Are the player sprites left or right handed?

[Sanga]

While working with a new spritesheet for a shield (Thanks, Angeliex), I stumbled upon a rather nasty issue in the playersets.

Whether the player is using the left or right hand for an attack depends on which direction the sprite is facing...

For example, with the right-facing "punch/stab" animation, the weapon is being held in the right hand, which is what you'd expect for a right-handed character. The same is true for the "up" and "down" facing views. The left-facing view, however, is exactly the opposite - the weapon is being held in the *left* hand, rather than the right.

The implications for shields are significant - do we draw the shield on the left arm regardless (so that the player is punching/stabbing with the arm the shield is on?), or do we have the shield "jump" to the other arm during a left-facing attack? Personally, I don't consider *either* to be a "good" solution.

The bow-attack animations have a similar issue. In the case of the left-facing and up-facing animations, the bow is being held in the left hand, and drawn with the right (which is normal for a right handed archer). If the right-facing and down-facing animations, the bow is being held in the right hand, and drawn with the left (a *left* handed archer). This isn't an issue as far as shields are concerned, but if we ever get to the point that we're actually drawing weapons during the walking animations it will be - the weapon will have to "jump" to the other hand in some animations...

I don't see any solution for this other than "redo the player sprites".

[Angeliex]

I fixed the male base, although it needs work.





Someone please start on the female version and post it here.
Just change the left melee attack so that the punching arm is behind the player.

[Saphy]

Compare to the number of equipments and future development time devoted just to have a right handed player sprite, having the player change hands is merely a minor issue. Beside, is there any reason why a player can't be equally handed?

[Crush]

The left and right frames are mirrored to keep the work for creating equipment sprites low.

[Rotonen]

Yes, it would be of more quality if we actually had it right.

Per se I would not mind the extra work caused by that, but I'm not the one actually working on the equipment sprites. So far the artistic consensus has been that we are fine with cheating there a bit. I'm considering this thread as re-opening the conversation, though. Please reach a consensus swiftly.

On top of this, we'd need to finish the playerset ASAP, so equipment work would actually make any sense and people would not have to constantly go back to old projects in order to add new stuff that was added to the playerset.

[EJlol]

The whole layer system for a player sprite has to be upgraded IMO.

There are issues like:
- Hair sticking out of helmets
- Incorrect layer position (http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4368)
- Arm behind hair / helmets (http://mantis.themanaworld.org/view.php?id=313)
- Swapping shields / weapons (this thread)

[Crush]

These are technical problems, EJlol, not graphic design problems.

[Sanga]

The whole layer system for a player sprite has to be upgraded IMO.

There are issues like:
- Hair sticking out of helmets
- Incorrect layer position (http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4368)
- Arm behind hair / helmets (http://mantis.themanaworld.org/view.php?id=313)
- Swapping shields / weapons (this thread)

The issue I raised revolves strictly around the playersets. If/when we can get somebody to redo them (which is needed for more attack animations), this can be rolled into that project. Once the new attack animations are in, someone is going to have to redo a lot of the equipment spritesheets anyway.

The real issue here is that there doesn't seem to be anybody who's willing and able to do the playersets. And the longer it takes to get the new playersets, the more work that will be required to bring the equipment spritesheets into sync with them...

Incorrect layer position: I have a client patch that implements the "symmetric top/bottom layering" described in that thread. I've let it go idle, since there hasn't been a lot of interest in it. It does *not* solve all problems (the "arm behind hair" and "hair sticking out of helmet" issues remain unsolved).