Potential Character Art For Class Examples?

[WithinAmnesia]

Potentially we can have more class examples if there is more CC0 art assets provided. i can help personally with this too. Warrior / Knight:

Wanderer / Rogue:

Wizard / Mage / Sorceress / Necromancer:

Warden / Cleric:

I can create more animations for these class examples to help too. I have many more CC0 art assets other than the excellent Foozle Lucifer art sprite set.

I can help get the Warden / Cleric and default Adventurer / default / build-a-class archetype given art too. This can play similar to the Scion in Path of Exile or the Adventurer default class hybrid is Elder Scrolls Oblivion.

Gothicvania Hero is a pretty decent example of a CC0 Adventure / default / build-a-class archetype sprite art too:

Here are some more potential CC0 class example art:

Foozle Pointy Hat Mage:

Ansimuz CC0:

Wanderer / Rogue / Adventurer Hero Tiny RPG Forest:

Treant:

Anokolisa CC0:

Warrior / Knight Pixel Crawler:

Wanderer / Rogue Pixel Crawler:

Wizard / Mage Pixel Crawler:

More CC0:

Fantasy Warrior:

Evil Wizard:

Evil Wizard 2:

Hero Knight:

Hero Knight 2:

Huntress:

Huntress 2:

Martial Hero:

Martial Hero 2:

Martial Hero 3:

Medieval King Pack:

Medieval King Pack 2:

Medieval Warrior (V.1.2):

Medieval Warrior Pack:

Medieval Warrior Pack 2:

Medieval Warrior Pack 3:

Skeleton:

Pet Cats Pack:

Wizard Pack:

[SlayHorizon]

Thank you for your suggestion, but I believe it's too early to add so many RPG classes, especially since we haven't even begun to implement a proper class system yet. Additionally, many of the assets you've provided seem more suited for a platformer game, which doesn't align with the direction I'm aiming for in this demo, specifically a top-down perspective.

I'am rather looking to have characters without hands so that attack animations can be created independently of the character sprites. This approach offers a lot of flexibility, as the same animations can be easily shared across all characters without additionnal work.

[WithinAmnesia]

Thank you for your suggestion, but I believe it's too early to add so many RPG classes, especially since we haven't even begun to implement a proper class system yet. Additionally, many of the assets you've provided seem more suited for a platformer game, which doesn't align with the direction I'm aiming for in this demo, specifically a top-down perspective.

I'am rather looking to have characters without hands so that attack animations can be created independently of the character sprites. This approach offers a lot of flexibility, as the same animations can be easily shared across all characters without additional work.

Its easier for you now but much harder for everyone and yourself else later and its less standard and technologically inferior from the start to use Pixel Crawler instead of the vastly superior Foozle Lucifer standardized animation sets and here is why:

If the animations are layered like in most games you can have at least 1 attack animation per sprite and the weapons are interchangeable. Only cheap or niche / small scale 90's and 2000's antiquated flash style games have invisible hands mostly because the devs were lazy or not working on a top down game but a side scroller. Of which this project is not a side scroller but a top down game / demo meant to have top down art assets for the community to tinker and replace to make other top down games. Even the earliest top down game that predates the Zelda games and in fact was the game that inspired the first Legend of Zelda game, The Tower of Druaga from 1984 had layered top down animations with at least 1 attack animation and interchangeable weapons without the niche invisible arms (that were lazily swapped from side scrolling art grafted onto onto a top down game): https://www.spriters-resource.com/arcade/towerofdruaga/sheet/21313 + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_Druaga .

