AoD animations

[Sol Invictus]

Yeah the melee attack animations in Guild Wars are really iffy, because they don't look like they're doing much damage. Maybe you should exaggerate stuff a little. When someone's hitting someone with an axe, and performs a critical strike, perhaps you should have him lift the axe over his head, jump up (folding his legs at the knees) and slam the axe into the ground. It's absurd, but it looks fantastic.

 

[Astromarine]

Not just a weight transfer is a problem, but the fighting stance itself. Normally, the lower your center of gravity, the stabler your attacks, especially with big honking weapons like those. I'd love to see an animation with the char lower to the ground, legs spread to brace himself, doing massive sweeps (maybe horizontal rather than vertical?)

Also, if you have the resources for it, it would be cool if this varied by weapon, that is, when fencing with a light sword the char could be standing straighter, maybe lunging forwards and backwards.

Note: I like the quality of the animations just fine, my compliments to the artist. My complaints, as those above, are purely on nitpicks on the movement itself, not how the movement is portrayed.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Not just a weight transfer is a problem, but the fighting stance itself. Normally, the lower your center of gravity, the stabler your attacks, especially with big honking weapons like those. I'd love to see an animation with the char lower to the ground, legs spread to brace himself, doing massive sweeps (maybe horizontal rather than vertical?)

Alright, makes sense. Thanks, Astro, will see what we can do.

Also, if you have the resources for it, it would be cool if this varied by weapon, that is, when fencing with a light sword the char could be standing straighter, maybe lunging forwards and backwards.

We have the resources, but we are still trying to keep the download size down. The best we can do is one animation per weapon class (i.e. all swords look the same).

Note: I like the quality of the animations just fine, my compliments to the artist. My complaints, as those above, are purely on nitpicks on the movement itself, not how the movement is portrayed.

Thanks, both for the compliments and the criticism. Everything helps.

 

[Flink]

Fantastic VD. I'm totally won over!

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yeah the melee attack animations in Guild Wars are really iffy, because they don't look like they're doing much damage. Maybe you should exaggerate stuff a little. When someone's hitting someone with an axe, and performs a critical strike, perhaps you should have him lift the axe over his head, jump up (folding his legs at the knees) and slam the axe into the ground. It's absurd, but it looks fantastic.

That would definitely look good (I loved critical strike animations in ToEE), but in 2D that would create 8 weapon classes X 4 armor types = 32 extra animations. We'd rather animate more characters, have more death animations, etc.

I agree with Ismaul, Whip and EEVIAC. The avatar should do some transfer of his/her weight during the attack. A good example of this would be when you use the sledge-hammer in Fallout - it looks and feels like a heavy weapon. Other than that, the animations and avatars are very nicely done.

Ok, we'll play with it

The attack animations just don't look very aggressive to me

We are trying to get the Teen rating

If the weapon was drawn back further over the head and the follow through ended closer to or on the ground it'd look better. Its also a bit fast, there should be a slow back-lift with a fast release.

Thanks, very vivid

 

[Elwro]

Looks very nice! If the animations fit well with the background it might be just gorgeous.

 

[Lancaster]

Have you considered going with a 3D engine? Torque is only $100, very decent engine. Bourgeoisie (another indie project over at NMA) guys have switched to Torque recently and it looks great. Just something to consider. That way your characters would look even better with different weapons and armors.

 

[Whipporowill]

I'm pretty certain the download size is what's stopping VD and crew for going with heavier graphics. I think they're aiming at 50 MB last I heard - good luck getting that with a 3d engine... hehe. And while I myself wouldn't mind a heftier download, it's a business decision VD made, which albeit arguable works for Vogel and Spiderweb. It remains to be seen how big Vogel's Mac dl market is though?

 

[Shevek]

Im not sure this is much of a compliment but that looks about 12x better than I thought it would. nice job, man.

 

[Hory]

Wow, they look pretty good.
But the rest of the graphics in those pics are crappy.
Sorry.
Fortunately, the graphics don't matter so much in a CRPG.

 

[Atrokkus]

Hey, now that the game is 3D, give us a glimpse of 3d character animations.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's pretty good :wink:

 

[Atrokkus]

Okay!