Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Contribute art for mainline Wesnoth.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Forum rules
Before posting critique in this forum, you must read the following thread:
Post Reply
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by zookeeper »

Looks great to me. Would you prefer these to go in the next release, or do you want to work on the animations first?
User avatar
Vyncyn
Forum Regular
Posts: 515
Joined: April 6th, 2013, 5:51 pm

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by Vyncyn »

Propably easier if I do the animation first, otherwise the cgf-files would have to be edited twice. But don't have much time to work on them until march.
User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by doofus-01 »

zookeeper wrote:In case you want the WML for the potential death animation, here's what I've come up with (here using the frames of the Wose death anim, split into two parts):
[...]
To Dark_Queen.cfg:

Code: Select all

    [extra_anim]
        flag=drop
        start_time=0

        [frame]
            image="units/woses/wose-die-fall-[1~8].png:200"
        [/frame]
    [/extra_anim]
    [death]
        start_time=0

        [frame]
            image="units/woses/wose-die-fall-[9~15].png:200"
        [/frame]
    [/death]
    [variation]
        variation_id=defeated
        image="units/woses/wose-die-fall-8.png"
        inherit=yes
    [/variation]
And to 24_Battle_for_Wesnoth.cfg, right before all her other last breath events:

Code: Select all

    [event]
        name=last breath

        [filter]
            id=Asheviere
        [/filter]

        [object]
            silent=yes

            [filter]
                id=Asheviere
            [/filter]

            [effect]
                apply_to=variation
                name=defeated
            [/effect]
        [/object]

        [animate_unit]
            flag=drop

            [filter]
                x,y=$x1,$y1
            [/filter]
        [/animate_unit]
    [/event]
So, the death animation can be a single image sequence where in the first part she drops to her knees and in the second part keels over, all you need to change are the frame references.

The animation system is so fickle that I think sometimes the latter animation is just skipped (depending on what, I don't know) and I had to go through a lot of iterations to finally find one that at least seems to work most of the time.
I don't have this implemented yet, but just wanted to say that I am working on it, and this is a very WIP gif, that at least gives some idea of where it's going:
human-queen-dieWIP.gif
human-queen-dieWIP.gif (13.25 KiB) Viewed 3660 times
I think I'm going to make the head-dress a separate frame.
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by zookeeper »

Looks pretty good. I suppose you already know which parts need the most work, but here's a few thoughts:

- Making a separate sub-animation for the headdress seems a bit overkill; I'd think that by making its fall speed a bit more constant (instead of accelerating so rapidly in the end) would give it just about enough time to disappear behind her during the final frame(s). And even if you had to add a few extra frames in the end where only the headdress moves anymore, it would still be the simplest and most convenient way to do it, without any downsides that I can see.

- The wand could maybe fall a little bit slower, because it's otherwise such a long and rather dramatically slow animation.

- I'd skip the change in arm and head position in the end. When falling, she seems to be catching the ground with her our-left hand, so she can't just take it off the ground and grab her wounded arm with it without either toppling over or changing her overall position. The turning of the head also seems somehow a bit unsuited and/or unnatural for an animation of this kind; instead, she could for example just fall down with her eyes on the ground so we only see the top of her head in the end. She doesn't need to end in the exact same position as in the portrait after all, but if she does, then I think it should happen by collapsing more or less directly into the final position, instead of first going through an intermediate position which does already seem like a stable and natural end position for the falling motion.
User avatar
beetlenaut
Developer
Posts: 2814
Joined: December 8th, 2007, 3:21 am
Location: Washington State
Contact:

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by beetlenaut »

Looking good so far! It is a nice idea to have the pose match the defeat portrait. However, I do agree with zookeeper's notes and his point that it doesn't need to match exactly. Also, were you planning to implement this as an actual death animation? It doesn't seem like that would work very well because then the last breath messages would fire before this animation is played, and they really should show up after she's on the ground. And, if you move the messages to a die event, the animation will fade before the messages play.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by zookeeper »

beetlenaut wrote:Also, were you planning to implement this as an actual death animation?
As per the aforementioned WIP WML, neither; it'd be a triggered extra animation played upon last breath, before the dialogue, with her baseframe also getting changed at that point into the last frame of the animation so that that frame gets used throughout the dialogue. After that, a normal death animation which is either a continuation of the previous animation, or a fadeout (either the standard one, or something more special).
User avatar
beetlenaut
Developer
Posts: 2814
Joined: December 8th, 2007, 3:21 am
Location: Washington State
Contact:

