The Mana World Forums

And how it would look with a hat:



Obviously more tweaks are in order...

Anybody?

Here's a two-handed weapon attack animation:

1. I think you could do this with fewer animation frames. The 3 middle frames are quite redundand.

2. Remember the area the swing has to fill the sword hit area of the attack as described on http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Weapons (remember that this is a gameplay decision and not an aesthetic decision - the graphics have to visualize the gameplay and not vice versa)

3. I don't think that it is a good idea to make the attack two-handed. When the character uses a weapon without a shield with a one handed swing it looks OK, but when the character carries a shield and a weapon and performs a two-handed swing it would look quite stupid.

Crush wrote:1. I think you could do this with fewer animation frames. The 3 middle frames are quite redundand.

2. Remember the area the swing has to fill the sword hit area of the attack as described on http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Weapons (remember that this is a gameplay decision and not an aesthetic decision - the graphics have to visualize the gameplay and not vice versa)

3. I don't think that it is a good idea to make the attack two-handed. When the character uses a weapon without a shield with a one handed swing it looks OK, but when the character carries a shield and a weapon and performs a two-handed swing it would look quite stupid.

Yes, I can redo the last two frame so that it will fill the hit area.

This is suppose to be for two handed weapon, so there will not be a shield or anything of that sort.

However, if you don't like/need two handed weapon animation, I will work on something else instead.

Crush wrote:1. I think you could do this with fewer animation frames. The 3 middle frames are quite redundand.

2. Remember the area the swing has to fill the sword hit area of the attack as described on http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Weapons (remember that this is a gameplay decision and not an aesthetic decision - the graphics have to visualize the gameplay and not vice versa)

3. I don't think that it is a good idea to make the attack two-handed. When the character uses a weapon without a shield with a one handed swing it looks OK, but when the character carries a shield and a weapon and performs a two-handed swing it would look quite stupid.

1. Agreed. The timing of the frames could use some work too.

2. Also agreed.

3. Yes, but... I think the idea is that two-handed swords are much stronger than one-handed, but also heavier, making it impossible to carry a shield. I don't see any reason not to include two-handed swords in TMW. You choose between less range and less damage (but more defense), or slightly more range and much more damage (but less defense).

The Weapons wiki page is a generalization and individual weapons will of course bend the rules a little. For instance we could have a longer sword that takes longer to attack (more delay), or a shortsword that is much faster, but of course shorter ranged. The general idea is that the weapon should actually pass through the enemy when attacking, rather than just being a static animation. Like I said, I don't see much reason not to include two-handed swords, but if you do then feel free to enlighten me.

P.S. Unless you meant, "don't make all swords two-handed," in which case I agree with you. There should definitely be one-handed swords, but don't neglect the two-handed ones either.

I think is perfect animation for a melee weapon, like a Club, Baton or an Axe.

Pauan wrote:

Crush wrote:1. I think you could do this with fewer animation frames. The 3 middle frames are quite redundand.

2. Remember the area the swing has to fill the sword hit area of the attack as described on http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Weapons (remember that this is a gameplay decision and not an aesthetic decision - the graphics have to visualize the gameplay and not vice versa)

3. I don't think that it is a good idea to make the attack two-handed. When the character uses a weapon without a shield with a one handed swing it looks OK, but when the character carries a shield and a weapon and performs a two-handed swing it would look quite stupid.

1. Agreed. The timing of the frames could use some work too.

Yes, I deliberately make the timing this slow so that you folks can see each frame. The first 3 frame isn't redundand though, the main focus is the animation of foot work before a strike (well, the first one is the battle pose). The last two frame would be the execution of the strike, which I am going to redo to fit the hit area if two-handed attack animation is still wanted.

AxlTrozz wrote:I think is perfect animation for a melee weapon, like a Club, Baton or an Axe.

I was also thinking that it would look nice with a club or Axe

I am against different animations for one-handed and two-handed weapons because we have to keep the number of total frames of the playerset as low as possible.

Every frame we add means an exponential increase of effort for creating equipment graphics. This means that every additional animation will directly reduces the number of equipments we will have and thus have a negative impact on variety, individuality and last but not least gameplay.

That's why I think that we should try to get by with 3 animations, one for stabbing, one for swinging and one for archery.

Crush wrote:I am against different animations for one-handed and two-handed weapons because we have to keep the number of total frames of the playerset as low as possible.

Every frame we add means an exponential increase of effort for creating equipment graphics. This means that every additional animation will directly reduces the number of equipments we will have and thus have a negative impact on variety, individuality and last but not least gameplay.

That's why I think that we should try to get by with 3 animations, one for stabbing, one for swinging and one for archery.

I guess thats why a lot of games treat equipment as an abstract

Fixed hit area:





Reduced to 3 frames:






Sadly, the 3 frames version is terrible.

But at any rate, it seems like they will never be used in game... Oh well. But at least, it will help putting attack animations into perspective.

Crush wrote:I am against different animations for one-handed and two-handed weapons because we have to keep the number of total frames of the playerset as low as possible.

Every frame we add means an exponential increase of effort for creating equipment graphics. This means that every additional animation will directly reduces the number of equipments we will have and thus have a negative impact on variety, individuality and last but not least gameplay.

That's why I think that we should try to get by with 3 animations, one for stabbing, one for swinging and one for archery.

I'm sure that'll work great for axes and staffs. In all seriousness, 3 different attacking animations seems very sparse to me. If our playerset cannot support more weapon types we will create a situation where we force our artists to create different colored weapons because there is not enough flexibility. Your whole point is, "It'll be more work" which is true, however if that more work adds up to a better and more fun product, then why not?

We obviously shouldn't go crazy with all sorts of animations and should try to optimize them as best as we can, but I'm not sure how we will possibly cram all those weapon types into anything less than 4 different animations. Possibly 5. More than 5 would be overkill, in my honest opinion. Three? That'll mean, what? 4 different weapon types at most? Seems a tad .. empty. Also, rather than limiting how many different animations we have, how about we limit the how many frames we reuse? Seeing as how each animation will be about 3-5 frames each, I have a feeling we could reuse individual frames a lot. For instance, in the wind-up before the strike, I can easily see us reusing a frame or two for most of the animations. That would allow up flexibility while also not overworking our artists too much. I'm sure the xml files can handle that, eh?

Saphy wrote:

This animation looks like the character is hacking its weapon into the enemy and pullling it out again.

How about this?

Could someone post the frames for This --->http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/M ... Arrow1.gif animation, please?