Celestia walking base

[HereComesTom 2,264]

EDIT:  please see the latest post to see the latest versions of these animations.  Once I get some more feedback on the tail wireframe-animations and get a finalized version of the animations, I'll be updating this OP with the revised bases.

 

I noticed that there weren't any base animations of Celestia walking---at least, none proportionate to the animations of the mane six (see my signature for an example of what I'm talking about).  So when someone on deviantart requested an animation of Celestia, I took it upon myself to create such a base.

It's a work in progress; I can tell that I need to fix the animation of her left front leg (the animation kind of jumps).  I could use some pointers on what else I should do with it; for instance, should I have a frame or two where her flank is a pixel lower, to make it look more like she's walking?

I used the frames of Celestia pacing back and forth, worrying whether Twilight would run into a manticore, from the Celestial Advice episode to make this.  It's not an exact match, but I figured it didn't quite need to be.

Please let me know what you think.

 

(older EDIT):  based on feedback I've received (thank you very much ShadOBabe!), I've created a wireframe base of Celestia walking, made to be to-scale with the existing pony pixelart animations.  Feel free to use it!

Edited July 29, 2018 by HereComesTom
need feedback on a new animation, so I updated the OP

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

Yeah making the torso bob up and down slightly would make it a lot less stiff looking.

Also I think her back hooves need to bend a little more when they step forward. The current frames make it look like she can’t bend her ankles/fetlocks.

Edited October 29, 2017 by ShadOBabe

[HereComesTom 2,264]

On 10/29/2017 at 0:02 AM, ShadOBabe said:

Yeah making the torso bob up and down slightly would make it a lot less stiff looking.

Also I think her back hooves need to bend a little more when they step forward. The current frames make it look like she can’t bend her ankles/fetlocks.

Thanks for your critique; does this look better?

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

1 hour ago, HereComesTom said:

Thanks for your critique; does this look better?

It does. When her back feet are about to step forward, there seems to be a rather sharp pixel poking out. But other than that, I think it looks pretty good. Can’t wait to see it finished. Celestia is my favorite character. ^^

EDIT: Perhaps shorten her muzzle by a pixel as well. Celestia’s nose is actually rather short in profile.

Edited November 2, 2017 by ShadOBabe

[HereComesTom 2,264]

Thanks for your help; I'll be sure to post it here when it's done, but...well, I discovered that Celestia's mane and tail have 80 frames in their animations, so I have my work cut out for me...!

FYI, I found a part of the show where Celestia was alone on the screen with nothing to block her for several seconds, during the episode Magical Mystery Cure from Season 3.  It took me a while to find an episode with an unobstructed view of her...if I ever decide to do this with Luna, I wonder if I'll be able to find an episode of her with a good walking-animation and a good holding-still animation for use as references...?

[HereComesTom 2,264]

On 11/1/2017 at 10:56 PM, ShadOBabe said:

Perhaps shorten her muzzle by a pixel as well. Celestia’s nose is actually rather short in profile.

I shortened her muzzle a little more than that; this is a rough draft of her without her shoes and without her mane or tail being animated (yet).

What do you think so far?

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

2 hours ago, HereComesTom said:

I shortened her muzzle a little more than that; this is a rough draft of her without her shoes and without her mane or tail being animated (yet).

What do you think so far?

Eeeeee, my horse!mom!! She looks great so far!! 

Good luck with that flowing hair animation! XD

[HereComesTom 2,264]

On 11/7/2017 at 11:27 PM, ShadOBabe said:

Good luck with that flowing hair animation! XD

Thanks.  I've discovered it's 80 frames long!  It'll be a while before I can crank that out, but here's the same animation with her shoes:

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

1 hour ago, HereComesTom said:

Yay! She’s coming together little by little!

[Shadow Beam 1,179]

Great job indeed buddy, can't wait to see the final product. ^^

[HereComesTom 2,264]

2 hours ago, Lektra Bolt said:

They walk completely stiff with no movement in the leg bend, as IIRC their legs don't have one

That's odd; I thought I added a subtle bend in their hooves as the hind legs did their forward-moving animation.

...Or did I forget to apply that to the wireframe base?

[HereComesTom 2,264]

On 11/11/2017 at 10:30 AM, Lektra Bolt said:

Possibly. The back hooves just look stiff, sorry to say

I might go back and fix the hooves, but at the moment, I'm working on Celestia's mane.

My plan is to start by creating a frame for my animation every 10 frames of the show's, and build more frames around those.  What I'm doing isn't quite tracing, and traces wouldn't work anyway in my case, since I'm taking screenshots from the Magical Mystery Cure episode, where Celestia isn't quite in profile (it's surprisingly hard to find a place in the show where Celestia is standing still and has enough of her body visible to get all 80 frames of her mane's and tail's animation), but I am copying them in a way---it's hard to describe; I'll probably post a youtube video here explaining how I'm doing the copying.

I've gotten 8 frames so far, 1 frame in my base for every 10 frames on the show; this is just my starting point.  My plan is to create another 9 frames in between the frames that I have so that they flow properly.  Once all that is done...I get to start all over working on her tail.  Hard work, but I think it'll be worth it!

Here's the animation I have so far; it's 10x faster than what the show would have and obviously choppy as a result, but again, it's my starting point, not my destination:

[HereComesTom 2,264]

On 11/18/2017 at 6:16 PM, Lektra Bolt said:

Are you making a game about the princess?