I'd argue the invisible arms are much harder for people to use overall due to the small spectrum of top down art available and the incompatibility to organically mesh with 90%+ of the top down character sprites and npcs; which all have arms. Also further more your point of "Many of the assets you've provided seem more suited for a platformer game, which doesn't align with the direction I'm aiming for in this demo, specifically a top-down perspective" is in question. For the assets you use with Pixel Crawler are not top down but side scrollers and incomplete animations due to the lack of up and down directional animations along with any proper attack or utility animation in any direction. I previously used the selection of CC0 side scroller animations to match your incomplete Pixel Crawler side scroller animation selection. I included them to compare so its plain for everyone to see how incomplete even for side scroller animations the Pixel Crawler assets are. For the Pixel Crawler assets are niche in style, are not even top down but side scroller assets that are even incomplete for that and moreover are technologically / feature shallow and lack proper depth to build a proper game from that hopes to be a top down game. Especially given we literally have CC0 animations that do the same roll fit the same style are are at least an order of magnitude more technologically competent in the Foozle Lucifer Warrior animation sprites; especially compared to the inferior and incomplete Pixel Crawler near empty side scroller animations.

In fact if we were to argue top down art the Pixel crawler is the most inferior of the art assets on this page to use as a demo for it severely hamstrings the potential of the project due to the lack of animation sets and the incomplete nature of the animation cycles. It offers no arms and no advantage with weapon interchangeability for the Aseprite animations are superior in format and from that are literally made with the use of multiple built up animation asset layers. Of which can be toggled invisible or visible to efficiently and low input high output swap weapons / shields / off-hand frills in and out with other or left blank for the default animations. As even if the Aseprite animations look prebaked in the gifs / examples they are not in the technology and can be made without the weapons and are able to layer / stack the weapons. As with keeping with the vast majority of 2D and 2.5D games who use animation sprites sheets do and accomplish this. From Tower of Druaga in 1984, Legend of Zelda 1986, Zelda A Link to the Past 1991, Diablo 1 1996/1997, Baldur's Gate 1998, Diablo II 2000.

If I did this 4K 2.5D blender pre-rendered complete animation set in 8 directions with Flare: https://github.com/flareteam/flare-game/discussions/935

We can use this here with the excellent CC0 Foozle Lucifer complete animation set with 4 complete directions. Its much more that 10+, more an order of magnitude times easier:

We have no excuse other than being lazy and less than meeting our true potential if we use tech debt inferior incomplete side scrolling art assets. Moreover when we have every opportunity to fully realize masterwork CC0 technologically superior and complete animations by Foozle in the Lucifer animation set; that needs a proper engine implementation. So as to properly help the community today and in the long run future to make many games worth playing; perhaps even some great games if we are able to help the community properly.

I also field my point from a perspective of working as a person who makes vast amounts of animations and art for video games for years; decades even in small to the biggest games in the world. I can say from personal and community experience that no arms are bad for practically no artist does this with 99%+ of the games. Even shooters with 1st person add in extra arms just to make sure their games have arms. Having no arms looks cheap, lazy and moreover it cripples the art selection for world building for the community due to 99%+ of NPCs mobs etc. have arms. This is magnified if we pick the <1% of art style that is not with arms and is not even top down; we are the fools not the community. For we would have failed to listen to what reality people use to build >99%+ of games today, in the future and in the past; we have no excuse to not listen to the needs of the community in 2024. If this is to be a demo for the community it should follow the ways of the community and not be too niche or simple minded to not sample reality where it becomes out of touch.

I understand that art is not easy to source at times but we should not hamstring our selves with tech debt because its easy today to build a bike with square wheels. Most people will rip out those armless incomplete side scroller sprites and make proper top down fully animated sprites whether we realize that or not. So we should offer that masterwork 4 direction Foozle Lucifer Warrior animation solution already day one. With or something akin to keeping with the Foozle Lucifer CC0 true top down standardized fully animated art examples; for they have a lot more meat on the bone to offer the community.

We should avoid animation tech debt for it leads to retrofit hell and due to this I had to kill multiple game projects to learn this the hard way. I did not listen and made tech debt in RPGmaker, Unity, Unreal and WoW engine and Baldur's Gate and it all ends the same. Future proofing is super critical to long term success don't be dumb like my past self was many times. I want people to avoid my pain, frustration and thousands of dollars lost being dumb and make tech debt that leads to retrofit hell that kills many promising projects.

All of these were killed by techdebt and retrofit hell: And the list of examples goes on and on.

