My ideas on At-Ease/Ready animation

[xbriannova]

I have an idea in my head that's just begging to be written down. Sorry if this has been discussed before...

After playing Battle for Wesnoth for several years, I have always found it peculiar that some units have base frames that depict a 'ready-for-battle' pose while others depict an 'at-ease' pose. For example, the Elvish hero is always standing with a battle stance, holding his swords at the ready as though a clash of armies is imminent while the Spearman is always just standing there, lax with his arms dangling on his spear and shield.

hero.png (2.24 KiB) Viewed 1588 times

spearman.png (1.19 KiB) Viewed 1588 times

So I got to thinking, why not allow both for each unit? We could have two base frames for each unit, one depicting an out-of-battle pose while the other a battle-ready pose?

The mechanics of this could be as such:

1) When an enemy unit is adjacent to the said unit, the player's unit in question will get into a battle-ready pose.
2) When the enemy unit died or moves away, the player's unit in question will return to its out-of-battle pose.
3) If surprise-attacked, the player's unit will not get into its battle-ready pose first until after taking one attack (whether the attack is successful or not does not matter).
4) If the above does not work, the player's unit could be programmed to just get into its battle-ready pose before getting attacked.

This idea implicates alot of things, I believe. Some frames may need to be scrapped or used for different actions. For example, the spearman's defend animation may need to be scrapped totally in favour of a new defend animation that fits the new battle-ready pose. So if this idea is accepted, it would surely bring about an overhaul of animation and art over time. I predict that this could enrich the world of Wesnoth, make it more lively and beautiful.

I realise that this would mean alot of new animations to be made, but like the nature of any ideas developed here it doesn't have to be an immediate project. Don't forget, who am I to demand anything here? I'm just giving a few ideas to help better the game. If this idea's good, someone, be he or she a UMC developer or official developer, will experiment with this idea and if this becomes official, like any other animations (defend, attack...) this could be made one small step at a time, one unit at a time.

Some games had such a system. Civilisation III and IV has such a system (yes, I am aware that IV is 3D but the idea's the same), Rome: Total War, Medieval: Total War and their expansion packs has this system (I am also aware of their 3D nature but again, idea's the same). Needless to say, this sort of system works very well.

[PeterPorty]

I guess noone would care if you made the 200+ sprites needed for this, but if you don't, it is a hell of a loot of work, with little to no benefit... seriously, unless you are planning to do this yourself, I don't think so, I just don't.

[xbriannova]

Really? The way I see it though, it's about as useful as the idle animations and recruit animations. They may not add anything to gameplay, they may not be shown very often, but that doesn't mean they're useless. Why do people still make them in the first place?

Another point I'd like to emphasize is that it doesn't have to be done all at one go you know what I mean? You seem to think that I don't appreciate the scale of this hypothetical project. As a matter of fact, I do actually. You seem a bit agitated for some reason...

[HomerJ]

Really? The way I see it though, it's about as useful as the idle animations and recruit animations. They may not add anything to gameplay, they may not be shown very often, but that doesn't mean they're useless. Why do people still make them in the first place?

That is exactly the point. This artwork is still not completed so the natural thing for the artists is to work on that end before turning to another huge project as you have mentioned. Everybody would probably agree that what you mentioned would be nice to have, but priority-wise it will be on the bottom. And I guess most artists here do not even see their bottom any more...


Greetz
HomerJ

[thespaceinvader]

We have the ability to produce standing animations for units, and for them to move into a ready stance before and after battle. We lack art. DO art if you want this done.

Since this CABD and we can't currently do the art for it any quicker, I'm locking this thread.