artisticdude's Merfolk Animations

[artisticdude]

Many apologies for my absence these days, but between a malfunctioning monitor and unreliable Internet access, I haven't been able to work on Wesnoth projects a whole lot recently. But ow that my monitor's fixed, I should be more productive.

I've been struggling with the Merman Warrior's south attack, so I'm taking a beak from that for a while. Today we have a blocking for the Merman Javelineer's melée attack, colors stolen from shirmct's standing animation blocking for the same unit.

Known Issues:

-The torso/arms/spear/hair needs to move in the extension frames, will polish that up once the tail motion is finished.

-The lateral fins disappear in the 3rd wind-up frame and all of the extension frames. Again, until the tail motion is finished, I don't want to add extra work that will most probably need to be redone anyway.

-Missing motion blur and bottom of the javelin quiver.

Specific Things I'd Appreciate Comments On:

-Whether or not I the wind-up has enough frames. I only have 2 frames in the wind-up for this animation, versus three in the Merman Warrior's animation.

-The tail motion. While I'm following the basic tail motion I created for the Merman Warrior, I'm also trying to add subtle differences to the motion so that it isn't an obvious clone.

[thespaceinvader]

I thought you were going to work on the Fighter's melee now that we got the warrior sorted. That would be a better course of action IMO.

Regarding this, as before the tail turns round too far. It should be a sine wave along the direction of travel.

[LordBob]

I'll second what TSI sayss about the tail and add what theory I can gather from my own practice of karate.

Basically, the strength of a blow is obtained from the movement of your hips, because they're the key to moving your entire upper & lower body. When parying an attack, your hips will rotate sidewards to accompany a block that deviates the blow, whereas upon delivering a frontal thrust (such as that of a lance), they will rotate forwards so as to face your target.
In the case of your merman, rotating the tail suggest a movement that's hardly compatible with using a lance. It'd be ok with an axe or any horizontal cleaving move, but not with a lance. Like TSI said, the tail has to move so that it propells the body forward, putting all the weight of the merman behind the blow.

[artisticdude]

@LordBob: Thanks for the advice, what you say makes a lot of sense.

I thought you were going to work on the Fighter's melee now that we got the warrior sorted. That would be a better course of action IMO.

Fighter? Can do. It's good to get back to work again. But I'll still come back at some point and finish the javelineer's blocking.

The result of last afternoon's labors, with some borrowing and reference from Zero's earlier work and the warrior's melee attack. One version with a background (to show the motion blur better) and another version without. I cloned the tail movement from the warrior almost exactly, so that should be good. Overall I'm reasonably satisfied with it, but I'm rather concerned about there being only two wind-up frames (and the same concern applies to the javelineer's animation as well). I've tested it in-game, and it looks… okay… but honestly I'm rather ambivalent about it.

[thespaceinvader]

Looks good. Don't forget that the tassel on the trident should react to the thrust. Currently it looks like it's a solid lump, not a piece of fabric. I'd also be inclined not to extend the trident out so far - he'll move towards the target, you don't need to cover all the distance, and it looks a little silly that his hands glide so far down the haft. One of them, at least, should stay in the same place on the haft throughout.

[Major]

Sorry, nitpick: The blur looks like something you would see with a hammer, it's blunt.
The blur should be pointy, otherwise it looks wierd.
Good work so far!

[thespaceinvader]

Indeed, for one frame try to have three distinct points on it.

Check how the enforcer does it:

[artisticdude]

Don't forget that the tassel on the trident should react to the thrust. Currently it looks like it's a solid lump, not a piece of fabric.

Hmm, knew I was forgetting something. Easy fix.

I'd also be inclined not to extend the trident out so far - he'll move towards the target, you don't need to cover all the distance

I understand what you mean. After fiddling around with it for a while, I tried this latest version in-game. It works as well as the Warrior's animation, provided the same offsets used in the warrior's animation are applied to the unit's .cfg file.

As for the motion blur (thanks for pointing that out, Major! ), I corrected the shape in the first two extension frames. I also changed the position of the cauldron on his right (our left) shoulder in the last couple extension frames; it was suddenly jerking down in the previous version. And some preliminary shading on the upper body.

I'm going to try and revamp the warrior's animation at some point, since his motion blur has the same mistake Major pointed out in the animation above. There are also some musculature definition problems in the shading of the warrior's animation, specifically on the arms.

[dipseydoodle]

Great job... Your getting better every time.

One note though. The arms do look slightly awkward.

[artisticdude]

The arms do look slightly awkward.

How so, exactly?

Nearly finished shading. Unless anyone has anything they'd like to point out, I'll go ahead and add the last couple details, miscellaneous corrections and shadows.

[dipseydoodle]

To me it looks like his right arm is either pretty stiff or still has some baby fat... I would imagine him flexing his muscles when he does a attack like that.

[artisticdude]

I haven't finished the shading in that particular area yet, but I did intend on less muscle showing in his right arm. My reasoning is that, since his right arm isn't fully extended, his musculature wouldn't be as prominent in that arm.

Also tsi, do you think the highlights on the region of the tail just below the torso are too bright? At first I though it looked fine, but now I'm having second thoughts.

[thespaceinvader]

Could probably stand a little more shade in the lower half of the tail, yeah, and the area below his waist at the front.

[Zerovirus]

Wow, I'm impressed. You pulled off so easily that which I never figured out how to do. Nice work, man!

Not much problem with the arms, imo. It's an animation, nobody's going to spend that much time dissecting trivial details.

At least my unfinished stuff did some good here, I can finally drop that nagging hook on the edge of my conscience.

[artisticdude]

Thanks Zero! It was a lot easier to animate when you'd already done a lot of the work on the upper body.

Brightened up the tail below the waist a bit, is that okay (or at least better) now? Other than that, fixed a couple minor details (such as the shape of the tail fin in the first extension frame) and added two more shadows.