Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

[doofus-01]

OK.

When I do the next edit, I'll play with the pose a bit. Your proposed one for the first level is a good idea, though I might apply it to the L2 (due to the whole experience = confident, relaxed pose trope we often use). For both of these, we likely want a "en guarde" frame with the weapon active, more or less exactly as held now (which will be used as the endcap of the combat animation), and then a "relaxed" frame that gets used as the usual standing frame.

With that in mind, and to get the base frames squared away, I've got this proposal (sprites on the right - left side are Jetrel's version).
- I've applied the "confident" pose to the higher level. An "en guarde" frame would be like the one on the left.
- I tried to make her a little more "hard"; it fits with the portrait and what I can remember of the story. I lost the clean, fluffy hair and the "bambi" look (which I know were intentional, I don't claim to have "fixed" anything).
- I did try to keep the shoulder/hip thing in mind, but her (armored) shoulders got a bit broader. I don't think it's too bad though.

lisar-blah.png (7.35 KiB) Viewed 5164 times

[ForestDragon]

yeah, the new ones by you look freaking badass exactly as i would portray the new lisar

[Eagle_11]

Ah, right. There was something wrong with the new li'sar sprite which i couldnt put my finger on what precisely it was, you've gone ahead and 'fixed' it.

[Flameslash]

Is that a ribbon in her hair on the top-right sprite?

[doofus-01]

Thanks.

Since there were no objections, I went with some defense/dodge animations for the higher level. Not sure they don't need some work still, but the bigger issue is lack of attack animation, so that's next. This is the WML I put in the unit file for the attached images.

wml

Code: Select all

    image="units/human-battleprincess-resting.png"
    [standing_anim] 
        start_time=0
        [filter]
            [filter_adjacent] 
                is_enemy=yes  
            [/filter_adjacent]
        [/filter]
        [frame]
            image=units/human-battleprincess.png:150
        [/frame]
    [/standing_anim]
    [standing_anim] 
        start_time=0
        [filter] 
            [not]
            [filter_adjacent] 
                is_enemy=yes  
            [/filter_adjacent]
            [/not]
        [/filter]
        [frame]
            image=units/human-battleprincess-resting.png:150
        [/frame]
    [/standing_anim]
    [defend]
        start_time=-126
        [if]
            hits=no
            [frame]
                image=units/human-battleprincess-dodge-1.png:1,units/human-battleprincess-dodge-2.png:250,units/human-battleprincess-dodge-1.png:1
            [/frame]
        [/if] 
        [else]
            hits=yes
            [frame] 
                image=units/human-battleprincess-defend-1.png:1,units/human-battleprincess-defend-2.png:250,units/human-battleprincess-defend-1.png:1
            [/frame]
            hit_sound_start_time=-25
            [hit_sound_frame]
                sound={SOUND_LIST:HUMAN_FEMALE_HIT}
            [/hit_sound_frame]
        [/else]
    [/defend]

I'm not doing a PR for this for now because the BfW version I sync'd with yesterday is pretty broken and unusable. I'll try again some other day.

[vultraz]

Just committed those. Thanks

[doofus-01]

Here are the sprites with an attack animation for battleprincess. It could probably use another "retreat" frame, and one could probably find other things to improve, but I don't think it looks that bad.
EDIT: Turns out I had time to work on this some more, added one more frame (and updated the animation WML below). Also, added leading animation, to be used with the macro already used in the unit file (add the "-leading-2/1" part to the image names).

To use the attack frames, just change the placeholder attack animation to:

attack animation WML

Code: Select all

    [attack_anim]  
        [filter_attack]
            range=melee
        [/filter_attack]

        start_time=-550
        offset=0~-0.1:130,-0.1~0:120,0~0.6:300,0.60~0.0:300                                   

        [frame]
            image="units/human-battleprincess-attack-[1~8].png:[100,100,100,100,100,100,90,80,80]"
        [/frame]  

        {SOUND:HIT_AND_MISS {SOUND_LIST:SWORD_SWISH} {SOUND_LIST:MISS} -100}
    [/attack_anim]

[vultraz]

Pushed the attack animation

EDIT: and the updated ones

[doofus-01]

Thanks, vultraz. I'll try to get some animations for the lower level princess, not sure of the time-line though...

On a somewhat related note: Ashevier's sprite is showing its age. She's the villain of the flagship campaign, and she has a portrait from LB, shouldn't we do something?

Here's my proposal:

[vultraz]

It's good, but I feel it could use some work. The headdress in particular feels pillow-shaded, and the staff arm is rather rigid. Overall, though, it's a good concept.

[zookeeper]

The old sprite's quality seems perfectly good to me, the main issue seems to be that she doesn't have the headdress, maybe her legs shouldn't show quite that much and the pose is dull. She is the archvillain and a queen, so I'd very much like to see the pose completely redone. There's a huge amount of possible visually interesting poses for a character like that, and while of course some of the subtleties (like exact orientation of neck, head, pelvis, etc) are hard to do in the about 40x60 pixels max you have to work with, I think for example Wayfarer's sprites are a good example that it is very much possible.

Also while the old sprite's dress opening is maybe excessive for a queen, it does avoid the dress being a shapeless umbrella and it also has a much more flowy dramatic feel to it, making the sprite more visually interesting.

[doofus-01]

The old sprite's quality seems perfectly good to me, the main issue seems to be that she doesn't have the headdress, maybe her legs shouldn't show quite that much and the pose is dull. She is the archvillain and a queen, so I'd very much like to see the pose completely redone.

This clearly has some way to go, but I wanted to see if the pose was OK? Also, could her sceptre be a wand rather than a staff? Her portrait has a wand.

[zookeeper]

I think that's already tons better. I'd suggest moving her feet together, though, since a wide stance is quite distinctly more martial than regal. If you think narrower legs and dress would make the silhouette too slender, maybe she could hold out the hem (?) of the cloak/cape or something. Standing straight with legs together would probably mean she'd have to gain a few pixels in height too, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Quick franken to try to show what I meant, using the old one's legs for purposes of anatomy.

P.S. And yes, she can have a shorter wand as in the portrait. Still something that doesn't look like a toy, but it doesn't have to be a full-length staff like now.

[doofus-01]

I'd suggest moving her feet together, though, since a wide stance is quite distinctly more martial than regal. If you think narrower legs and dress would make the silhouette too slender, maybe she could hold out the hem (?) of the cloak/cape or something. Standing straight with legs together would probably mean she'd have to gain a few pixels in height too, but that shouldn't be a problem.

I think I see what you mean, so I've moved her feet a little closer together, but if she's an aggressive warmonger and is on the battlefield, I'd think some militancy is required. Unless we are trying to emphasize regal aloofness and decadence, but I don't recall those being among her flaws.

This isn't my final attempt, but if the design is OK, we aren't that many pixels away.

[vultraz]

Ah, I like Certainly more dynamic than before.