Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

General feedback and discussion of the game.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by doofus-01 »

Adamant14 wrote:Currently those are unused, but they do look amazing.
When will they be used in game?
Running frames are used.
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
Adamant14
Posts: 962
Joined: April 24th, 2010, 1:14 pm

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Adamant14 »

doofus-01 wrote:Running frames are used.
Oooops :oops:
I always play with accelerated speed, I guess that's the reason why I missed that, sorry.
Anyway, adding running animations is a great idea.
Author of Antar, Son of Rheor ( SP Campaign) | Development Thread + Feedback Thread + Replays of ASoR
User avatar
iceiceice
Posts: 1056
Joined: August 23rd, 2013, 2:10 am

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by iceiceice »

I have to say, it's really pretty amazing how well the rebels faction looks considering how few animations there are for the units.

Looking here: http://units.wesnoth.org/trunk/animations.html

Almost no "extra" animations like movement running, etc.

I don't think I realized that the elves didn't have movement animations until I looked at the list.


Edit: I have a question also, what does "resistance" animation refer to? It looks like none of the units have this anyways. Is it for if a unit takes damage that it is resistant to?
User avatar
Dugi
Posts: 4961
Joined: July 22nd, 2010, 10:29 am
Location: Carpathian Mountains
Contact:

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Dugi »

The resistance animation is similar to leading animation, and it is invoked when a unit uses a leadership-like ability on his adjacent allies not to increase their damage, but to protect them from damage (there is no mainline ability doing this, but it's fully supported by the code). I don't think that any resistance animation was ever made.
User avatar
Jetrel
Posts: 7242
Joined: February 23rd, 2004, 3:36 am
Location: Midwest US

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Jetrel »

Zerovirus wrote:Ultimately, it's not like you can just order volunteers around to do what you want them to do. If a volunteer is stuck between not contributing at all or having to devote an order of magnitude more time to fully animate a sprite, chances are they'll end up going with the first one, and then we wouldn't have any new artists at all. The best thing you could do would be to incentivize contributors to animate instead of simply complaining about the necessary measures to keep contributors on the project- again, perhaps through monetary measures or status indicators.
This more or less mirrors my sentiments exactly. Thanks for posting this.
Dugi wrote:
dixie wrote:The old puny and starveling horses with bent legs have been replaced by proper steeds, fit to carry a fully-armored rider to war.
The old ones weren't so bad. Some of them looked even better than the new ones, their only major difference is the style (and I don't think that the new ones look better).
I tried explaining this to you in a civil manner, and you didn't take a hint. Wesnoth is run autocratically. You seem to have this notion that by being part of the community, and letting us bask in your presence, you're doing us such a service that you're entitled have your opinion heard, and carefully considered. That's not how we work. AFAIK, you don't do anything helpful towards the project, and in fact your wasting of my time here leaves your net contribution negative. I don't look at you like an elected official listening to his constituency that put him in office, in fact I don't even regard you like a ruler looking down with noblesse oblige to hear the concerns of his peasants - I look at you like a host looking at a parasite.

If you're going to approach me with a suggestion, you really ought to be deferential, at the very least. You have to approach me knowing I don't care one whit about your opinions, and knowing that you will only convince me with persuasion, amiability, and charm. In fact, really, the only good way to sway me is to help out on the very thing you think should be done differently - if sleepwalker or zero was posting this, you can bet I'd be giving them a serious and sober listen. Instead, you tried to browbeat me with an angry jeremiad. :doh: I told you not to, and you went and did it anyways.


The consequences?
Now, I, the only person who could have fixed what you're complaining about - well, I no longer care what you think.

:eng: This is not how you win arguments on the internet!
User avatar
Dugi
Posts: 4961
Joined: July 22nd, 2010, 10:29 am
Location: Carpathian Mountains
Contact:

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Dugi »

This is the worst thing I could possibly see as a reply from you. You could have avoided replying, kept telling the same thing over and over to reach a deadlock, trolled me by making me unable to reply... Yet, you decided to show me that the development of Wesnoth has reached its Dark Age. You dismissed my claims without evidence, and when I asked you to show some, you started mentioning my credentials, openly telling that you'd have listened to people with better credentials or more charm instead of reason if they wanted the same.

There are two ways where this will lead to: either the seed of doubt about your dogmas will bloom and you'll reconsider this, or wesnoth will soon remain with no animations at all, become equal to those millions of crappy 2D browser games and die. You've been warned.
User avatar
lipk
Posts: 637
Joined: July 18th, 2011, 1:42 pm

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by lipk »

Dugi wrote:
lipk wrote:I don't want the old rogue mages back, not even with their horrible animations.
Rogue mages aren't the only case. There are the also paladin, knight, grand knight, lancer, cavalryman line and elvish riders (ten units in total!). You can't speak about any horrible graphics there.

