WSAS: Milestone Three

[fabi]

Another update: this is a L3 glider with additional color differentiation over the L2. The previous ones were too similar.

Looks great, but I am missing the proportion that is typical for the glider. The glider is the drake with the biggest wings compared to the body.
Your new L3 glider has grown a much more massive body but is still driven by the same wings as the lower level gliders.

Greetings, Fabi

[Jetrel]

Jetrel: Do you have any thoughts on why a glider might choose to attack in this particular way?

Also, although this definitely fixes the twisting problems that TSI had, and although it looks great, it doesn't really look like an impact attack. In fact, if I didn't know what was going on, I would think he was swiping with his arm-claws.

It's a turning kick (sometimes called "roundhouse" kick, although the roundhouse term is sometimes used for a kick that does a 360°, rather than 180° motion). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKMtaBVk308 I strictly chose the turning kick because I could make one animation that worked equally well for both south AND southeast. Only by being an attack that moves in an arc, could it fulfill that function.

The reasons a drake would use it are similar to why a man would - kicking is the most powerful means we have to attack, impactwise.

Another update: this is a L3 glider with additional color differentiation over the L2. The previous ones were too similar.

Looks great, but I am missing the proportion that is typical for the glider. The glider is the drake with the biggest wings compared to the body.
Your new L3 glider has grown a much more massive body but is still driven by the same wings as the lower level gliders.

Greetings, Fabi

Yes, we may want to fix this, and now is the time to do it.

[Jetrel]

Also, this is a major rework of the glider-kick animation. The key requirement which the previous one lacked was that in delivering the kick, his body did not rotate around the y axis. I had tried to convey the need for this over irc, but sometimes words just don't suffice to demonstrate something like this.


I'll get to work on committing this, shortly.

Committed, along with WML for the flight/standing. We still don't have WML for the takeoff/landing, we'll need to talk to boucman/zookeeper about that.

[thespaceinvader]

Blocking for Fighter melee. I'll be stealing some wings from the Glider melee for the windup frames.

[Rocket Slug]

Aw man, it's going to be a backhand? It seems like it's not taking advantage of the uniqueness of the weapons . I know that you'd like to differentiate them from the Clasher. Hopefully, if it's not too much trouble, you'll have attack variations?

[thespaceinvader]

No. No attack variations. One attack is plenty. And how is this not taking advantage of the uniqueness of the weapon? He's using it...

[Neoskel]

I'm with rocket slug on this, backhand doesn't look right for those weapons. The way the sprite looks makes it seem like the blades' edge in on the inner part while the outer part is thicker for structural support. Not much sense in a slashing attack using the blunt end.

It makes the attack a lot less flamboyant than it could be. Jetrel seems to be more in favor of flashier attack animations. Also, wasn't the whole point of these katar things that they were more similar to the drakes' natural weapons? They can't really do a backhand with their claws. Keeping it the closer hand (to the viewer) attacking should keep it sufficiently different from the clasher attack.

[thespaceinvader]

It should be a simple enough matter to turn the weapon around. I'll run it by Jet, see what he thinks.

EDIT: WE HAVE TO REVERSE THE POLARITY!!

Quick proof-of-concept hack. The rear hand positions need sorting and obviously the wings need doing, but I think this works.

[Jetrel]

A L3 glider with bigger wings.

[Jetrel]

Based on some IRCing with TSI, a L3 glider with even slightly higher wingtips, and a revised version of the warrior baseframe with smaller hands, and with his weapons held down instead of upwards in the "strongman bicep-flex" position that the previous versions had.

[thespaceinvader]

Finished and committed the Hurricane Drake frames. That concludes the second milestone of my WSAS project. Only 5 days late... And the remaining milestones ought to be done more quickly, since the vast majority of the animations are clones of one another. Dull to do, but quick at least...

[thespaceinvader]

Finished and committed the Hurricane Drake frames. That concludes the second milestone of my WSAS project. Only 5 days late... And the remaining milestones ought to be done more quickly, since the vast majority of the animations are clones of one another. Dull to do, but quick at least...

EDIT: Finalised Fighter melee block including wings.

On to cloning out the fire and flight animations.

[thespaceinvader]

Fighter fire and flight done, pending Jet's approval. Defence and melee left to do.

[fabi]

Based on some IRCing with TSI, a L3 glider with even slightly higher wingtips, and a revised version of the warrior baseframe with smaller hands, and with his weapons held down instead of upwards in the "strongman bicep-flex" position that the previous versions had.

Sorry for nitpicking your work.
The higher wings are surely an improvement over the old ones.
They look longer but don't give the impression of an enhancement in wingspread over the lighter looking units of the tree.

Greetings,
Fabi

[Jetrel]

Okay, we've got a major problem, here. The first block mostly looks fine; elements that you're introducing in this latest block are wrong, though, and I think most of it is down to the wings.

In both this fighter block, and the burner block, you're rotating the wings wildly out of sync with the body. In your animations, the wings just crumple oddly against the body, because they, especially their tips, rotate much further forward than the body does. We're also seeing only one wing where we should see two.

What the body is actually doing is only rotating forwards by about 45° or so from it's standing position, and the shoulders are also separately making a rotation of their own around the y-axis. Just so we're clear, the y-axis is the axis a merry-go-round rotates around. It's the turning of the body that gives this strike it's motion, so in all of these frames, especially the one right after the strike, we can't do select and slide, because select-and-slide is motion that's on the screen-plane; a form of straight motion. Your figure is moving in a curved path.

I've drawn over this figure to show you where the shoulders should be (given the front shoulder and the position of other stuff). On just this frame, try drawing the wings where they would be with these shoulders, and don't tilt the wings as far around the z-axis (which would point straight out of (and into) your screen) as you did.

wings.png (3.51 KiB) Viewed 4231 times

Sorry for nitpicking your work.
The higher wings are surely an improvement over the old ones.
They look longer but don't give the impression of an enhancement in wingspread over the lighter looking units of the tree.

Your comment doesn't make any sense. They look longer = an enhancement in wingspread. Because wings fold, the height becomes the spread.