The power of pivot / anchor point

[O Ilusionista]

This tutorial is engine independent, so it will work for anything.

Something constant in Mugen and OpenBOR characters is sprites alignment problem, which makes the animation look strange and makes the attack lose efficiency.

This is due to the wrong use of the Point of Support (or pivot point, anchor point), which is the point used to align the rest of the animation - and in real life, it is where the character anchors the body weight to perform the attack).

Generally, we use 3 types of fulcrum:
- Front (when using the front leg as support)
- Central (using the barycenter or middle of the body)
- Rear (when using the leg - or any other member that goes back)

You can still use a movable point, but it is valid for specific times and is complicated to work with.

In the images below, I'm using an animation from a Mugen character I used as an example to give feedback to the creator, Mazemerald. It's the same animation, with the same frames and frame delay - the difference is the foothold.

Compare both versions. Its the same animation, with just axis change.
Original at left - improved at right



What are the benefits of this?
- The attack gained more range
- The animation gets more fluid