Hello I am doing some animations for a 8 way drawn character, and all the basic animations like idle, walk, run I am fine and know how to go about. But our character is gonna have some attack animations, like a few swings of a sword and such. So him being shown from his side is kinda ok, but I am not sure on how to manage sword trajectories when the character is from the front and the back. What would be the best way to go about doing these animations? Would having a few different sprites of the sword from different angle help sell the movement?
8 way character sword trajectories
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Hello! what is exactly that you find difficult to replicate?
If it is perspective rotations, perhaps understanding how these windmill blades were animated may help you see how you could animate the sword:
Windmill example: Windmill Blades
A sword can also be rotated along a different axis, as shown in this little example tip: Image removed due to the lack of support for HTTPS. | Show Anyway
Spine Tips: 56 sword
If interested, this is another example with real time explanation and rigging:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ltb9IeO3iE&list=PLwGl7Ikd_6GTpd2PnWqqIZVsqotxtrtaE&t=709s
Overall, don't be afraid to use the scale and shear tools in animations to achieve the right angle. A tip that I know many good animators follow in such cases is to sketch the pose how you imagine it, and then try to recreate that key pose by "breaking" your rig in the animation and scaling or translating bones to achieve that pose properly.
I hope this helps!