She'll be a character in my fangame eventually---maybe not the first chapter, but I know I'll need her at some point, and since (a) someone on deviantart gave me a request for a Celestia animation, and (b) there were no bases out there for Celestia, I figured now was a good tie to take a break from coding and work on this instead.

 

EDIT:  here's the video of how I'm getting the first eight frames to work with:
 

 

Edited November 23, 2017 by HereComesTom
added a video

[HereComesTom 2,264]

On 11/11/2017 at 7:38 AM, Shadow Beam said:

Great job indeed buddy, can't wait to see the final product. ^^

 

On 11/18/2017 at 6:16 PM, Lektra Bolt said:

That looks great

I'm hoping this isn't bad for a first draft; I'm expecting I'll need to make some revisions, but what do you guys think of this?

 

There's a few things I'm not sure about; the green line doesn't have all that smooth an animation, the blue line is jerky (how did I miss that the first time?)...what do you think of the purple line?

 

Also, the red outline seems to kid of go "boing" at one point, shortly after the tip of her mane has waved so that it's pointing to the right.  Is that "boing" too unsightly?

 

[cuteycindyhoney 13,306]

 

On 10/28/2017 at 10:27 PM, HereComesTom said:

 

Wow, I love the work you're doing!

[HereComesTom 2,264]

On 12/15/2017 at 11:13 PM, cuteycindyhoney said:

Wow, I love the work you're doing!

Thanks

I took a break for several weeks to get back to coding my game, and now I think I could use another break from coding to finish up this base-project.

Here's the mane animation with the one out-of-place frame fixed; if you guys think it looks decent enough, I'll post a base with all 80 frames so anyone can use it:

 

Probably next I'll fix up the animation of her hind legs, and then I'll start on another 80-frame project with her tail (wish me luck!)

[HereComesTom 2,264]

On 11/11/2017 at 8:02 AM, Lektra Bolt said:

Looking great. I would like to suggest constructively that the back legs look like they're moving like sticks. The entire leg below the bend moves as one and it almost looks like she has no bend. It just looks stiff to me sorry, like a chicken walking. They walk completely stiff with no movement in the leg bend, as IIRC their legs don't have one

I've come up with two different versions of her back-hooves animation; I could use some feedback on them---which do you think is better?

This one, I made only a few changes close to her back hooves:

 

This one I made more changes, making her red hind hoof curl a little bit more for a frame or three:

 

Which do you think is better?

[HereComesTom 2,264]

Thanks

I'll start on the tail-animation soon, but it could take a while.

[HereComesTom 2,264]

Well, the tail-animation isn't off to the best start; this is the animation at 10x normal speed---I try to start out with eight frames, then build on those to sixteen, then fill out the full eighty, but these eight frames make her tail's animation look...jiggly.  Especially at the top.

I think I'm going to have to smooth things out a bit before I can move forward...

 

[HereComesTom 2,264]

I'm hoping this animation is smooth enough; I think I'll build on this one to finish up the tail-animation:

 

[HereComesTom 2,264]

I've completed my first draft of the tail-animation.  I worry that it bounces around a little too much; maybe I should've had my camera mounted on something instead of hand-held when I was taking pictures of Celestia standing in profile.  There were 80 frames to capture...

Please let me know what you think of this draft:

[Rikifive 24,123]

How come I didn't see it before?

She's looking great! The amount of frames you went for is mindblowing! Usually pixel art, especially in games has a limited amount of details/frames to save devs from hassle, but I see you approached that like a boss!  

The draft looks really good, the animation is so smooth. Celestia's mane and tail is really tricky to work with, but you're doing well so far.

You've put so much work and time on this already and sweet Celestia, that makes me even more worried when I think of the work I'll have to go through, heh.

It's going nicely so far, keep it up!

[ExplosionMare 18,062]

Maybe add a bit more frames for the knee on the front left hoof? It looks a little sudden like she popped a joint, so maybe adding a few more frames (maybe about 2) will make the transition smoother. 

[HereComesTom 2,264]

It's been a while since I worked on this, but...well, I'm going to need to revisit it at some point!

Thanks for the feedback; it's a bit late to add a frame to Celestia's walking animation, but I might be able to change the curves on her leg so she doesn't look like she's popped a joint.

9 hours ago, Rikifive said:

You've put so much work and time on this already and sweet Celestia, that makes me even more worried when I think of the work I'll have to go through, heh.

You might be able to cheat if you use my animations and set up Celestia so that, in your game, she only looks left and right?  ...Or would that not work with the camera angles?

Either way, I started this project so others would be able to use the pixelart if they needed it, as well as to have her in my fangame in the long run.

[Rikifive 24,123]

4 hours ago, HereComesTom said:

You might be able to cheat if you use my animations and set up Celestia so that, in your game, she only looks left and right?  ...Or would that not work with the camera angles?

Either way, I started this project so others would be able to use the pixelart if they needed it, as well as to have her in my fangame in the long run.

I believe it would require some modifications to nicely adjust that to the camera angle in my sprites and to be honest, I'm not sure what directions I will need yet. Left and right should be enough for the most part, perhaps yeah, I could go with just that. Eventually if there will be a need, adding next directions should be slightly easier than drawing from nothing.  

Either way, I'll keep your sprite as a reference, as there's never enough of these. Just seeing examples, what works and what not helps a lot. I'll do science and see what happens.  Thank you, your works surely will come in handy.