===[COMMITTED]=== Animations

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

24 minutes ago, Hidan said:

gauls and romans stand together ... wuts wrong in history

Gauls became Roman auxiliaries, so not too far fetched.  

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 hours ago, Alexandermb said:

Thoughts?

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Not bad for a relaxed idle. One thing I would like to see is maybe 3 or more "fidgeting" animations for each idle (maybe as a goal for the future). You know: cracking their necks; looking from side to side, shifting their feet; shrugging their shoulders. Things like that!  

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

3 hours ago, Alexandermb said:

Proposal: Replace the idle of the javelinist with this for a more relaxed stance.

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I prefer the "ready" idle they currently have. It gives them a unique silhouette. Remember that different classes of units have different idles for their ease of recognition. The idle you show there could easily be a swordsman.

Now, in the future if we implement context-sensitive animations that can change, so I would create and commit the animations now to make that happen in the future. But for now, the "ready" jav animation makes them more easily recognizable.

Edited September 7, 2019 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 hours ago, Alexandermb said:

@wowgetoffyourcellphone thoughts on this idle for ready?

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I honestly think it looks awkward and uncomfortable.

[Alexandermb]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I prefer the "ready" idle they currently have. It gives them a unique silhouette. Remember that different classes of units have different idles for their ease of recognition. The idle you show there could easily be a swordsman.

Now, in the future if we implement context-sensitive animations that can change, so I would create and commit the animations now to make that happen in the future. But for now, the "ready" jav animation makes them more easily recognizable.

Not really, actually some infantry have same idle ready despite being champion, axeman, maceman, spearman or swordsman. And if i manage to implement ready/relax variants with the help of @Freagarach that would be a whole game changer making the battles more immersives while having relaxed as default for all infantry and cavalry too.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

You are like talking to a @#$%ing brick wall.

[Alexandermb]

47 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

You are like talking to a @#$%ing brick wall.

If you gave me a valid point i would consider it but i only see the same excuse of every change; "no i dont like it i preffer the old way" "no thanks in my mod ill keep the old actor",  "i dont care if its historically accurate or physically valid, i'll stick to the old way", as mentioned before i just see the same fear of changes in every topic, yet you have your own mod to tweak it as you wish with a lot of changes no matter what is added or deleted from EA, and just like angen did in his mod he tweaked a lot of actors adding more realism to the "CITIZEN-Soldier" feature wich is the key feature of the 0 A.D. and it is not my decision to make if it change or not i'll let community decide and see if they approves and not just follow the decision of only 1 besides i'll just add my point of view. 

If the variant is called relaxed and the state should be relaxed i dont really know why it should be in ready state just like slingers just that i havent found any good concept for a good relaxed state for slingers. And infantry is quite easy to distinguish from distance despite their animation. Just need to shee their equipment and most importantly the GUI template name "Skirmisher" "Hoplite" "Swordsman".

If they are citizen soldiers they should be relaxed and behave as humans, relaxed and pacefully not ready in the middle of a city. If the game were about guns and tanks what would you think about a guy holding a barret rifle in the middle of a plaza like if it were just about to kill someone but suddendly you order him to gather some wood, is that normal ? Is that the proper way of make the game "attractive"? is just like not having ready for combat state implenented. Imagine a hoplite walking to a persian sparabara with a "im gonna kill that pers scum with my pacefully walk carrying my shield next to me opening my whole chest to a possible arrow straight to the hearth" or even better "im gonna kill that tree as soon as i get there" *walking aggresively with a spear ready to cut that tree and and a hoplon*.

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

You are like talking to a @#$%ing brick wall.

[Alexandermb]

I've did some attacking sword animations with more "usage" of shields (mostly is keep most of the time the shield facing front reducing the open flank of the chest) and i want the opinions on them if they are good enough since there was a discussion about sword attacking IIRC.

Doing attacking animations isn't easy as it looks like.
 

Points to Consider:

Starting Frame: The first attacking animations have a little space o pen between the starting frame for each attacking animation. (Old: Left / New: Right)

Spoiler

High Slash:

Spoiler

High Stab:

Spoiler

Lower Stab:

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body movement along Y axis (front of actor) is reduced so the animation is more centered to the root of the template.

The idle is done following roman hastatus reference:

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And this is how it looks actually ingame the "idle_ready" we have:

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Now the adjusted "idle_ready":

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To test the animations together with the improved relaxed spearman and walking relaxed animations, unzip the animations in their respective folder:

swordsman.7zspearman.7z 

 

[Alexandermb]

@Stan` any thoughts on the swordsman using scutum shield attacking animation? (not intended for smallshields like iberians)

You can compare the attacking animation placing roman_infantry_swordsman against iberian_infantry_swordsman.

[Stan`]

@Alexandermb Sorry, I forgot to answer.

What's the downside of them not using those animations ?

On an unrelated note running gathering skirmishers look really weird especially considering the others do not. Can you fix this ?

I'm not sure but it would be nice to use the woman running animation instead of power walk.

