Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Dwarves

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beetlenaut
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Horseman

Post by beetlenaut »

Sleepwalker wrote:As for being placed with an offset it would do the same thing as I have already done. To fix both problems an entirely new death animation would have to be made
I don't understand: If you add a little blank space on the left of the animation, and a little more for each frame, the game will center each image making the horse's legs stay planted. No redrawing necessary. And, I agree that the sliding legs look wrong. IMO, it would be better if you let him fall out of the hex (it would almost never be off the screen entirely).
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Horseman

Post by Sleepwalker »

Ah I think I misunderstood then before. I thought he meant to use offset for another thing, never mind.

I originally thought it might not be good if the unit fell into another hex, as it might look weird in some cases, like falling into a wall or chasm... Falling in between other units would be OK I guess as the corpse fades quickly.

But alright, I'll edit the sprite to do that. Hmm I could do a mock-up of it to see how it would look.
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Horseman

Post by beetlenaut »

Couldn't the WML be tweaked so that the animation doesn't play if the horseman is right next to a wall?
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Horseman

Post by zookeeper »

beetlenaut wrote:Couldn't the WML be tweaked so that the animation doesn't play if the horseman is right next to a wall?
Yes, you'd just need to make one or two variations of the animation WML to cover the situation where the fall would happen onto a wall/chasm.
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Horseman

Post by Jetrel »

Cool to have you back. :)
Sleepwalker wrote:I have some initial frames in the psd's that is like a baseframe for NE facing Jetrel.
Nah, we don't need "iconic" frames for anything but SE; they're purely for menu/UI images and such.
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Horseman

Post by Sleepwalker »

Ok I made some mockups for how the deaths would look in game, with altered frames to fall more realistic. The sprites might be slightly off center where they really should stand, as I just put it all together in photoshop, but I reckon it's close. The motion does look good, and I think my previous fears was exaggerated. Falling into chasm might be bad, but I'm not sure if the falling on top of a mountain matters really? :hmm:
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horsediemockup1.gif
horsediemockup1.gif (53.96 KiB) Viewed 16910 times
horsediemockup2.gif
horsediemockup2.gif (57.59 KiB) Viewed 16910 times
horsediemockup3.gif
horsediemockup3.gif (53.1 KiB) Viewed 16910 times
horsediemockup4.gif
horsediemockup4.gif (52.38 KiB) Viewed 16910 times
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Horseman

Post by Sleepwalker »

The horses head is changing angle a bit now, with copied motion from Jetrels Lancer. Though only SE so far, so NE will come soon.
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HorsemanRunSEDeaths.rar
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horseman-se-run3.gif
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Horseman

Post by Sleepwalker »

Well I think that takes care of the gallop. Included are the psd's...

Hmm was there anything else to be done or is this finished..? :hmm:
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horsemanRunDeathPSD.rar
(168.56 KiB) Downloaded 820 times
horsemanNERun3.rar
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horseman-ne-run3.gif
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Horseman

Post by Sleepwalker »

Hi, its been three quarters of a year since last time here... Time flies too fast :( I've been busy IRL, and will still be, but for now I got time aplenty which I'd most like to spend on Wesnoth again.

Before disappearing again there was some statements i made (due hard crit from homonculus) about tweaking my animations. Most outstanding the mess the horse gallop animations make at higher game speeds. So here's some changes I made...

I toned down the bobbing a lot for the horse run anims. Mostly just sliding the layers and shadows a bit, but also (on the NE) tweaking the sprite itself in some frames a little. I also edited the animation WML files, adding the death and bobbing animations which for some reason weren't implemented.

In general I have also been dissatisfied with the timing of the saurians and the horsemans animations as specified in the WML. Originally i had other time values in my PSD files... so finally i did something about it (thanks for simplifying the WML a bit since last time i looked at it lol). What this means is that i added some new macros into the animation-utils2.cfg, as well as changing the offset values in some unit files. Now the attack and death animations are closer to my original intent. I understand the want for unifying the animations to one macro, but the sprites weren't made for that in mind, to have every frame play at exactly 10 fps. Personally i would prefer more flexibility.

So summed up: added bob and death to horseman, tweaked gallop anim, tweaked macro for attack and death of horseman and saurians. I put the files in the folder structure used in the game, so just unzip directly into the Wesnoth 1.10.3 folder. Whether you think backing up is needed is up to you. ;)


EDIT:

So I've taken on some more commission work for the dwarves this time. This is what I have blocked out so far, both running directions for the fighter. To me it feels like the NE base frame is lacking something... Does anyone else think so too? Like a mini-cape on the back for example...
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dwarf-fighter--run.gif
dwarf-fighter--run.gif (9.73 KiB) Viewed 15925 times
HorsemanSaurianTweaks.rar
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Dwarves

Post by Sleepwalker »

SE run is finished, though as of yet untested within the game... I'm happy with how it turned out though it's possible it might have to be adjusted...

