character models and animations critiques

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johncage213

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hi, i played mount and blade and warband and modded for those games throughout so i'm familiar with this franchise and the engine, however some time ago i simply abandoned warband because of all the issues it had regarding the character model and animation limitations and that it became very outdated especially with games like kingdom come deliverance raising the standard. now that bannerlord has come out i'm disappointed to say that they made almost no improvements to the character animations.the model details and poly count is higher, but the skeletons, combat animation, etc are almost unchanged. this is unexpected considering the game was in development for half a decade if not more. imho it seems most of the work went into the campaign gameplay rather than improving the actual combat mechanics and animations/visual feedback.

i'm not sure if you still plan to revise the skeleton and animations, from what i can see it's still the same from warband, the players even have the same silly exaggerated wide legged combat stance when outside of combat. i really do hope you look to improve the character animations it will also improve visual feedback during combat too.

below is an example of the outdated, unnatural and exaggerated nature of the animations and how i they can be fixed by replicating human movement and anatomy proportions more closely. first image is in game,second image is after my fix. try standing still just naturally, your legs should be wither under or slightly narrower than shoulder width, it's very unnatural to stand wider that shoulder width. that's not how natural movement looks like

furthermore, the character armors all look like cardboard or foam props because of how thick and far away they are from the body. even cloth armor like surcoats look like they're floating half an inch from the surface of the body. it makes every character looks like they're obese or stuffing themselves with cotton underneath their clothes

also, i can't believe they're still using the same armor system where the head and the body are completely separate, when fans have been telling them for years that hauberks have hood attachments and those that don't, the hood still needs to cover the shoulders,you can't have a helmet with a cloth or mail coif tcovering only the neck, that just leaves a large gap between the body and the neck that anyone can stab through.

so all of that helmets with cloth and mail coif attachments going to need to have the coif extend all the way to the shoulders, or just slightly short of the shoulders. which brings up another thing, the mail coif in this game is attached to the helmet, that's ok, but it doesn't cover the neck at all, it looks like the back of a wimple. that's again, not how it should look.

before:
wCdk3k5.jpg


after:
PqooPkC.jpg
 
in case you don't see the differences i made, i made the legs closer together, why is standing like that in the first pic? it;s like they used the crappy animation from the first mount and blade. i also extended the coif to about shoulder or slightly under shoulder coverage
 
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****ty animations where every character looks like they're about to have a baby is part of the problem with the game. also they're never going to "fix the game" since it's subjective how character and factions should behave. same with weapons balance. bad animations are easier to fix.
 
was looking in the game files trying to mod these issues away and i just noticed the devs included the upper part of the pants as part of the torso "armor" model. this tells me that short of a total conversion mod these issues just aren't going away. mail chausses are never worn just from the knee down as depicted in this game, they're worn from the thigh down. so to depict mail chausses and most of the other types of hose, padded legging, and such,you will need dedicated leg models, not just a generic pant model for each of these "shoe/boot" items.

10 freaking years and they didn't open up a single osprey book or just google imaged for the literal millions of reference image out there. pathetic

the devs are so lazy about all of this i'm about to give up on this game 5 hours after playing it. my fault for thinking they would improve things.
 
The stance at the first picture is much more stable, which is good for a soldier. Why wouldn't he want to stand in such way? If you really think that second picture is way superior to first one than go to youtube and watch animation comparison vids to warband, you will notice ****ton of differences.

10 freaking years
Its not 10 years its 30 years, stupid devs, amirite?
 
he's not in combat, and for more stability lower your center of gravity, not spread your legs apart. keep making excuses
 
he's not in combat, and for more stability lower your center of gravity, not spread your legs apart. keep making excuses
how you imagine that, should he duck in combat? Have you ever been standing in moving bus or train? Spreading legs apart a little bit does improve your stability significantly. If you have to do it all the time on drills and battles you might get used to do it.
And it looks fine you're just nitpicking

By the way cloth armor can be pretty damn thick, and also it may not fit particularly well, looking nice is not a first priority.
 
Your version is worse and looks unnatural.

i thought my tory powerstance illustration would drive home the point that it looks funny and exaggerated, but apparently you are literally retarded. no offense. go look at actual human beings irl and not your power fantasy 3d models by poor artists. show me one picture of someone irl who isn't trying to be funny or doing a martial arts stance, who is standing still naturally, whos legs are spread wider that their shoulders. you may use google.
 
I assume the base standing animation is made mainly for the battlefield which is why (as someone else pointed out) they have their feet as wide spread as they have. So assuming we're talking about entirely replacing the standing animation I think having a casual "I'm just standing here" animation on soldiers about to enter combat would look really strange.
 
I could see in the future there being a whole separate set of casual animations and idles for when you're walking around town, but as long as there's only one set of animations, the wide-stance in the before picture looks a lot more combat-ready and natural than the after picture. Soldiers would look dopey and flat footed if they were standing on the battlefield like the guy in the second picture.
 
i thought my tory powerstance illustration would drive home the point that it looks funny and exaggerated, but apparently you are literally retarded. no offense. go look at actual human beings irl and not your power fantasy 3d models by poor artists. show me one picture of someone irl who isn't trying to be funny or doing a martial arts stance, who is standing still naturally, whos legs are spread wider that their shoulders. you may use google.
Insulting me doesn't change the fact that it's worse.
 
Hello johncage it's always a pleasure to see old dear friends! yes, as you I was expecting more progresses but overall I like how the humans move in bannerlord, I find them much better than KCD.
That pose in the first pic is exagerrated but nothing not human or totally innatural, look at this:


almost everyone use a pose with closer legs but someone have more a combat stance with wider legs.
For the rest I'm with you, seeing again upper part of the legs attached to the armour is bad, like the splitted aventails.
 
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