Our 8-Bit Test

[Hentron]

Trying out something new. Tell us what you think.



Tonight, special guest star, Will, is playing the part of Nick.

[slowtiger]

IMO an 8bit character should only be moved in increments of whole pixels.

[Danimal]

Those eyes look too creepy.

Just kidding, this looks quite good. Even the Weird Al poster is in there still!

[Hentron]

SlowTiger: We can make their movements more jerky, but taking the time to line up pixels every frame would be an incredible amount of work and IMO the pay off would be too little, Except when they aren't moving and that is something I will do in a longer animation, but this was just a quick demo, mostly for Nick. Unless you were talking about the way Nick's eyes tracked Will, because I did that deliberately. Each eye is three pixels across and they wouldn't have looked like they were really pointing at Will as much as I wanted. If we use these for any bigger cartoons, we probably won't be putting ourselves in a position to need to do that.

Danimal: Thanks for the kind words. With these we are much further back from the Uncanny Valley so the eyes are much easier. For the appt I just shrunk down a jpeg of our regular appt and traced it. Except I tiled the carpet and walls and straight up copy/pasted the Weird Al poster.

[exile]

I guess there's a wave of nostalgia for the first generation of computer games and pixely characters. That's missing from my biography, so I can't relate as well as some. But I can see that it's well-animated. Having cartoon animated figures opens a new dimension for your shorts - you can even combine the realistic photo-puppets with animated figures, place either one in a "real" environment or the cartoon background, start and end with the "real" figures, anything.

[Danimal]

Just watched this again. I get the impression that's not actually Nick talking...

[Pinesal]

Just watched this again. I get the impression that's not actually Nick talking...

Hey! That hurts my feelings!

[funksmaname]

SlowTiger: We can make their movements more jerky, but taking the time to line up pixels every frame would be an incredible amount of work and IMO the pay off would be too little

Try setting the movement key to go on 3 or 4 frame intervals and see how that works out - it may just add an expected judderiness which would suit the style without going overboard with per-pixel placement... right click the key, choose an interval.

[Danimal]

Hey! That hurts my feelings!

Good! Ha ha!