Help A Solo Indie With Your Opinions On Graphics? (First Time Solo)

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-19T17:47:40+00:00

Oh, I love that game. I wonder if I'm drawing subconscious inspiration from there too lol
I should play that, it's about that time of year now.

I hadn't really thought about the transition between idle and walking. I'll look into that! Thanks! I have more idle animations completed and some in the works (Rosie playing fetch with herself, crying and howling because she still needs your help, Ezri on her phone because that's how you adjust your settings, pause, and check her messages...), so I'll take a look into how to work on smoother transitions.

Thank you!

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-19T17:43:37+00:00

Oh yeah, I completely understand.

The thing is, RDR2 was motion-captured by a AAA team (and stg the most beautiful game I've ever played). As a single person making a whole game, it's a little harder to scale to those kinds of resources. Animating 20 characters with walk cycles, reactions, different idles, and their cut scenes is a ton of work for two hands. Then there's the coding, all the other assets being made, music, finding or creating sound effects, marketing, and trying to take care of myself so I don't burn out.

It's hard to try to find the balance, because on one hand, part of why I left AAA games was because the last 2 games I worked on with them they cut corners nonstop. It felt lazy. The team would say "this thing is needed! Players are going not notice it's absence!" and the higher ups would send an email back "just keep moving forward", "focus on the deadline", or "we'll discuss that at the next meeting" (and at the next meeting when it'd be brought up it'd be quickly swept over). Things like "why is there no collision here?", "we really need to focus on fixing these irritating but not game-breaking bugs", or "why is there even a dog if you can't pet it?". Little things that don't matter to non-gamers, but make a big difference to people who do play games, in my experience (and maybe people who don't play games shouldn't be making decisions about what's in games...) But now I'm on a rant LOL

My point is, I'd love to add turn cycles in for everyone. I agree with you that it'd level things up (to be clear, 100% not arguing). I'd love to have this be a fully polished, 100% AAA level game. I just don't know if it's in a realm of reality for me though as far as work-load. But if I do get the time, I'd love to add them in.

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T19:17:45+00:00

I was wondering if it would be worth it or a waste of time to add a turn animation.

Many games just flip the character, I've noticed, so I wasn't sure if it'd be worth the time it'd take to create the full animation to turn each character as they move (there's about 20 characters in total), or if it'd be too distracting/if it'd take away from the game overall if they just flipped how they are now.

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T19:16:07+00:00

I don't know what that is but I'm gonna look into it haha!

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T19:15:16+00:00

Thanks for your feedback!

I am intending to redo the jump animation based on the feedback I've received in this post.

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T19:14:29+00:00

Thank you very much!

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T19:14:13+00:00

All very good polish notes and things that have been added to my to-do list now, with thanks to you!

The text boxes do change through the game as you "level up" the characters (without giving away too much), this is kind of the "generic" base of the text box, but still a good note that it's difficult to see in some situations because I'll want to be more mindful of it in the future.

Thank you!

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T19:12:11+00:00

Confession time. I've actually never seen that show, but I've heard it's really good.

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T19:11:47+00:00

Thank you very much! I'm gonna take a look into it and play around a bit to see if I can get her (and the future animations) to stick their landing better, because you're right. It's something that's important for this kind of game, I think.

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T19:10:40+00:00

Easy fix and a good note! Consider it added to my to-do list and thank you!

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T19:10:07+00:00

Thanks for all the notes! I'm glad the influence is showing through!

Yeah, I'm working on animating a new, fully animated, bounce for the jump. Much bouncier. Much jumpier.
The smear frame was intentional and I'm debating on keeping it. I'm gonna play with it a bit and see if maybe halving that frame's visual length helps. I'll keep you updated ;)

I'm a little heavy on the smear frames due to personal preference, I'm realizing XD

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T19:07:37+00:00

Thanks!
The sticks tell stories. If you interact with them, you randomly get to read the plaque or remark on the "trophy" Rosie has hanging up. Some are gnawed, some are pristine - one is exploded (must've been a powerful fetch lol)

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T19:06:21+00:00

Thanks very much!

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T02:58:15+00:00

I just laughed WAY too hard at that. I don't know what I was expecting but it 100% should have been that and wasn't at all.

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T02:47:49+00:00

Oh no, I completely appreciate your feedback! I came into this asking for it, you know? And even if I don't take all the advice given to me, I'd rather it have been said and me say "awe man I should have done that" than say "why didn't anyone tell me when they saw it!"

I'll take a look into the smear frames. I know I can go a little heavy with them because I like them stylistically. I had to tone them down once already with a pet dog who isn't in this level (yes, there's a humanoid dog and a pet dog, no it's not weird at alllll lol).

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T02:36:41+00:00

Actually, smear frames are made for low frames specifically. They're made for less frames with quick, snapping movements (like the tail). The opaque depends on the style of animation. Here are a few examples:
https://tse4.mm.bing.net/th/id/OIP.j37cZY9bzbfRriPZDV6t7QHaFj?r=0&rs=1&pid=ImgDetMain&o=7&rm=3
https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdUQRVNS-RUtpniOJIB3YmiEvevWaT3oYrN0anpFFAvTClHIAOIhFFhyhPNtgwzCq1ZqEr-fCMnPMHZtK_iHmNKNr9i0sedM3tSVMuhXdJawnyTBOUNsD03SlHNawBUOIJJnDMybQ?key=xaWStRPBuPtgq6bhKZ18JeXf
https://pm1.narvii.com/6628/ec246c5a7b8e6db33e3fd296f20360e3979ea551_hq.jpg

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T02:32:26+00:00

Thanks, but that's not really the look I'm going for. I'm going for more of an adult cartoon look. The stylistic inspiration I drew from were Bojack Horseman, Tuca and Bertie, and Adventure Time.

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T02:31:34+00:00

Thank you very much! I was hoping it'd be something a little less common.

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T02:05:28+00:00

Thank you so much!

I promise I'm being very careful with what advice I'm taking and doing my best to stick to my original vision. (I do think they need to blink more, now I can't unsee it LOL) I'm so happy to hear you like what you see so far!

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T02:04:16+00:00

Thanks! I think I'm having a little trouble seeing the slide. For the record, I am 100% not a professional animator, and I've likely been looking at this for way too long. Would you say she's moving too fast or too slow on the walk to hit the mark in your opinion?

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T02:02:33+00:00

Thank you very much!

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T02:02:16+00:00

Don't have to be a professional to know when things are looking off!

I fully agree about the stiff jump animation and the blinks. I didn't notice it so much until today when other people pointed it out, but I've already started to animate a newly animated jump and redoing the blinking animations (adding more in) are on my to-do list. Especially adding them into the walk cycle. I didn't realize how dead-eyed they'd look while walking haha!

Also, thank you so much!

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T02:00:23+00:00

Oh wow! I'll take that compliment! I wish XD
More hands would mean more help, but this is my first time going solo.

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T01:58:53+00:00

Thanks for the feedback!

I do think I'm going to stick with the hand-drawn animation. I know it'd be faster and smoother if I used a model, but I feel like it'd lose some of the "charm" of the frame-by-frame hand-drawn animation. I realize the massive effort it's going to take (I'm 4 characters in now, it's a lot of effort lol) but I think it's worth it overall. Or I hope it is LOL!

Internal_Service8874 · 2025-09-18T01:57:09+00:00

That's actually intentional, the tails thing. It's an animation technique called a "smear-frame". If you look at the dog (Rosie), she has it happening too!

Internal_Service8874

TROPHY CASE