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by beetlenaut »

My bad. I missed the drop down that shows the code. (And the original message was quite a while ago.) Thanks!
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by doofus-01 »

There's always room for improvement, but for something that will play once, I feel it is close enough. I put it in a PR:
https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/pull/925
zookeeper wrote: Making a separate sub-animation for the headdress seems a bit overkill; I'd think that by making its fall speed a bit more constant (instead of accelerating so rapidly in the end) would give it just about enough time to disappear behind her during the final frame(s). And even if you had to add a few extra frames in the end where only the headdress moves anymore, it would still be the simplest and most convenient way to do it, without any downsides that I can see.
Making it a separate frame makes it easier to change speeds and amount of movement.
zookeeper wrote:The wand could maybe fall a little bit slower, because it's otherwise such a long and rather dramatically slow animation.
That is true, but I forgot about this.
zookeeper wrote: I'd skip the change in arm and head position in the end. When falling, she seems to be catching the ground with her our-left hand, so she can't just take it off the ground and grab her wounded arm with it without either toppling over or changing her overall position. The turning of the head also seems somehow a bit unsuited and/or unnatural for an animation of this kind; instead, she could for example just fall down with her eyes on the ground so we only see the top of her head in the end. She doesn't need to end in the exact same position as in the portrait after all, but if she does, then I think it should happen by collapsing more or less directly into the final position, instead of first going through an intermediate position which does already seem like a stable and natural end position for the falling motion.
OK, she just looks down, and frame 16 is supposed to be looking down a little more for the (default) death animation.
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by zookeeper »

Wonderful! I'll have that in soon enough, with a few WML-side changes.
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by zookeeper »

Committed. Good job, it's great!

P.S. Regarding the wand: first I figured I'd just add the wand to the final frame too, because there's basically no reason why it should suddenly disappear. However, I noticed that in-scenario, the wand does land right on the castle wall in a way that might look a bit weird if it just sits there during the dialogues. So, I ended up making it fade out during the animation instead. Easy to change if necessary... but I'm not sure if anyone besides me feels like OCD'ing over something like that. :whistle:
User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by doofus-01 »

Great, thanks. By the way, is the first post relatively up-to-date, as far as the to-do list?
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by zookeeper »

doofus-01 wrote:Great, thanks. By the way, is the first post relatively up-to-date, as far as the to-do list?
I updated the bits regarding Li'sar and the Witness line now, so aside from anything Secrets of the Ancients might now be in need of, it should be up-to-date.
User avatar
UnwiseOwl
Posts: 510
Joined: April 9th, 2010, 4:58 am

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by UnwiseOwl »

SotA Could do with zombie rats :)
And now that there's a zombie wolf, maybe a zombie wolf-rider?

Both would make the first levels of SoTA particularly nice.
Maintainer of the Imperial Era and the campaigns Dreams of Urduk, Epic of Vaniyera, Up from Slavery, Fall of Silvium, Alfhelm the Wise and Gali's Contract.
But perhaps 'maintainer' is too strong a word.
User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by doofus-01 »

These are mostly edits of one sprite, but maybe a couple of them would be OK for the TRoW hero, if I cleaned up the palette and a couple other things. I tried (and failed) to keep the striped pants without ballooning them, and I didn't know how to include the cod-piece without making it ridiculous.
Trow_noble.png
Trow_noble.png (6.02 KiB) Viewed 3069 times
UnwiseOwl wrote:SotA Could do with zombie rats :)
And now that there's a zombie wolf, maybe a zombie wolf-rider?
Rats could be fun. Wolf-rider sounds like a job for one of our resident Dr. Frankensteins.
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Mainline campaign sprites and animations needed

Post by zookeeper »

doofus-01 wrote:Image
Well, the spriting's good.
  • Is there some particular reason for why the clothing and armour is so different than in the portrait? For example, the reason why there's so little space for the stripes (well, one reason; see below) is because there's a tunic covering half of his thighs.
  • The leveled versions are really short. He's a lot shorter than pretty much any comparable unit.
  • The sword is a bit weird. The blade is the width of the hilt at the base, and it's also curved. Why should it not simply be straight? Humans mostly have straight swords, and most straight swords are human swords, and Haldric's sword is clearly a gladius-style straight blade.
  • The cape doesn't really look like a cape, it's more like something draped over one arm.
  • My standard gripes regarding the pose.
Post Reply