Standing and idle animations?

[Redeth]

Redeth: The Footpad's sling looks funny when he scratches his head; somehow it clings to his body? Why?

I don't know. He's holding the sling, he moves his arm and hand so the sling moves too, that's all I did and that's all I can see, sorry.

Also, I'd be against putting smoking in. Kids don't need to see it, and I don't want to see it.

All that being said, I see no real good reason to add smoking to the game either.

If units are going to smoke, then I still think the Goblin Pillager should light up a cig on his torch.

Take it easy people, no one is turning Wesnoth into a social club for nicotine addicts... It's just an idea for a single idle animation which would be suitable for a particular unit given his specific nature, that's all.

• Have her simply twirl her staff around (not terribly unlike the swordsman, except with the twirl-fulcrum in the center).

Sure, it'll do.

• Have her do a single spin like a ballerina, with the dress flying out accordingly.

That's exactly what I wanted to avoid... Instead of having her dance gracefully like a princess or a little girl playing in the prairie, I wanted her to do this 'frenzy dance', a sort of tribute to 'mother nature' and the elements, similar to that performed by actual shamans in real indian tribes. I may have failed in the execution, but I think the concept is still valid, though it obviously clashes with what you have in mind for the elves, so I'll drop it.

Note that she has two layers of "dress" - the green, divided skirt/dress/coat hangs over a brown skirt/dress underneath.

Oh... Yeah, the problem when animating sprites made by others, especially in this scale, is that sometimes it's hard as heck to figure out exactly what a couple of pixels or a line of slightly different color are supposed to be. It happened to me while doing the outlaw animation, for instance... Take a look at the first version... I thought the sling had this little secondary leather strap hanging from it, but it turned out to be part of his cloak (fixed in the following versions of course)

I'm with Jetryl. I don't see why the units need to be smoking and I don't find it particularily amusing.

Huh? AFAIK Jetryl didn't say a word about the smoking idea for an idle animation, so how can you be with him?

They're there to fight afterall.

Yes, but they're not robots. There are tons of things that combatants don't "need to do" on a battlefield, and yet they spend most of their time doing them instead of actually fighting. In WWII soldiers would "kill" for a cigarette. In a fantasy-medieval setting this would be much more rare, but Tolkien has proven it's 'believable' enough.

[Jetrel]

I'm with Jetryl.

By this, I trust you mean "in suggesting that most of these animations should be rather short".

I don't see why the units need to be smoking and I don't find it particularily amusing. Rubbing their head with the club is alot better humor.

I don't really see why they need to drink either. They're there to fight afterall.

Atleast taking a drink is relatively fast, A unit first having to make fire (without a lighter or matches, gonna be a drake or wizard?) then stand around puffing on it's pipe should provide something of -40% defence when attacked since it's being caughty off guard? or is it ment to be a peace pipe?


I don't think it belongs in wesnoth and am sure better things can be thought of.

The one case that would work, would be for the arch/great mage to take out a big, gandalf-esque pipe, and puff a few times. That would be harmless, mostly because it's something people are already used to seeing (a wizard puffing a pipe). People would see it, and think nothing of it. "Oh, he's smoking a pipe. Huh."

It's question of context - other units doing the same thing would be much, much more noticeable; people would see it, and wonder about it. "Oh, he's smoking a pipe. Wait... why is he smoking a pipe? What's up with that?"

[borisblue]

I'm OK with smoking, but not cigarettes. They would be an anachronism
Pipes, however would fit well with wesnoth's flavor.

[Jetrel]

Redeth: The Footpad's sling looks funny when he scratches his head; somehow it clings to his body? Why?

I don't know. He's holding the sling, he moves his arm and hand so the sling moves too, that's all I did and that's all I can see, sorry.

I think JW is bugged by the fact that the sling doesn't shake after his hand rests on his leg (e.g. during the head-scratching frames). I myself didn't notice it, but if you wanted to tweak that, it wouldn't hurt.

• Have her do a single spin like a ballerina, with the dress flying out accordingly.

That's exactly what I wanted to avoid... Instead of having her dance gracefully like a princess or a little girl playing in the prairie, I wanted her to do this 'frenzy dance', a sort of tribute to 'mother nature' and the elements, similar to that performed by actual shamans in real indian tribes. I may have failed in the execution, but I think the concept is still valid, though it obviously clashes with what you have in mind for the elves, so I'll drop it.

That would be infinitely more appropriate for the ... druid.

Trying to make a depiction of a woman in a dress look correct/appropriate doing that is an uphill battle - I'd much prefer the "girl playing in the prairie", "doing a carefree twirl" look for the shaman.

If you do the "frenzy dance" to the druid, which I don't mind at all, I suggest making it much simpler. Keep the unit in the same spot.

Note that she has two layers of "dress" - the green, divided skirt/dress/coat hangs over a brown skirt/dress underneath.

Oh... Yeah, the problem when animating sprites made by others, especially in this scale, is that sometimes it's hard as heck to figure out exactly what a couple of pixels or a line of slightly different color are supposed to be.

