Stern's Art: Speckles the Toad

[Fog]

You're great! But I have one thing that bothers me... You should give him some highlights, else he will look comparatively dull in-game.

P.S. Do you have 22 versions of the Trumpeter attack? Wow!

[boru]

Here's some in-game screenshots of the Trumpeter. The jpg's came out a bit blurry but the png is most accurate.

http://wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=447840#p447840

[artisticdude]

I've always thought the goblin/orc skin was unrealistically dull for skin. It looks more like cloth, IMO. But perhaps that can be attributed to the layers of grime that have built up on their bodies for years.

Very nice work on the animation, Stern; very fluid movement, especially in the banner on the spear. Although I'd be inclined to shorten the lower right (his right) leg a bit in the extension frames... I can't shake the impression that it grows longer for those frames.

[boru]

Boru: Let me know if the swing frame will work.

Yes, thanks!

[Stern]

Adjusted the Trumpeter's armor coloration and fixed his leg. I will tackle the trumpet position and colors after completing the leadership frames.

Current Progress:

Goblin Trumpeter-24.gif (5.72 KiB) Viewed 4022 times

Fog: Although the Trumpeter does have dull coloring, I think he looks ok in respect to Boru's earlier screen shots. I will have to test his new armor color in game though to really see how it looks.
I'm up to 24 attack animations now! After I change the frames I always make a new .gif to check my work.

artisticdude: You're right! In the 5th frame of the attack, the trumpeter's rear leg gets the "slinky syndrome" where it stretches out of proportion. I adjusted the leg to minimize this effect and I think it worked.

boru: Excellent! Let me know if you need any more frames. Spriting the Trumpeter on a rope was fun!

In Progress:

Blocking for Leadership Frames.

[Fog]

OK! I'm convinced that he's fine after seeing Boru's shots in-game.

[boru]

boru: Excellent! Let me know if you need any more frames. Spriting the Trumpeter on a rope was fun!

You're doing a fantastic job on this, I can only say, keep doing what you're doing!

I have a pet peeve with my units not facing each other when they're having a conversation, so a ne facing frame would be greatly appreciated. And I'd like to have a defense frame. Other work is up to you, I'll happily do the wml for whatever you want to draw.

[Stern]

The Trumpeter definitely needs a couple defense frames. I think they will be pretty quick and easy to sprite. The leadership frames are a slightly different matter.

Trumpeter Leadership animation concept:

The goblin sticks his spear into the ground and steps onto the center of the shaft which bows in the middle. Meanwhile, the Trumpeter reaches for his trumpet. Afterwards the trumpeter blows his horn overhead for all of the other goblins to hear.

Early Blocking:

Goblin Trumpeter-lead3.gif (1.75 KiB) Viewed 3931 times

I wanted the leadership frames to demonstrate the Trumpeter's musical mastery. The trouble is that the animation is extremely choppy due to the low frame count. (I am assuming you can only have two frames for a leadership animation.) While the form of the blocking is still a work in progress, tell me what you think of the concept overall.

[Vranca]

personaly i don´t like how his spear bends,it would probably break before it bends like that.

[Reepurr]

I agree with Vranca...wood can only bend so far. Then it breaks. Although goblins look more comical bending a spear that much, it looks really...really...odd.

[Fog]

I think you can have as many frames as you want... But if not you shouldn't create such a complex animation. I agree that bending his spear is odd, can he just hold his spear in one hand and the horn in the other?

[boru]

The mainline leading animations are all two frames, or one. I did a quick search of my hard drive and could not find an add-on unit with a leading animation of any length either. But I don't think this is a limitation of WML. I think it's done that way simply because some units have very short attack animations, and a leading animation is designed to play at the same time as the attack. The goblin spearman has a two frame attack, and therefore a longer leading animation, while possible, may look wrong.

On the other hand, I don't know how that all fits in with the new leading halo. It's certainly more than 2 frames.

It's really hard for me to judge from an animated gif, but my sense is that you are trying to do too much. Since the attack animation is playing at the same time, and the player probably has his attention focused on the attacker, the leading animation really needs to be clean and simple. I don't think a goblin is heavy enough to break a spear if he jumped on it, but he probably wouldn't do it because he's blunting the spearhead in the ground during combat.

I propose that he either lifts his spearhead, or holds it where it is with one hand. If you want to use the effect I linked to above, let's use it.

[Dixie]

Well, maybe it is done so shortly in mainline because of the reason you stated, but I don't think it should be a limitation: The trumpeter's leading anim could have a negative start time so that he has the time to stick his spear somewhere and take his horn, and could be made so the horn-blowing occurs at time=0, just as the goblin spearman thrusts his spear. (I'm not 100% sure it translates that way with elading anims, but I would believe so; IIRC, time=0 is when the attack should occur normally, with the floating damage label and all, and is used to sync attack and defense anims, etc.)

Honnestly, I don't think the animation length should be too much of a limitation.

[thespaceinvader]

Mainline leading anims are two frames, with the halo applied to the second - the whole thing is a macro. Keeping to this scheme will avoid long and unnecessarily complex WML.

[Stern]

I agree that for this situation, adhering to a simple leading animation would be best. While I like to make animations which are as exaggerated and heroic as possible, doing so in this instance may not be prudent. While the Trumpeter may be leading his crew of goblins into battle, he is not the focal point of attention because his role is mainly support. Therefore stylistically, a simple leading animation would be less distracting during game play.

Just for fun, I fixed the flex in the Trumpeter's spear in his overly flamboyant leading animation.

Goblin Trumpeter-lead5.gif (1.71 KiB) Viewed 3787 times

I find the movement in the animation to be too choppy for this application. There are just too few frames for the Trumpeter to jump onto the spear.
Due to the aforementioned flaws in the previous leading animation, I will now focus my attention to creating a new simple leading animation.

New leadership animation design - Work in Progress

Goblin Trumpeter-leada1.gif (1.7 KiB) Viewed 3787 times

(Demonstration of active element).

As I refine the new leadership design, I hope that I can work in the new halo effect shining off of the trumpet.