Standing and idle animations?

[zookeeper]

Well, not to brag, but I'm pretty athletic, so it's not actually that tough for me. Playing ultimate you have to make actual lunges all the time to throw and defend passes. Also, I think it would be easier for the horse, whose center of gravity isn't located directly between the front 2 legs.

I'm reasonably used to doing lunges as well, but it still wouldn't look or feel very natural if I was doing them casually out of context. Maybe an idle animation like that doesn't strictly speaking need to be "relaxed" (but be more like a stiff formal hail to the leader or something like that), but to me a movement like that simply looks out of place since it's so unusual - something I've never seen a horse do. However, something like that might fit the elvish scout line much better (maybe just with some timing changes), since their horses are supposed to be more agile anyway which might not mind doing fancy stunts all the time.

I do that turning would probably be more realistic, but I think the current animation is just fine. If he makes a new one though I'm sure it'll look just as good, if not better.

Yeah, agreed. That's why I can try to do an edit of it if I can after this one's been committed.

[Jetrel]

Having talked with my friend, the animation is actually very close to being correct, the only thing that's "goofy" is the horses front left leg (his left, stage directions).

Basically, if you look at it now, when the horse leans, the angle on that leg becomes slightly concave when the horse shifts to the side; if it is made slightly convex, that should fix the animation entirely.

[AT]

The horse thing looks, IMHO, very cool, but I asked my girlfriend (who happens to be a national equestrian champion and deals with horses for a living), if a horse could step like that.

She looked at me funny, and didn't reply. I have a feeling the answer is "No, but who really cares?"

I can get a real answer if anybody really wants the idle animations to be super-realistic, but Jetryl being happy is good enough for me.

[Boucman]

well, basicaly, horses can't fold their legs sideward...
when they turn they fold their body, but the leg movement stays a back/front only.

what makes it confusing is that it's very close to the usual horse "salute" (not sure about the english name of that pose)

I think it would be better if you made the horse turn, then salute. horses can turn without moving, it's the leaning part that is wrong..

[Noyga]

Well actually they can do that, but it's probably rather an unusual sort of figure.

[Xeron_]

medhieval war mounts have had a fantastic training - so if they are physically able to do such moves i see no problem in this animation...

Keep in mind - a knight has had his life in a horse's hands - hm hoves. if it wouldn't follow his commands he couldn't ifght savely - also specatcular movements were common on the one hand to show off, but also on the other hand in order to get out of the line of fire and to have the mount hit rather than the rider.

[Redeth]

What are the dragoon and ulf doing?

The dragoon is saluting while demonstrating than he and his horse are 'one' (he doesn't need to force the animal into saluting, it's like they share the thought), and the ulf is just getting ready to 'do his thing'. For both of these I wanted to make a better use of the z axis than in previous idle animations.

Good, after reading all the comments and doing a little research of my own, I've concluded that:

a. Horses are able to perform the action intended.
b. It's not a usual or often seen kind of movement, but it serves the purpose intended well.
c. The movement looks odd and unnatural because I neglected the fact that as the horse turned its head and neck, we'd also be able to partially see its left 'shoulder'.
d. You are a very helpful community when you're not biting each others' heads offs

Having taken care of point "c" (which btw solves the issue of the angle of the leg mentioned by Jetryl), I believe this is ready to go, along with the much simpler ulf animation. Feel free to tweak around if you must, of course.

[zookeeper]

Ok, I guess the thing that bugs me most about the dragoon now is the fact that he doesn't shift his weight back on the recovery - he throws it back, which I'm pretty sure a horse wouldn't do at least when doing such a salute action. He should lean back to the normal stance, and then shift his right front leg back. Now he does both at the same time. He can sort of drop to the salute lean because his weight is in the middle, but he can't drop back to the normal stance because at that point his weight is on his right front leg (so, he must first shift his weight back and then recover the leg).

Anyway, this is again something that I might be happy to tinker with once it's been committed (and I find it much more comfortable working with SVN anyway than copying files from the forum, editing them, uploading them back, etc).

[kbaskins]

Having taken care of point "c" (which btw solves the issue of the angle of the leg mentioned by Jetryl), I believe this is ready to go, along with the much simpler ulf animation. Feel free to tweak around if you must, of course.

The dwarvish ulfserker, human loyalist dragoon and human outlaw footpad idling animations have been committed.

An updated list of what's been completed and committed can be found here.

--

Karen

[Redeth]

...

[Oreb]

Nice and possibly what would happen...

Wose(though): Ahh, things are coming, stand still...
Human: What a nice tree, I might just chop it down.

*Human raises axe*
*Wose squishes him*

EDIT: Wose's can't squish now, they Maul.

[Dragon Master]

nice and subtle, I like it.

[JW]

nice and subtle, I like it.

I completely agree.

[Zhukov]

I would say move his arms a tad. Nothing dramatic, just a slight shift. Having just one element move can often look wierd.

EDIT: although in this case the wierd-ness is very slight.

[turin]

I think the wierdness is a bit more than slight. Having some of the wood move slightly would be good. Look at actual trees - not just the leaves sway in the wind.