I want this project to be different; better than the others I worked on. I know it seems like a simple thing the better animations from Foozle Lucifer Warrior set. Although it carries a lot of weight and legacy of what I've been fighting with over the years to get made into game dev tools for the community.

Okay now that is out of the way. I want to say that I see lots of technical problems due to the inferior / lacking / incomplete Pixel Crawler art assets but I do have to say that I personally prefer the art style of the pixel crawler games in my heart of hearts I wish the Pixel crawler art had the technological ability / features / complete animation set of the masterwork Foozle Lucifer art animation but with the rich vibrant colours and shading and 'pop' of the Pixel Crawler art. Why I advocate for the Foozle Lucifer Warrior animation style set to be use is that I know I can and many others use that CC0 art as a template / placeholder and make better art in its place, maybe even graft / add onto the Pixel Crawler art style onto the superior Foozle Lucifer animation standard found in all those impress 2D character sprite sheets.

If we use inferior animations from the start the community cannot have access to the rich depth of animation potential found here with the Foozle Lucifer animation sheets. I'll compare the two so its clear to see the difference.

Foozle Lucifer Warrior: The complete animation set of the Foozle Lucifer Warrior is CC0 and objectively the technologically superior animation set compared to:

Anokolisa Knight: That is literally it, its incomplete even for a side scroller and further more the animations are incomplete for it flat out lack even 1 attack animation.

Just to prove my point even more here is myself using Aseprite to make the weaponless / bare attack animation of the Foozle Lucifer Warrior to demonstrate that the Pixel Crawler literally has no useful advantages or otherwise for especially compared to the Foozle Lucifer animation standard (such as Foozle Lucifer Warrior animation set) can have layered and interchangeable weapon animations that can be paired with proper attack animations.

I'm not sure if I over did this but I want to communicate and be heard and I do not wish to suffer in silence for years and years. Rather I want the community to finally have a proper opportunity to get the development tools they need to make proper MMO and RPG and Multiplayer games forever free CC0 and MIT with Godot. Yet it all starts bit by bit and with foresight to grow in a healthy direction.

I know this is a lot at the start but its important to future proof things. I know I have been a bit demanding but I feel this has great potential. I know I can help with many things and I feel we need really good player animations to start and I know I can help with this but I have to share my experiences somehow win or lose to be heard for there is a lot on the line with the character animations. If we can have the technological ability of proper animations at the start the roots of our community tree are strong and can grow into a massive, strong well supported tree that can support many beautiful and depth systems and can help many people in the community. Perhaps I can help generate the 4 directional sprite art this project needs to get over the hill and so we are free to create proper Knights, Rogues, Wizards and Clerics, everything looking great. I can paint with a mouse.

I painted the area art for these in MSpaint with a mouse. I can make the art for the sprites, I can do a great job. I just need the proper engine support to work with animation sets as great as this and I can make any many more great additions I just need the engine to match the depth of the art and to give the 2D art a proper opportunity to be enjoyed by the community at large in great games worth playing.

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I can make attack animations that give freedom to swap weapons sets; we can have the best of both. Yet the proper complete 4 directional top down animations need support from the demo to be successful for the entire community. This would make the game demo amazing and we can have the best of the great Foozle Lucifer animation set animations and freedom of weapon interchangeability of the Pixel Crawler system and the strengths of both could combine with this compromise of a mixture of the greatest hits taking the best parts of both together as one.

[WithinAmnesia]

Thank you for your suggestion, but I believe it's too early to add so many RPG classes, especially since we haven't even begun to implement a proper class system yet. Additionally, many of the assets you've provided seem more suited for a platformer game, which doesn't align with the direction I'm aiming for in this demo, specifically a top-down perspective.

I'am rather looking to have characters without hands so that attack animations can be created independently of the character sprites. This approach offers a lot of flexibility, as the same animations can be easily shared across all characters without additionnal work.

"...the same animations can be easily shared across all characters without additionnal work."

With Flare the abilities (including attack abilities) were all shared even though the sprites had unique animation sets. So animations can be arbitrary if we have circle hit box abilities that Flare has used for attacks.

