Avian Faction portraits and sprites

[homunculus]

it is flying sideways : )
if properly synced with movement, it might actually float in the air a bit like swimming in water : )
or if the movement direction is south-west, then it is not looking in the movement direction.

[orangebox]

franco > Ah I guess it -is- hard to see. It's supposed to be placed on the back since that's where the arrows are stored. The unit is in a ready-to-draw-arrows stance, if that's what I'd call it XD Anyway, I suppose if the pose is really hard to see, I'll try to get a different pose. It's much easier to see however, if it's done with the attack animation. I'll do the attack animation first, then decide?

homunculus > Ah no, that's not the flying movement animation. It's the idle flying. The body's direction is not facing frontward (or basically aligned with where the head is facing) is to symbolize that the unit is constantly on the lookout (looking left and right) since it's a scout unit - and not looking forward like most battle-based units. On the flying-move animation however, I'll twist the body

--

Refined the entire kingfisher unit sprites. Previously, nearly all of the 'dress' was drawn in a wrong angle - so I took my time and fixed every single one of them. At the same time, I also added some cloth movements for the ground attack animation.

Ground-Melee.gif (6.08 KiB) Viewed 4599 times

[Crow_T]

this is really nice, to make it a tad better perhaps instead of the multiple frame hold of the spear at the end offset it more just a hair and see how it looks (moving hold).

edit, looking again it very well could be moving already. seems good.

[artisticdude]

With regard to the flying animation, it could use more movement throughout. Right now only the active element is noticeably moving, with the exception of the hair. Have the head bob up and down in reaction to the movement of the wings, make the legs swing in and out slightly, and have the arms and the bow react to the movement of the rest of the body. That should help make the animation more fluid and organic-looking.

That attack animation looks good overall, but the transition between windup and the actual attack seems rather jerky. I'd add/edit a tweening frame in there to clearly show the movement of the shield from the last wind-up frame to the first weapon-swinging frame.

[homunculus]

the attack animation looks confusing.

i understand that the spear is supposed to move left to right, but every time i look at it, i need to think about it, because it is not very intuitive.
i would rather suggest to draw the spear clearly in front of the body rather than over the head, and maybe there is some hope that the animation would not look confusing that way.
maybe even make the spear movement start lower and end higher in the picture.

also, if the unit is doing alternating attack and defense moves, at the end of the attack the shield already ends up in the defense position, will the shield be moving back and forth again for the defense movement?

also, the sprite staying in one location, it is hard to tell what the forward movement of the sprite is, and if the motion blur really looks right, etc, because if you look at this animation

it looks great in the forum, but in game the motion blur rather ridiculously travels with the moving unit.

[orangebox]

Thanks for the comments guys! I really appreciate it to know in which direction I should refine.

artisticdude > I keep forgetting to implement the headbob even when I did it before for the kingfisher flying idle XD However, the legs does shift along as the unit flaps her wings. I had also planned to have the bow shift up and down too, but it was due to laziness that I never got to doing it XD However, looking at how the arms are really awkwardly placed (as francophone mentioned) and realizing it finally (I had no idea why it did not look wrong yesterday. But today when I looked at it again, it does look disturbing) I suppose I'll attribute all those elements in when I start to work with it again

homunculus > Well, I'm unsure if it's really confusing or if it's just a typo on your side. But the spear is swinging from above the head, then a little to the right and finally ends towards the left of the unit. Originally, the unit isn't doing alternating attack and defensive moves - however the placement of her arms when the attack ends somehow puts the shield in that position which made it seemed as if she intended to defend lol. I've tested the attack animation in game, and it looked fine to me. But I'm not too sure if it's actually good enough; as the attack is barely one second, not lengthy enough for me to study close details. Anyways, instead of adding one extra frame, I've decided to instead modify one of the frames so that the shield slides to the end position better.

Ground-Melee.gif (6.09 KiB) Viewed 4487 times

Edit1:

I how does it look now?

HB-flying.gif (5.44 KiB) Viewed 4472 times

Edit2:

Here's the hummingbird bow attack flying.

HB-flying-bow.gif (17.99 KiB) Viewed 4461 times

[lipk]

I think the unit should aim a bit downwards with the bow, since the enemies will be most likely there

[orangebox]

That's true, however I wanted to make it aiming both north-east and south-east. Like the elvish archer.

[lipk]

I wouldn't say that I can predict how it will look in-game, but I fear that the angle of the aimed and actual direction of the arrow would look awkward when shooting southeast or southwest.

[orangebox]

I'd have to do 4/6 different angles if I lowered it, which I think I don't have the luxury of time XD However, since the elvish archer and most archers in wesnoth fires the arrow without facing the enemy directly, I suppose this will be fine for now. Perhaps I will readjust it and produce the other angles when the entire faction is complete, as what's left for me then is just to update the graphics and some balancing.

I fear I might need to trouble you again soon :9 However, I'll try to script it on my own if possible XD

Edit1:

I was bored, and my assignments became the target of my wrath

Spoiler:

Edit2:

Alright serious question. Do you guys think that the hummingbird should have another design altogether rather than simply having the same outfits but only weapon swaps?

[francophone]

I understood why I could not understand the position of the HB flying arms. In fact I confused the arc with the pattern of the skirt. The angle corresponds to this of white stripes of the skirt. And the low hand looks empty.

[Zerovirus]

Made a possible advancement or hero unit, equipped with a hooked blade and a larger shield. TC-heavy and TC-light versions included. In the first, I guess the head stuff is like a headdress of feathers and in the second it's more like a fancy ceremonial hairdo or something.

[orangebox]

Oooh nice. That would definitely fit a hero unit. Sad though, the unit uses plate armor - cause the avians aren't too used to carrying heavy armor into combat, not to mention it's actually a western themed armor ._.

If you wouldn't mind, I'd use that as a base to tinker with it?

[Zerovirus]

Ehh, go ahead- the design is implicitly for your usage, since I posted it here and everything. My original conception of it was trying to make a caste that didn't rely on flying, similar to the Drake Clashers from mainline. Shouldn't be too difficult to work around the plate armor just by recoloring it to be brown or camo-green.

[orangebox]

Much appreciated zero. Your base frames had always been my best motivator to actually work on the faction I'm still on temporary hiatus however (since there's this one last sculpting assignment left)