly, this is the most detailed character i've ever seen. Good job with that. #tb{O_O}








I can't let this stay on page 2 <3
I love how smoothly animated these are! I'm almost jealous of how smooth they are, yet... you're not gonna have much space if you keep it up! :P
I've always been impressed by Æther ever since you've first shown it off, especially with Eszett's character. I'm a sucker for details, and 500 frames is certainly impressive and fluid (I wish you luck on all the enemies tho haha).

Good work as always!
Want progress on 100 Rooms of Enemies: The Nightmare Edition? Go here to see.

(rip my other userbars momentarily)

these animations look so goddamn nice. I made a patch for fun that allowed you to have smooth animations too, but didn't allow you to go over 256 frames and it actually made frames animations. The space occupied is insane but worth it in my hack I'll use 32x32 player patch and 4 players with different gfx after all ^-^

nothing more to say. keep it going

Userbar by Green Jerry

Also a Fortaleza Reznor user. If you... digo, si hablas español, hackeas, buscas ayuda, o simplemente se te da conocer gente, únete, somos puerta abierta.
Oh dang, sudden lifespurt at the end there!

Originally posted by Maarfy
I'm honored to have the opportunity to use my code-powers to bring them, and by extension Eszett, to life.

The honor is mutual. I have to appreciate the privilege of working with someone who has the skill, and patience, to make random-ass ideas come to fruition.
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Originally posted by Sariel
This brings character animation to a total new level. using 8 LoRom banks for this is insane, but also brilliant.

Alongside this, I'll likely be using a lot of new, original graphics, lots of music, and VWF dialogue boxes, and that will take even more lorom banks on top of everything else.
Music will probably be the breaking point that would need to be crimped by the time this game is in a finished state, realistically; making use of single-use songs that are heavy on samples will probably be a bad habit at this rate, lol. I'll try to keep everything else presentable with as few compromises as possible!

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Originally posted by Dakras Hayashi
I can't let this stay on page 2 <3
I love how smoothly animated these are! I'm almost jealous of how smooth they are, yet... you're not gonna have much space if you keep it up! :P

I am worried that a few random ideas are going to come along and swallow up the frames that are left, since adding another page kind of feels troublesome.
Ultimately, getting animation that's on par with most cinematic platforms of the era is a worthwhile endeavor no matter the cost.
Also cheers for the bump! It actually helped a lot
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Originally posted by Daizo Dee Von
500 frames is certainly impressive and fluid (I wish you luck on all the enemies tho haha).!

To be perfectly frank I never quite considered the enemies as much as I've considered Eszett, animation-wise. It would be really off-putting to have this meticulously animated girl jumping and bounding off of enemies moving like they were in a Game & Watch system. I might need to bring it up with Maarfy sometime down the line.
It's mostly just dealing with vanilla sprite sheets in the meantime, but having more fluid animation on them might just be possible with some finagling and cannibalizing defunct sprites that won't ever get used, like Banzai Bills and Bowser.
Sheesh, that's the trouble with animation - if everything isn't on par, it just becomes uncanny.

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Originally posted by LMPuny
I made a patch for fun that allowed you to have smooth animations too, but didn't allow you to go over 256 frames and it actually made frames animations. The space occupied is insane but worth it in my hack I'll use 32x32 player patch and 4 players with different gfx after all ^-^

Perhaps Maarfy aught to release the patch to allow for an arbitrarily high amount of frames just for projects like this.
Though for your hack, how many actions could players perform? I found that the player is capable of a surprising amount of actions, though you probably didn't relegate 4-8 frames for almost everything that the player could do.


Other Submissions of mine!
Damn, these animations look really impressive and smooth! I really like it. Lack of animations is always something that bugs me about a lot of SMW hacks (for example, wall jumps that just use the regular jumping animation or bosses that don't even react to getting hit). Naturally, this makes me really excited! Can't wait to see where this is going.
Feel free to visit my website/blog - it's updated rarely, but it looks pretty cool!

GraphicsSuper Mario WorldArt