Northern Unit Facings

[Jetrel]

I've come to realize that we don't need as much in the directional department as I'd thought, and that actually having four unique facings for each unit would be worse, believe it or not, than having two (except in cases of long-bodied units like horsemen and wolves). The simple trick is that direct front-on and back-on facings (e.g. direct N/S) generally look stilted compared to a more dynamic pose, or a pose facing diagonally. Furthermore, as has already been demonstrated on units like the spearman, a unit can easily transition from a base frame into anything in that demi-circle of directions; e.g. from a S/SE base frame, the unit will look fine doing anything to the S/SE/SW.


So what we need is this:
- 1 SE/S standing frame. 1 NE/N standing frame.
- 1 SE/S defense animation. 1 NE/N defense animation. Preferably 2 frames for these, but can vary according to unit.


In melee:
For units with thrusting weapons:
- 1 N, 1 S, 1 NE, and 1 SE attack animation. (We've practically got all of these done, actually, we just need the base frames and defend frames to surround them. These only need to be 1-2 frames long.)

For units with sweeping/swung weapons:
- 1 SE/S attack animation. 1 NE/N attack animation. (These should be several frames long.)


In ranged:
For units with thrown (or otherwise dubious in direction, such as magic) weapons:
- 1 SE/S attack animation. 1 NE/N attack animation. (usually only 1-3 frames)

For units with very obviously directed weapons, like the thunderer:
- 1 N, 1 S, 1 NE, and 1 SEattack animation. (note - this does NOT include crossbows.)

For all units with ranged attacks:
- 1 SE/S, 1 NE/N ranged standing frame (unless their base frame works as such).
- 1 SE/S, 1 NE/N ranged defense frame.




Side notes:
- I don't know what the hell we're gonna do about bows. I know from looking at the current crossbow attacks (which I've propogated to everything already, naturally), that crossbows need only two direction-variants; SE/S, and NE/N. I am -seriously- hoping we can do this with bows as well; but whatever we do is probably going to be rather invasive for our current bow frames (unless we simply add N and S). To determine this, we'll try making directional variants for a single elf - probably the archer, and see how things fly; see what works.

- Eventually, I'd like to having standing animations, based in part due to how insanely better it makes things look, and due to how suprisingly well the animation engine handles it (so long as you don't spill out of the hex during the animation, which would cause slowdowns if several units were doing it). These would be subtle stuff like the unit breathing/bobbing, capes shifting. We're adding this first to the units that desperately/obviously need it, like those who flap their wings, or who are permanently on fire, in whole or in part (goblin pillager). The vampire bats already have this, and I'm thinking of adding it to the ghosts as I TC them.

- Idle animations don't need a NE/N facing variant. The unit will just play the south-facing animation; many other videogames have proven this looks just fine. Especially since they don't play any idle animations when right next to an enemy (which would be a strange situation to turn around during).

- The spectre of moving animations still hangs in the distance. For some units, we can get away with just two directions (bats, here's looking at you). But I'm strongly inclined to believe that we'll need four for normal units. This is generally on hold until the TC project is done, and we're well in earnest on directional facings.

Since work is beginning to trickle in on these, I've started a formal thread to collect it. This works just like the TC thread, except for a different subject. Just for clarification, the subject/intent of this thread isn't creating just standing frames, but is creating standing frames and all the other frames for a given direction.

As it becomes necessary, I'll start a "Grand List of Directional Facings" in a separate thread, similar to the existing one for team-coloration.

[Jetrel]

For the first orders of business, redeth has provided me with directional facings for all the different goblin spear units. I'll be committing them shortly.

Also, turin has kindly provided a standing frame for the elven fighter, which I've edited into shape.

[turin]

I have a question - would the idea be that the standing frame of the unit is always the SE/SW frame, and it only switches to the NE/NW for combat, or would it switch to the NE/NW frame long-term whenever it moves and ends up 'facing' to the north?

This does make a difference in how they're drawn, I think, since if the latter, we have to worry about (a) making sure the different units look distinct from each other and (b) are recognizably the same unit from the two different angles, but if the former, we just have to worry about it looking good and (c) not being noticeably different from the unit it's supposed to resemble. While similar, (b) and (c) are, I think, not the same.

Did that make sense?

---

BTW, nice job with editing the E. Fighter. Looks much better than when I handed it off to you.

[Jetrel]

I'll be committing them shortly.

Or just editing them and posting them here. Before I commit them, I'd like to have a little colloquy with Zookeeper, and see about making a new defense macro to handle northern-facing animations, and yet remain exactly like the current macros. "Being like the current macros" means that I'd need to be able to have a macro for both melee and ranged, too.

I'm not very fresh on what conditionals can be checked in the WML (when it gets complicated and there are multiple conditionals), else I'd write this myself.