I think the logic flow was like this with Flare:

Input V Ability start triggers V Ability calls on arbitrary sprite animation(s) to play V Finds Mouse / Controller Location on screen V Places closest allowable range of Ability X,Y coordinates to on screen location V Places the designated ability hit box circle size at X,Y coordinates location V Triggers ability effects of the ability with the designated ability hit box circle size at X,Y coordinates location V Ability continues for X seconds and or with more conditional effects or ends.

So if we separate the abilities (including attacks) that trigger arbitrary animations for the affected entities and their sprites we can have the freedom of using any sprite set so long as the animations can be called / triggered by the ability system. We don't want to worry about hands or not but instead we can look for animation amounts and getting a standard list of animation types to call for x seconds such as (Run / Walk Up, Down, Left, Right or Die, Attack, Cast, Idle, Swim, Climb etc. etc.) This is a more robust system that once made can gobble up any animations and and pretty much all animations can be used and even if they lack animation type to call placeholder animation sets can be used with duplicated / close enough approximations to rough out a demo (such as say some sprite animation set lack a 'cast' animation an attack / placeholder animation can be used / copy and paste can called 'cast' etc. this is a popular dev trick / method in bigger games like WoW, Baldur's gate, Diablo etc).

I'll make a separate issue for separate ability system that calls upon a standardized set of animation so we can be free to use any animation set and have abilities can be used on any entity regardless of animation availability (but we should have a deep animation list to call from to make the best we can for what we have to work with).

[d-Cadrius]

Ok, I like the devotion right there but I think you may be going into this too hardcore, this project after all is mostly a tech demo and not a full game.

We are currently going with Anokolisa free asset pack, animation sides we do not require a lot of them to make something look good and dynamic as seen here: https://i.imgur.com/0vizkyr.gif

And as this is mostly a tech demo we do not have plan to make a lot of detailed functionality right away and we do not need game content such as many classes and more, we are currently happy with our current choices on the project I do not want to offend you or deny your suggestions but we are really in a early stage of the development right now, thank you for your understandings :)

We do appreciate the devotion.

[WithinAmnesia]

Ok, I like the devotion right there but I think you may be going into this too hardcore, this project after all is mostly a tech demo and not a full game.

We are currently going with Anokolisa free asset pack, animation sides we do not require a lot of them to make something look good and dynamic as seen here: https://i.imgur.com/0vizkyr.gif

And as this is mostly a tech demo we do not have plan to make a lot of detailed functionality right away and we do not need game content such as many classes and more, we are currently happy with our current choices on the project I do not want to offend you or deny your suggestions but we are really in a early stage of the development right now, thank you for your understandings :)

We do appreciate the devotion.

This needs depth to succeed in the future but I understand the stress of overbloat at the start. I am worried this might go the way of JDungeon (effectively dead / still born which I at least find sad) if the art / sprite animation systems are handicapped at the start. Yet where we are at now this is what I call 'wild growth' stage where things are developed wild, free and crazy before the bulk / size / complexity starts eating away at progress speed / ability to progress efficiently.

Those animations from Pixel Crawler look neat but are objectively bad from a technological standpoint (insert a lot of reasons from above) for a long term solution. Yet they don't really matter in the short term for a demo; if the targeting / combat system is to work similar to Flare with a Separate Abilities System https://github.com/SlayHorizon/godot-tiny-mmo-demo/issues/10 .

For if that is the case arms, no arms it does not matter for the engine / MMO demo is more robust for it can use any animation pretty much and it calls upon a standardized list of animation sets like (attack, run, cast, jump with animations sets for each in for up, down, left, right directions etc.).

If that is the case then the art and visuals can be Tiny and later more complex 'hardcore' art can be added in due time while making the ability core system robust along with a lot of room for animation growth / future proofing. What are your main thoughts / feelings / worries and considerations so far? Any feedback and or questions are welcome.

[WithinAmnesia]

This should be a discussion and most of these things mentioned here in this thread can be picked up here in this other thread if wanted by others: https://github.com/SlayHorizon/godot-tiny-mmo-demo/discussions/27 . The engine work is really going well so far.