I think just making the hair slightly longer with a knot makes the NE baseframe look better than before. I also experimented adding other details on the back using colors provided on the original sprite but I wasn't happy with any of it...
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fighter-se-run.gif
fighter-se-run.gif (6.82 KiB) Viewed 15905 times
fighter-se-run.rar
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fighterbase.png
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Dwarves

Post by beetlenaut »

Maybe his hammer could be slung across his back somehow.
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Dwarves

Post by thespaceinvader »

How does it look transitioning into the standing frame? I'm worried that it'll look jumpy, considering the radically different angles of the axe in the base frame and run anims.
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Dwarves

Post by Sleepwalker »

I tested the running in game and after tweaking the timing right it looks quite good... the best I have done so far I think. There are some things that I discovered during my test though:

First, there seems to be a bug during movement between hexes where you for a moment see a dark spot on the hexes south of what the unit is moving on. This is an observation with the dwarf fighter when it is moving NE and NW. I bet its not something only happening for the dwarf fighter though... perhaps this is a know issue but I'll bring it forward in any case. I took a screenshot during movement where you see the black spot in the corner of the hex under the unit.

Second, I discovered a quirk about how the timing of the movement animation works... It seems like the animation only restarts its loop once the unit reaches the center of a hex it is passing through. Because of that I had to time the animation to play once over the time it takes to move 2 hexes... In the animation loop the unit takes two steps, one with each leg. So that means the unit takes one running step per hex... Luckily it looks good like that :| The alternative would be x2 speed or x0.5 speed for the animation to loop flawlessly. And that would look totally off. :roll: It would be nice with more leeway to adjust the timing if needed but it seems like the engine won't allow that for the moment.

I don't think the transition is a big problem, it don't look extra jumpy to me considering that the unit snaps from a still position instantly to full run speed anyway. I've been thinking of a sort of "break slide" when reaching the destination hex though, but I'm not sure how to implement that. To look convincing I believe such an animation would be required to play a moment before the unit reaches the center of the hex of its destination, and AFAIK its not possible to play a animation at that moment with WML.

I toyed with putting the hammer on the back... It's quite bulky though - I thought I kept the scale of the hammer in the animations but it turned out just a slightly bit bigger. I'm not sure if it will look very good to put it there on the back anyway...
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fighterbase2.png
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bug.png
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Dwarves

Post by Boucman »

Sleepwalker wrote:I tested the running in game and after tweaking the timing right it looks quite good... the best I have done so far I think. There are some things that I discovered during my test though:

First, there seems to be a bug during movement between hexes where you for a moment see a dark spot on the hexes south of what the unit is moving on. This is an observation with the dwarf fighter when it is moving NE and NW. I bet its not something only happening for the dwarf fighter though... perhaps this is a know issue but I'll bring it forward in any case. I took a screenshot during movement where you see the black spot in the corner of the hex under the unit.
never noticed that.... could you open a bug so we don't forget it ?
Sleepwalker wrote: Second, I discovered a quirk about how the timing of the movement animation works... It seems like the animation only restarts its loop once the unit reaches the center of a hex it is passing through. Because of that I had to time the animation to play once over the time it takes to move 2 hexes... In the animation loop the unit takes two steps, one with each leg. So that means the unit takes one running step per hex... Luckily it looks good like that :| The alternative would be x2 speed or x0.5 speed for the animation to loop flawlessly. And that would look totally off. :roll: It would be nice with more leeway to adjust the timing if needed but it seems like the engine won't allow that for the moment.
hmm, some stuff can be adjusted, but the time to go through a hex is fixed to 150ms, but you could do a 600ms anim that would be used to go through 4hex if you want... that would allow you to not align steps to hex in such a visible way.

does that help ?
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Re: Sleepwalker Animation Commissions WIP - Dwarves

Post by Sleepwalker »

OK I opened a bug about it.

Hmm yeah it's a possibility to do it that way, thanks. It's not a big deal though with having the unit step once per hex that I can see... The animation will reset if the unit changes direction while moving, because of that it seems to be a good thing to do actually. It makes the footfalls sync even if resetting.

I did put in a suggestion to another thing in the bug report: To make the unit face the direction it was previously facing when moving straight south or north. Right now it always faces right which looks weird in some situations.


I have decided to leave the NE frame without any extra accessories, with some tweaking on the shading I think it looks better... Unless there's any other tweak to suggest I'll leave it. Here it is along with the NE run.

The archive contains the modified unit and animation-utils2 files. It also contains the macros for my earlier saurian and horseman tweaks since before.
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fighter-ne-run+macro.rar
(47.17 KiB) Downloaded 773 times
fighter-ne-run.gif
fighter-ne-run.gif (6.01 KiB) Viewed 15579 times
fighter-NE.png
fighter-NE.png (3.87 KiB) Viewed 15579 times
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