Owaec and Rogue Mages (and Fire Dragon to some extent) might be campaign-specific units, but they are good examples that units left unanimated will remain unanimated (over three years passed since they were added and nothing).
Okay, so those are two distinct sets: niche units with ugly baseframes which were replaced and probably won't be animated because nobody cares about them; and cavalry units which were redrawn during a recent art revision. Assuming that the latter category will never get animations is a bit sheer, regarding that they were added only a few months ago and they're mostly high profile units.
User avatar
Dugi
Posts: 4961
Joined: July 22nd, 2010, 10:29 am
Location: Carpathian Mountains
Contact:

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Dugi »

Now this is a reasonable argument. Fire dragon isn't campaign-specific, and is used in a lot of UMC stuff, and it's the same with it. They new rider units are there for several months are no work was done on their animation so far afaik, so they appear to follow the same course. If somebody will prove me wrong here, I'll be rather happy. Same if time proves me wrong.
Velensk
Multiplayer Contributor
Posts: 4002
Joined: January 24th, 2007, 12:56 am

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Velensk »

The problem is that we've been seeing similar 'warnings' and complaints for the last eight years or so. And yet, although development comes in spurts ebbs and flows as the developers spend more or less time on it, it always moves on though people choose to evaluate progress as an opinion (I knew a player who says he'd be happier if the game kept it's 1.0 graphics).

The project can move on without any number of players who've been turned off by one thing or another let that there's too much luck, or the fact that there are undead (in a game that looks like it was drawn for children even!), or that ranged attacks aren't ranged, or that the result of each attack isn't determined by taking the average of two rolls (all of these are ones I remember seeing there've been a lot more) and in fact needs to as one can hardly satisfy everyone. Now, having more players is good and I think it's important for motivation that the game continues to draw in new players but Wesnoth has for it's entire existence been content to pull in the players whom it's gameplay appeals to and to either miss or sift through players who aren't content with the retro graphics style (or the current state of it), people without the patience for a turn based game (a sad number of the current generation), people who actually want a different game that's similar, or people who are frustrated by their own lack of skill and/or luck who conclude that the game is too elitist for them.

I will say, that I feel like there is a particular lack of energy in the project at the moment but I feel that has little to do with the art as much as with the players involvement. As an example, I've been asking for testers for an era, nobodies volunteered. The way I truly got into Wesnoth as opposed to just playing every so often was volunteering to test an era. This led to me maintaining an era, which led to coding campaigns, scenarios, and other eras. Now the project has as part of it's arsenal more campaigns, scenarios, and eras (though it's hard to say how much better these make it as there is far too much UMC for all of it to be tried so much of it doesn't get a lot of attention). If there's no one around who feels it's worth the time and energy to get involved in other peoples projects (whether it be campaigns, scenarios, eras, or any other part of the project). If nobody tests and gives feedback on campaigns then campaign developers don't really get a lot of motivation to continue or any idea of how they're doing, same for anything else. If nobody plays user made campaigns the odds that they'd want to make one and have good ideas for how to do so well decreases.
-In the case of art if you truly want to improve things the proper solution is not to tell the people who do the art what to do when you really have no leverage over them it is to become involved in it. You cannot really win in terms of opinions against Jetrel but you can generate energy by using your own on the project. If you really cannot contribute anything in the way of art then you can go about attempting to persuade Jetrel to change the direction but be appropriately humble as you are asking for what amounts to a major favor. Coming to him and essentially trying to force him into doing something other than what he intends and then sending threats does not earn you any favor as he pointed out. The game is used to weathering such threats for so long that generally everyone just completely ignores them.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
User avatar
Dugi
Posts: 4961
Joined: July 22nd, 2010, 10:29 am
Location: Carpathian Mountains
Contact:

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Dugi »

So, you mean that this has to get much more serious before they'll really reconsider it, because it looks like one of many other 'petty' issues that were encountered before? Well, time will show, maybe I'll reply in a year and either happily accept my error or unhappily try to revive the discussion.

Is it possible to lock this topic for a year?
User avatar
Dixie
Posts: 1757
Joined: February 10th, 2010, 1:06 am
Location: $x1,$y1

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Dixie »

You know, Dugi, Jetrel was entirely right, even if you somehow misunderstood him. It was not about your credentials, it was about doing something about it if you want to be considered, or at least being nice about it instead of aggressive.

