![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
4:11pm - Well it's been a rough weekend with a bad cold but I'm back on the horse again, and things are going well. I sorted through the offers I got for teaming up and picked one. We're still getting organized together but I'm very excited to be working with them. I thought they were just a random indie trying to make something cool but apparently they have an interview with a big name developer I won't name here, so that's kind of neat. I don't know what to expect from that but it's nice.
As for me, I'm going to keep working on my own projects in the mean time.
I decided to simplify the character for my top down thing to just a head, torso and hands. That'll make it much easier to animate, and faster too. I think all the limbs and feet were a bit of scope creep given what I'm trying to make is just a placeholder. Now he looks a bit like a Prison Architect Discount Link. He doesn't even have a hat.
Now I guess it's back to animating him...
5:12pm - So, all the tutorials I could find for animating like this were for 2D platformers, not top-down games. They did simple animations for a character going one direction, and typically used scale to do the reverse direction as a mirror.
My guy was supposed to go in at least four directions, probably eight. So I had to do turns by switching the sprites when the character switched direction. There are so many problems with actually doing it this way it's not worth going forward like this. I mean, it's possible to animate a character this way, but I'd have to do in between animations for turning each direction. It's not worth my time.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do instead though.
5:23pm - Apparently today's one of those lucky days where I can get on Steam at the McDonalds. I'm downloading Spiral Knights to get a refresher on my target.
Still, I'm not sure what I'll do about the animation problem. I put a lot of work into drawing that character and it sucks that I can't really use it. I mean, maybe I could animate it as a sprite sheet and use that instead, but that's a lot of work too. I should really just give in and use sprites from a pre-existing game or from a licensed pack.
5:46pm - Hecking cripes. I can't seem to find any decent sprites to use as an alternative. You'd think there'd be tons of zeldalike sprites out there but geez. :/
5:57pm - I hate to do it since I've already drawn so much but I really only need a simple placeholder. I should move back to geometric shapes and sprites.
6:18pm - I was able to get Spiral Knights downloaded and installed but I couldn't connect to the server from the McDonalds. Alas. Well, I can pretty well emulate the gameplay with a spinning triangle with a slashy swordish thing in the right hand and a little turret on the left. The question is, do I always have the triangle face the direction of the mouse pointer while being moved with the arrow keys/wasd or do I have it look where the wasd/arrow keys point and have the gun and sword attacks go toward the mouse pointer?
Okay I'm going with the former. So! Triangle, Swordy-thing, Turret!
6:48pm - Triangleman is drawn with his sword and gun as three sprites. Now I have to write the code to have them turn towards the mouse pointer.
7:52pm - Geez, I'm having a bad night. Everything I try turns out wrong. :/
Right now I'm trying to get Triangleman to look at the mouse pointer, but it's not working and I don't know why. He's definately reacting to the mouse pointer when it moves, but he's not looking at it, and his turns in relation to the position of the mouse pointer don't make sense. :/
8:50pm - It took way more work to get Triangleman to look at the mouse pointer than it should have, and I'm still not 100% sure why what I did fixed it. My best guess is I did two things and forgot to save before trying the first one, so when it fixed it and I tried a second thing, it seemed like the second thing fixed it. The world may never know.
Now it's late and I'm hungry so I'm going to go home and make dinner.
As for me, I'm going to keep working on my own projects in the mean time.
I decided to simplify the character for my top down thing to just a head, torso and hands. That'll make it much easier to animate, and faster too. I think all the limbs and feet were a bit of scope creep given what I'm trying to make is just a placeholder. Now he looks a bit like a Prison Architect Discount Link. He doesn't even have a hat.
Now I guess it's back to animating him...
5:12pm - So, all the tutorials I could find for animating like this were for 2D platformers, not top-down games. They did simple animations for a character going one direction, and typically used scale to do the reverse direction as a mirror.
My guy was supposed to go in at least four directions, probably eight. So I had to do turns by switching the sprites when the character switched direction. There are so many problems with actually doing it this way it's not worth going forward like this. I mean, it's possible to animate a character this way, but I'd have to do in between animations for turning each direction. It's not worth my time.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do instead though.
5:23pm - Apparently today's one of those lucky days where I can get on Steam at the McDonalds. I'm downloading Spiral Knights to get a refresher on my target.
Still, I'm not sure what I'll do about the animation problem. I put a lot of work into drawing that character and it sucks that I can't really use it. I mean, maybe I could animate it as a sprite sheet and use that instead, but that's a lot of work too. I should really just give in and use sprites from a pre-existing game or from a licensed pack.
5:46pm - Hecking cripes. I can't seem to find any decent sprites to use as an alternative. You'd think there'd be tons of zeldalike sprites out there but geez. :/
5:57pm - I hate to do it since I've already drawn so much but I really only need a simple placeholder. I should move back to geometric shapes and sprites.
6:18pm - I was able to get Spiral Knights downloaded and installed but I couldn't connect to the server from the McDonalds. Alas. Well, I can pretty well emulate the gameplay with a spinning triangle with a slashy swordish thing in the right hand and a little turret on the left. The question is, do I always have the triangle face the direction of the mouse pointer while being moved with the arrow keys/wasd or do I have it look where the wasd/arrow keys point and have the gun and sword attacks go toward the mouse pointer?
Okay I'm going with the former. So! Triangle, Swordy-thing, Turret!
6:48pm - Triangleman is drawn with his sword and gun as three sprites. Now I have to write the code to have them turn towards the mouse pointer.
7:52pm - Geez, I'm having a bad night. Everything I try turns out wrong. :/
Right now I'm trying to get Triangleman to look at the mouse pointer, but it's not working and I don't know why. He's definately reacting to the mouse pointer when it moves, but he's not looking at it, and his turns in relation to the position of the mouse pointer don't make sense. :/
8:50pm - It took way more work to get Triangleman to look at the mouse pointer than it should have, and I'm still not 100% sure why what I did fixed it. My best guess is I did two things and forgot to save before trying the first one, so when it fixed it and I tried a second thing, it seemed like the second thing fixed it. The world may never know.
Now it's late and I'm hungry so I'm going to go home and make dinner.
