New animations

[rhyging5]

baseframe for berserker to north:

[Reepurr]

Rhyging's posted his north baseframe here and so will I.

I hope it's okay.

peasant-n.png (4.52 KiB) Viewed 4954 times

@ Major's spearman attack: Awesome, but when the spearman's spear crosses over his face on the end of the attack something weird seems to happen with his head.

EDIT2: Primary attempt at the stalwart attack animation, moving only the main parts. It'll be refined a little more extra (e.g. the arms move).

[hhyloc]

[Non-artist comment]

Breathing animation for Berserker: IMHO, his knees are shaking a bit too much.

North baseframe of the Peasant: His legs look...weird. Also, I think something's wrong with his hat.

[Zerovirus]

EDIT2: Primary attempt at the stalwart attack animation, moving only the main parts. It'll be refined a little more extra (e.g. the arms move).

You could consider cloning over Cloud's animation with modified blocks first; the most important part of the animation is the actual attacking part, and I've seen too many animations get dropped in the windup because the artist doesn't get to actually attacking (I've done it too).

The spear movement makes no sense- his hand kinda just slides down the haft or something while the spear magically shortens. I can't tell what's going on with the spear while he moves his foot back.

The shield animation could be a bit more fluid as well. And exaggeration is key- it's hard, yes, but necessary. I don't really have the trick down myself.

[artisticdude]

@ryging5: Looks awesome.

@Reepur: Overall, he needs a lot more movement and more exaggeration in that movement. I'd take Zero's advice and either clone over or carefully study Cloud's animation. And at this stage don't bother with shading yet, just create blockings with flats (I like to use outlines as well, but that's your choice). Also, silly though it may sound, try actually acting out the motion. It will help you understand what body parts move, and when and how they move.

[thespaceinvader]

Reepurr: don't take this the wrong way, but you're not ready for mainline yet. Get some more practice.

[Reepurr]

@Reepur: either clone over or carefully study Cloud's animation.

Is this the mainline attack frame? I couldn't find it out...meh

[Kraus]

Hi.

I don't know what topic would be the best for this, but since it concearns the animations as a whole, this just might be it.

I've learnt, playing 1.9.2 a bit, that some of the new attack animations are very, very slow. Especially the spearman, saurian and mermen trident animations first of all take a lot of time to go through, and sometimes the attack sound is delayed. This is critical, I think, with saurians, who are nimble and fast in nature, and who pack a lot of attacks. While the animations are very nice, they slow down the gameplay a bit too much. Saurians are high in numbers, and have a lot of attacks. That mixed with them having very slow, and even lumbering, attack animations results in tangled gameplay.

Just my opinion, but you might want to recheck if you find the timing of the new animations a bit awkward. There's nothing wrong with the animations, just the timing. Merman vs. saurian is a prime example in 1.9.2. The main problem here might be the little delay that occurs after saurian spear attacks, and before the retaliation animation.

Most of the dwarvish attack animations work just fine. Maybe because their attacks are shorter?

[thespaceinvader]

There may very well be some room for optimisation of the attack animations. It's worth looking into. But it's also worth being aware that this is the direction we're moving in - fuller, longer, more animated animations rather than single-frame stubs.

[Kraus]

There may very well be some room for optimisation of the attack animations. It's worth looking into. But it's also worth being aware that this is the direction we're moving in - fuller, longer, more animated animations rather than single-frame stubs.

Naturally. There's just a thin line where a longer animation becomes cumbersome, and a smoother, shorter one would be more enjoyable. Generally, I'd say, the less strikes an attack has, the longer the animation can afford to be. In larger battles, like those in NR or RoW, the player might face being bored if attacks and retaliations don't follow each other seamlessly.

Don't get me wrong, I really love the new animations, and their complexity is cool, but gameplay should also be fluent - the detail of animations should not hinder this approach. Just some food for thought!

[thespaceinvader]

Valid.

You can always use accelerated speed though. I can't play a game without it, I just find all the animations, even the simplest ones, too slow.

[lostnumber]

Valid.

You can always use accelerated speed though. I can't play a game without it, I just find all the animations, even the simplest ones, too slow.

I usually go through Wesnoth phases where I play extensively and then quit for several months. Whenever I come back I always start on normal speed or even 1/2, because I want to look at the new animations. But once I've been playing for a while I have to put acceleration on or else I go insane.

Its a problem that's intrinsic to any kind of animation in an interactive setting. I remember some of the summons from the Final Fantasy games were absolutely beautiful to watch the first few times. But after you'd summoned them 20x (sometimes in the same battle) it got to the point where being unable to skip them was really really frustrating.

Its a hard line to walk between showing off creative skill and staying out of the way of the player.

[Phyreprooph]

If I happened to make a south attack animation for the wose...would that be useful or is the wose fine how he is?

[thespaceinvader]

I'm reasonably sure that the Wose's animation is fine for both south directions. If you felt like trying out a north facing base frame and animations, that would be cool, though. Check the zombie wose for a potentially useful base to work from.

[Reepurr]

Yet another go with this animating thing...I believe I've improved enough recently.

sergeant-crossbow.gif (5.15 KiB) Viewed 3746 times

EDIT: More powerful attack...lots of exaggeration.

sergeant-crossbow-powerful.gif (5.15 KiB) Viewed 3642 times