Let me give you a real life exemple. Imagine you manage a set of community gardens. You've spent hours placing a fence, cement blocks, bringing dirt over, working it with a hoe, etc. for members of your community to be able use a parcel. (I lack some specific terms as I am not a native speaker, sorry) Now imagine a community member came to you and said something of "You've got the wrong kind of dirt", "I don't like your fence" or "this part of the gardens is shaped wrong" and continues with something like "Why did you get to decide this? Everybody uses it! You should do it differently, or you'll see, in a few seasons, nobody will use it anymore!". Now try to imagine how you'd feel, how you'd react. You've worked hard, you did your best, and some self-entitled ass comes to nag you about a detail? I would certainly be irritated and tell said ass to go f*** itself, and reply that if nobody wanted to use the garden anymore, they could just go make their own, or something along those lines. Now imagine that complainer was your brother who helped you put up the fence. Any comment he might make about the fence would be much more welcome and pertinent, would it not? Or imagine the complainer, whoever it was, said "I think this was done wrong; I can redo it (or part of it) if you'll allow me". Would his intervention be welcomed much more warmly? Or, at the very least, the complainer should consider how he profits for someone else's work entirely and be kind and try to be persuasive, voice his concern more like a kind suggestion than a harsh complain, should he not? And why would it be you that manage the gardens? Because nobody else would, because you did all (or most of) the job, and because you care about that garden project. You want things to be well-done, you've put a bit of yourself in that garden, and it would pity you for it to go abandoned. Because whatever complainers say, if you were to let them take your position and decide, they would not do any work on it, people would not want to work with/for them and the gardens would go bad. And it would sadden you, you would feel like you wasted your time and efforts, that your creation was not taken care of correctly and was trashed. Surely you can relate to that. Maybe you are not really into community gardens, whatever, replace it with anything you like. Public pool? Park? Anything that's open for the collectivity without being a paying service.
Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny - Frank Zappa
Current projects: Internet meme Era, The Settlers of Wesnoth
User avatar
Turuk
Sithslayer
Posts: 5283
Joined: February 28th, 2007, 8:58 pm
Contact:

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Turuk »

Dugi wrote:So, you mean that this has to get much more serious before they'll really reconsider it, because it looks like one of many other 'petty' issues that were encountered before? Well, time will show, maybe I'll reply in a year and either happily accept my error or unhappily try to revive the discussion.

Is it possible to lock this topic for a year?

+1 to Velensk and Dixie for words of wisdom.

Either way, at least it's put to bed for a year. Locked.

EDIT: Two years? Unlocked, in case anyone has something relevant and likely-to-lead-to-anything-productive to say. -zookeeper
Mainline Maintainer: AOI, DM, NR, TB and THoT.
UMC Maintainer: Forward They Cried, A Few Logs, A Few More Logs, Start of the War, and Battle Against Time
User avatar
hunter_z
Posts: 46
Joined: August 16th, 2017, 12:05 pm

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by hunter_z »

I am aware of how old this thread is but the new dragon sprite has had me salty since 2013 and I am going to bump this thread in hopes that some action is finally taken.

Nothing has happened in the last 9 years, and nothing will ever happen in regards to animating the current dragon sprite. NO ONE is going to take on a project like that, AND animate the skeletal version as well. The dragon portrait was even based off of this sprite (or vice versa), there is every reason to switch to the animated one.

Image

There also exists a scaly version of the red dragon but afaik it has no animations.

Image

It has better anatomy; the legs are more muscular and it is FAR easier to animate than the current spiky statue, especially since we already have the animation templates.

Image

It even had its directional sprites drawn. Come on, people.

EDIT: Worth mentioning I also have a folder containing (possibly) all of the animations this red dragon has ever had drawn for it. The folder contains 35 images, those being directional fire-breathing animations and scratching animations. Of course, they need a lot of polishing, but it's hell of a lot more than having nothing.
User avatar
Adamant14
Posts: 962
Joined: April 24th, 2010, 1:14 pm

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by Adamant14 »

Glad to see that I'm not the only one who waits for this one. This Dragon was always my favourite one.
Author of Antar, Son of Rheor ( SP Campaign) | Development Thread + Feedback Thread + Replays of ASoR
lea
Posts: 300
Joined: October 1st, 2016, 7:25 pm

Re: Where does this evolution of sprites lead?

Post by lea »

hunter_z wrote: September 26th, 2022, 12:02 pm... ... ...

EDIT: Worth mentioning I also have a folder containing (possibly) all of the animations this red dragon has ever had drawn for it. The folder contains 35 images, those being directional fire-breathing animations and scratching animations. Of course, they need a lot of polishing, but it's hell of a lot more than having nothing.
could you please publish these images in this forum topic?
or otherwise make them easily available so that whoever would like to insert them into their addon will not have to waste their time searching for them in git repo

regarding initial topic of this thread:
IMO older (wesnoth versions 0.6.x to about 1.4.x) sprites and animations are a lot less "lush" and stylistically incompatible with newer graphics but are nice in their own right, so it would be handy to have an era (and possibly random map generator also) that makes these "retro" style units (and possibly map tiles) available for current versions of wesnoth
A few years ago I looked through entirety of 1.14 add-ons server and could not find anything like that
yet to check 1.16 addons server though
author of: Altered Era/Ruleset (AKA "Altera"), latest version is on add-ons servers for BfW 1.16 and 1.14, latest version also still supports BfW 1.12 and 1.10, 1.10 server is stuck with older buggy version)
Post Reply