For an amusing misconception, I thought that the very first sprites we had for the thieves had them wearing a blue bowler hat, tipped rakishly to the side. This was part of why I did the first edit I did to the thieves - to make it clear that it was hair and not hat. I'm probably going to edit their hair yet again, given that I'm much better at doing hair these days. (and yes, at this point in time, the thieves were elves. Wesnoth originally had only elves and orcs.)

[Boucman]

Splitted the cigarette posts to another thread in off-topic

[Redeth]

Splitted the cigarette posts to another thread in off-topic

Thank you.

Forum was crippled but as you can see I kept on working... JW and Jet were right about there being a problem with the sling on the footpad animation... I took care of that and it's ready to go, .zip over there.

[JW]

Nice. I really like the Dragoon animation because you included the horse.

[Zhukov]

All awesome. No critiques here.

[Jetrel]

Yeah, those are great. I've looked them over and can't see anything to complain about. You're right that you fixed the sling business - I hadn't realized how much room for improvement there was in the old one, but it's clear now.


I should also say - these are exactly the length of time/complexity that most idling animations should have; so, you're really hitting the nail on the head, here. Great work.

[zookeeper]

What are the dragoon and ulf doing? The ulf looks a bit like he's sawing his leg with his axe. I know this is a bit late since you've already drawn an animation (so just ignore this at will), but one possibility would be to just have him slap himself into berserker rage and/or have him madly hack at the ground with his axe in his frenzied state.

The dragoon looks a bit odd (it's technically very neat, and not bad at all as such) as I have no idea why the horse is leaning to one side in that manner. I think it might look better (and fancier), if the horse turned the same amount he does now (towards the viewer) but would do so using normal horse rotate/side-stepping instead of leaning. The turning back and forth that way would take about two seconds probably, and the man could do his swordwaving somewhat in the middle (but I don't think it would hurt to slow it down just a little bit, too). I could actually have a go at it myself (no promises about the results, I'd just like to try), but I can do it just as well after this one has been committed.

[Zhukov]

What are the dragoon and ulf doing? The ulf looks a bit like he's sawing his leg with his axe.

It's called depth, aka the third dimension.

Or to put it another way, the axe is 'closer' to the viewer then the leg.

[Jetrel]

What is the ulf doing? He looks a bit like he's sawing his leg with his axe.

I strongly disagree with this critique; this animation, or more aptly, this choice of "action" is fine. The ulf is holding his axe out to the side, and putting himself in a crouched "focus" stance. Look at the shadow.

This is a very common movement in fighter games that involve swords, and not at all an unusual type of movement in real sword sparring (nothing you'd do while engaging your opponent, but something you'd do to psych them out/show off your kung foo/keep your legs & arms limbered up).

The dragoon looks a bit odd (it's technically very neat, and not bad at all as such) as I have no idea why the horse is leaning to one side in that manner. I think it might look better (and fancier), if the horse turned the same amount he does now (towards the viewer) but would do so using normal horse rotate/side-stepping instead of leaning. The turning back and forth that way would take about two seconds probably, and the man could do his swordwaving somewhat in the middle (but I don't think it would hurt to slow it down just a little bit, too). I could actually have a go at it myself (no promises about the results, I'd just like to try), but I can do it just as well after this one has been committed.

This may be valid; I'd sorta been wondering about this, but didn't want to chime in about it because (a) the animation is really well done, and (b) I don't know much about horses, and only had a niggling notion that they might not actually be able to lean like that. But with you also saying that, something might be up.

I have a friend who's decidedly more equestrian than I am; I'm going to go ask her to take a look at this.

[JW]

I have a friend who's decidedly more equestrian than I am; I'm going to go ask her to take a look at this.

I'm pretty sure horses can step like that. It's usually for shows though to show off training and control of the horse (usually unmounted I think, but still).

[zookeeper]

I have a friend who's decidedly more equestrian than I am; I'm going to go ask her to take a look at this.

I'm pretty sure horses can step like that. It's usually for shows though to show off training and control of the horse (usually unmounted I think, but still).

They might be able to do that (I must admit I'm still a bit sceptical), but I'd guess it's still something they wouldn't do if they weren't trained for that, and I see no reason to train them to do a funny lean to the side. Especially when what the horse does here is basically planting its hoof and weight heavily on one side and mysteriously just recovering from that immediately. Try that yourself: stand normally, keeping your left foot where it is. Then take a quick step with your right foot to your right (long enough to create a space of at least half a meter between your feet while keeping your left leg straight), planting more or less all your weight on the right leg. Then make the same so that immediately upon planting your foot you recover back to your normal standing pose. It ain't especially comfortable or natural, more like twitchy and strenuous. Of course a horse does it a bit differently, but you get the idea (remember, a horse also weighs a whole lot more than a human).

Horses tend to do all sorts of funny stuff though, like scratch behind their ears with their hind legs.

[JW]

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 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.