[Jetrel]

I have a question - would the idea be that the standing frame of the unit is always the SE/SW frame, and it only switches to the NE/NW for combat, or would it switch to the NE/NW frame long-term whenever it moves and ends up 'facing' to the north?

The latter - it will stay in the NE/NW frame.

It will temporarily switch back to SE/SW for any idle animations; from my experience that actually won't look bad for two reasons: 1] We're visually accustomed to units 'snapping' between directions when they're about to perform an action - our units already do this for changing their horizontal direction. 2] They'll never do it when standing right next to an enemy, since they never show idle animations -period-, when right next to an enemy.

Standing right next to an enemy is one of the only contexts in which a unit would be expected to remain facing a certain direction, instead of getting bored while standing around.

This does make a difference in how they're drawn, I think, since if the latter, we have to worry about (a) making sure the different units look distinct from each other and (b) are recognizably the same unit from the two different angles, but if the former, we just have to worry about it looking good and (c) not being noticeably different from the unit it's supposed to resemble. While similar, (b) and (c) are, I think, not the same.

Yeah - it's a challenge I think we can handle. We've had a bit of trepidation/FUD kicking around here about breaking recognizability when a unit has multiple facings, but I've seen this basic scheme used in a whole pile of graphically somewhat similar games - including games that had rather similar looking units. I'm pretty sure we can pull this off.

[Jetrel]

etc: more of redeth's images.

Also, here's a rundown on who's been assigned what, so as to prevent collisions.

Zhukov: has been given the following as options, but I don't know if he's actually working on any of them:
- The saurian skirmisher
- The dwarven guardsman
- The dwarven thunderer
- The troll whelp

Redeth: may be doing any of the following:
- the orcish crossbowman
- the orcish assassin (or slayer)
- the ogre/young-ogre

Turin: right now, has been given the following as a task:
- The elven archer


When you do this one, crib heavily from the fighter sprite I just made - in fact go ahead and copy the legs outright. And more of a global note for everyone involved - if you're working on something and a part becomes difficult, I can bail you out. Don't give up and not submit something because you're having trouble - just having part of it in progress can save me tons of time.

[wayfarer]

For bows.
N, E, S are almost enough. Though SE extra might be good NE is not worth the trouble. Just my 2 cents from the tries I made.

[Jetrel]

I should work with these..

Since you're starting on north facing frames, i wanted to remind you of the ones i made early in my stay here, in case they're still useful.

[Jetrel]

Finally committed the goblin standing frames. I've also made a few teensy edits, as you can see in the images below.

I'm pleased thus far with how versatile these two drawn directions are proving to be - these mere two feel like a lot more than that:

[Kestenvarn]

Very impressive goblins.

[Jetrel]

Also, here's a rundown on who's been assigned what, so as to prevent collisions.

Zhukov: has been given the following as options, but I don't know if he's actually working on any of them:
- The saurian skirmisher
- The dwarven guardsman
- The dwarven thunderer
- The troll whelp

Redeth: may be doing any of the following:
- the orcish crossbowman
- the orcish assassin (or slayer)
- the ogre/young-ogre

Turin: right now, has been given the following as a task:
- The elven archer

I've reassigned the guardsman line to Urs, since he's already gotten a lot done on it. He's also been assigned the ulfzerker line.

[turin]

Urgh. I'm busy with RL for at least another week (school's taking up a lot more time this semester compared to last)... I'll get to the archer eventually, though. Just don't assign me anything else until I've finished him.

[Redeth]

Almost done with the assassin... The gobbos look great now, gj

[Jetrel]

A major technique note for everyone:
When you work on the north facing images, it's generally a very good idea to enhance the costuming on the back. When considering a unit, the front side of the thing only demonstrates a certain amount of equipment; there are a number of potential bits of equipment which would be mostly or completely obscured on the back, which would add a lot of visual interest to the unit if you were to add them. These include things like quivers, extra weapons (at least those wielded by the unit), backpacks, belts and straps, and plenty of other things.

It's generally an outright bad idea to draw only things that were visible on the front as well - we can get away with it on some units, but on others, it's going to look really stilted and boring.


What does this portend for stuff made so far?
- The goblins are fine - their back armor almost looks like and could be sort of a backpack; it doesn't really matter what it is, it matters that it's visibly interesting, at which it succeeds.
- The assassin redeth just sent me could use a dagger sheath.
- That elf I posted above could really use a quiver.
(I'll take care of all of these, I'm just saying them to demonstrate my thinking process.)

[Urs]

So the stalwarts I sent you could use something like a quiver for their javelin? I didn't add one of these because I thought they simply threw their normal spear - the different attack icons cleared that up for me.