Central Grip Shield animations

I've searched for quite a long time on the foruns but just couldn't find anyone working on new animations for historically accurate central grip shields. Is there a modder using blender or some other editor that was able to create something like that? How did you do it? Did you manage to import common res animations from warband into your editor? Using scutums with leather straps just feels too wrong to me, but i'm no animator to be able to solve that (yet).

Papa Lazarou is your best bet. He enjoys doing all sort of anims.

You even have a very nice tutorial, really easy to use with a free toolset:

And a compilation of new movements for various combat styles, maybe they fit better for your mod than Native's ones:

As far as I know, the center of the shields are are accrding to the engine somewhere at the elbow, not at the hand. This causes the center grip shield models to not coincide with the shield hitbox =(
If anyone has a solution to that, or maybe it can be changed with proper animations? Please let me know!

I managed to do the changes myself, with the help and guiding provided by Aethelred. All I did is merging the frames related to shield defensive stations from human_anim in skeletons.brf into fragmotion. Them I aplied 3 diferent rotations to shoulder, upper arm and forearm in every frame, and changed the frames used by actions.txt to each positon (shiels up, down, to the front, parry, etc.). I also had to mod a scutum to change it's position related to the forearm: as it has been said, the shields are glued to the forearms and their movement is determinet by the left forearm position. Th trick is making an angle betwen the shield's and the forearm plain!

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/705/mb2h.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/4/mb3u.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/mb1wc.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/269/mb10t.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/5/mb8a.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/692/mb6mn.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/830/mb9b.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/269/mb10t.jpg/

FRONTAL DEFENSE: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/40/mb5q.jpg/
                              http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/854/mb12a.jpg/

RUNNING: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/42/mb16c.jpg/
                http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/412/mb14i.jpg/
                http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/714/mb20i.jpg/
                http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/833/mb18j.jpg/

The shields, as they are after this modification, are all central griped. They can be moved in almost evry angle that the original leather straped kite shields could reach. Fully functional. Oh, and I managed to put the guys hand inside the moss, as it should be ( http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/543/mb11j.jpg/ )

It looks good! Is the center of the shield model also at the center of the shields hitbox now? So that if your shield is say 80cm in diameter (round) and you put 40 in the shield size in items it covers the correct area? As this is my biggest problem, that when I put the shield at the correct posistion (hand at the center grip) the shields hitbox is way shifted from the model and either the shield will cover way more then the model suggests or you get strange things like hits going through parts of the shield (especially arrows).

So far, it seems to me that the hitbox is always centered somewhere on the character's forearm. However, after the position changes I made, the distances betwen the original shield position on the current are to small to change the shield model disposition in relation to the hitbox. You see, as the left forearm was rotaded and the uperarm raised, the current position is much the same of the original animations, except for the fact that now it's upside down (witch doesn't make much of a diference because it's a rectangle). Haven't seem any arrow stuck outside of the shield, or any jarrid that was about to hit the character and hit the shield instead.

I'm not sure I understand it completely. Did you turn around part of the arm?
like this?:


so the shield is like this:


(excuse my drawing skills)

I am would be very interested in the animations if you managed to do this! 

Mammoet, I tried to explain on this picture the animation changes I made:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/641/animn.png/

Sorry for my confusion, did you actually manage to change the position of the hitbox or not?

Right now the hitbox is like in this screenshot (native animations):

But I'd like it to be somewhere around here:

Oh, now I get it. YES, I BELIEVE the hit box now IS on the center of the shield, right on the moss (although I could very well be wrong). But only in the shields I've changed, held on the griping point. The only way to really confirm that is by finding out wheter the hitbox location is defined by the shield model's center point position or the forearm position.


So far, by testing the anim's and shields in game, I could not say for shure. It does seems to me that it is the models location that defines it, mainly because after some good hours of playing, I got NO arrows or jarrids stuck outside of the shield, or projectiles hiting characters that were fully covered by my central griping shields. Of course that could be because of the small distance betwen the center of the forearm and the hand, combined with the large dimension of the gallic and roman shields i've been testing... The smaller the shield, the more expressive that distance is related to the shield's size, wich makes this questions really significant to tiny cavalry shields or syimilar ones. I'm gonna upload my animations and models on M&B repository files by the end of the day, so you can test for your self Mammoet!

Be sure your tests are done with characters with 0 Shield skill as the shield skill will increase the hitbox.

[me=Caba]returns to the peanut gallery *[/me]

Alright thanks!
Be aware though that when a projectile hits the hitbox, but not the model of the shield it dissapears in thin air =D (just fades away).

Mammoet said:

Alright thanks!
Be aware though that when a projectile hits the hitbox, but not the model of the shield it dissapears in thin air =D (just fades away).

Click to expand...

Did not know that...

well Im not 100% sure, but I've often seen it happen (the fading away) when something hits just outside my shield, so I'm guessing that's why.

no, it's wrong, try setting a sword model as a shield, you'll get arrows where there is no model, only hitbox

Ikaguia said:

no, it's wrong, try setting a sword model as a shield, you'll get arrows where there is no model, only hitbox

Click to expand...

hmmm you are right. Then I do not know why sometimes javs/arrows dissapear :/

However it seems that the shield used for ranged attacks is not really the same as the one for melee attacks....
I tried modifying the 'skel_human' by tieing everything from the left arm to the right foot and I could throw stuff at people straight in the chest, but I could not hit them there with my melee weapon. Everyday I try to do stuff with Warband I understand it less =(

I'm uploading my new animations exactly... now! Take a look at M&B Repository, search foor "Central Grip Shields".


http://www.mbrepository.com/file.php?id=3341

This is an interesting idea. Have you something similar for round shield? I do not like how the current animation covers warrior`s eyes when he is on guard.


Pictures:

well Idibil, the animations uploaded look very much like the images you posted. The shields don't cover de defender's eyes during blocking anymore, although it may cover the player front completely depending how upwards the shield is held. The main diference is that the moss grip  is hold more horizontaly.

Victor,

Is it possible that you could upload a separate file or just post the lines you changed in actions.txt for myself and/or other modders which would prefer to translate it into python?

I would guess thats the only text file you changed as well?

Pending to when I get around to translating it, hopefully without breaking anything in the process, i'll post it here.