[Alexandermb]

54 minutes ago, Stan` said:

1 What's the downside of them not using those animations ?

2 On an unrelated note running gathering skirmishers look really weird especially considering the others do not. Can you fix this ?

3 I'm not sure but it would be nice to use the woman running animation instead of power walk.

No one, there was a talk about swordsman attacking IIRC in this topic so i've just decided adjust some of them for the use of rectangular shields, The usage of shields on attacking animation is poor compared to hoplites, is like if they just are holding a lamp instead of a shield. it reminds me this: 

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2. So should i leave the cartoony jumping animation on skirmishers? a proper fix would be: 1 Reduce walking speed of skirmishers out of combat, 2 Apply shuttle speed like @wowgetoffyourcellphone did. Honestly the animation just point the broken speed of the skirmishers compared to other infantry kind while gathering so from my point of view is a broken "template", all infantry should have a 1.0 walk speed as base no matter what, the speed could be reduced but not increased. a Heavly armored hoplite should be slower but a light armored skirmisher shouldn't be Flash or Quicksilver

This are skirmishers and slingers in 0.A.D. Right now:

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My point is to take to human-realistic speed the movement animations but if isn't desired i'll remove the adjustment.

3: Have an example of this one?

[Stan`]

1. Sure then if that improves immersion go ahead !

2. My issue here is not the speed but the fact they are running while others are walking. So you're saying you changed it to explain the speed difference.

3. A woman fleeing enemy units will only walk fast not run 

[Alexandermb]

23 minutes ago, Stan` said:

1. Sure then if that improves immersion go ahead !

2. My issue here is not the speed but the fact they are running while others are walking. So you're saying you changed it to explain the speed difference.

3. A woman fleeing enemy units will only walk fast not run 

1. ok
2. Exactly, but the "jog" animation doesn't fit because of the high speed, and if i apply walking animation it goes the same issue the perfect example of speed not being adecuate to the animation is this character:

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3. I'll addjust the variant.

[Stan`]

Do we actually have such a thing as shuttle speed ?

[Alexandermb]

Just now, Stan` said:

Do we actually have such a thing as shuttle speed ?

@wowgetoffyourcellphone could explain better i belive, he mentioned that some page's in this topic when the skirmishers animation was changed.

[Alexandermb]

On 8/21/2019 at 7:51 AM, Nescio said:

Fundamentally there are three attack motions for swords:

• hack (vertical)
• slash (horizontal)
• stab (forward)

I think units armed with a double-edged sword (e.g. xiphos, gladius, jian) should stab and units armed with a single-edged blade (e.g. falcata, sica, kopis, machete, dao, sabre, khopesh, axe) should hack; having slashing animations (e.g. for Japanese samurai) as well would be icing on the cake.

so im missing "slash" animation and added the first one and last one.

[Sundiata]

Just now, Stan` said:

Do we actually have such a thing as shuttle speed ?

I would agree that getting shuttle speed into vanilla is important. Skirmishers already have a considerable advantage in the current set up, and the fact that they effectively gather faster because of their increased walk speed, even when gathering, just amplifies that advantage. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

The jogging skirmishers look just fine in DE....

 

2 hours ago, Stan` said:

Do we actually have such a thing as shuttle speed ?

 

2 hours ago, Alexandermb said:

@wowgetoffyourcellphone could explain better i belive, he mentioned that some page's in this topic when the skirmishers animation was changed.

 

1 hour ago, Sundiata said:

I would agree that getting shuttle speed into vanilla is important. Skirmishers already have a considerable advantage in the current set up, and the fact that they effectively gather faster because of their increased walk speed, even when gathering, just amplifies that advantage. 

Please God, add this. Amen.

[Alexandermb]

35 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The jogging skirmishers look just fine in DE....

Joggin require an adjustment for a more serious "jog",  do you have any good reference for jogging ? a more "aggresive" look like.

[Stan`]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone I wonder if having a special shuttle speed couldn't be abused (I guess it would only make units slower if one had fun sending soldiers to gather but if you micro the movements unit gathering would be way faster because they wouldn't use the shuttle speed but the normal speed.

[Stan`]

8 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The jogging skirmishers look just fine in DE....

So the fact they are running to cut trees doesn't seem weird ? I've never been that eager to go to work. XD

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

13 minutes ago, Stan` said:

@wowgetoffyourcellphone I wonder if having a special shuttle speed couldn't be abused (I guess it would only make units slower if one had fun sending soldiers to gather but if you micro the movements unit gathering would be way faster because they wouldn't use the shuttle speed but the normal speed.

I feel like at that point if you're microing that hard, then you get all the win and carpal tunnel you deserve. lol

Edited September 16, 2019 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Stan`]

@wraitii how hard would it be to add a shuttle speed multiplier for the gathering like the run multiplier 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

@Alexandermb: Check out the feet of the swordsman relaxed walk. They look pigeon toed. It's the only one I've caught like that so far though.