B Other Combat Animation Enhancement - Fifth Release with Trailer 15/11/10

[Papa Lazarou]

Information

This is the latest release of my on-going mod project. With this mod I hope to make combat look more natural without making large mechanical changes. I especially want to improve the transitions between different animations - from blocks to attacks, and from one attack to another. This version of the mod replaces the blocks and attacks for all melee weapons used on foot, as well as the archery animations. Criticisms and suggestions for all animations are more than welcome - the fact that an animation appears in a fancy, Jabarkis-produced trailer doesn't mean I won't change it!

These animations are open for other modders to include in their projects, as long as accurate credits are given. If you want to include them in your mod, just post in this thread or send me a PM.

Trailers - alternative links lower in the post

 

 



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Download

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Installation Instructions

Just extract the “Combat Animation Enhancement" folder from the .rar, and put it in the “Modules” folder (e.g., My Computer > C Drive > Program Files > Mount&Blade Warband > Modules). You can then select the mod from the drop-down menu to play Native with the new animations.

   
To use these animations with other modules

[Please note, if the "other module" in question has changed animations, this procedure might mess it up. If you want to plug the CAE animations into a mod that has its own new animations, send me a PM and I'll give you instructions.]

To use these animations in other modules, you should first replace the "skeletons.brf" file in CommonRes with the "skeletons.brf" file from the Combat Animation Enhancement (CAE) mod folder. You then need to copy the "actions.txt" from the CAE folder, and use it to replace the "actions.txt" from whichever module you want to play with the new animations.

So first, open the CommonRes folder (in the Mount&Blade Warband folder), and make a backup of the "skeletons.brf" file that's in there. Next, open the Resource folder in the Combat Animation Enhancement module folder, copy the file "skeletons.brf" from there and paste it into the CommonRes folder. Then, copy the "actions.txt" from the Combat Animation Enhancement folder, and paste it into whichever mod's folder you want to use the animations with.

Alternatively, you can copy the "skeletons.brf" from the CAE Resource folder, and put it into the Resource folder of any other mod. Then, open the "module.ini" in the relevant mod's folder, seard (Ctrl+F) for "skeletons", find the line "load_resource = skeletons", and change it to "load_mod_resource = skeletons". You'll need to put the actions.txt from CAE into the mod's folder as well.

It's even possible to modify Native to use my animations in standard multiplayer. But please note, while you can use these in a multiplayer module, you will get hit-detection errors when playing online. The game bases hit-detection partly on the animations - and in multiplayer, hit detection is decided by the server (and therefore the server's animations). So the size of the hit-detection errors will depend on the mismatch between the Native animations and the CAE animations (it's usually small).

If you want the animations to work fully in a multiplayer mod, you can always suggest it to developers of that particular mod and they can contact me about it.


For Modders

I've posted the code from the CAE module_animations.py file here. Feel free to use it!


Alternative trailer links

First Release Trailer

Spear & Shield Trailer

Polearms Trailer

Archery Trailer

Two-handed Swords Trailer


Special thanks to:

My brother, Jabarkis, for advice and assistance, for making the trailers, and for making the vertex animations for bows.

My friend, Damian, for being an actor in the polearm, archery, and two-handed sword trailers.

Forumite Outlawed, author of the upcoming mod, Warband: Total Realism, 1148 A.D., for helping me to make the first release download/installation actually work.

Other community members for feedback and encouragement.

The TaleWorlds developers, for making the game!


Signatures

Advertise the mod with a fancy signature:

Spoiler: One-handed Weapons

[url=http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,134185.0.html][IMG]http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/1804/caebannerswords.gif[/IMG][/url]

Spoiler: Spear & Shield

[url=http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,134185.0.html][IMG]http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/4063/caebannerspears.gif[/IMG][/url]

Spoiler: Polearms 1

[url=http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,134185.0.html][IMG]http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/4999/caebannerpolearms1.gif[/IMG][/url]

Spoiler: Polearms 2

[url=http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,134185.0.html][IMG]http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2272/caebannerpolearms2.gif[img][/url]

Spoiler: Archery

[url=http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,134185.0.html][IMG]http://img573.imageshack.us/img573/6348/caebannerbows.gif[/IMG][/url]

Spoiler: Two-handed Swords

[url= http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,134185.0.html][IMG] http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/9056/caebannertwohandedsword.gif[/IMG][/url]

Plans for the Future

At some point in the future I plan to:
    ~ Change the polearm grip to be further down the haft and remove the two-handed grip from longaxes.
    ~ Animate some of the blocks so that they respond to impacts
    ~ Remove or resize the Rhodok cleavers and hammers
    ~ Possibly make mechanical changes to archery
    ~ Possibly make new animations for swapping equipment (drawing swords, readying shields, etc.)

 

[FrisianDude]

Hmm, a very intriguing idea. That clip you linked looks good, too, though maybe he should move the rest a bit more. Doesn't matter, I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work!

 

[GetAssista]

Looking forward to this!

 

[lucky lancer]

Uh - I must say this looks and sounds very interesting/promising. 

Though I can't offer much -or any- constrictive criticism right now, I am very much looking forward to the progress of this idea, Papa Lazarou.

Good luck with it!

 

[Turanien]

Very nice. I shall be watching this with great interest.

 

[Merlkir]

I appreciate the effort, the position looked good. Maybe observe a bit the dynamism in the backhand animation, so the movement doesn't look machine-like.

 

[Turanien]

I appreciate the effort, the position looked good. Maybe observe a bit the dynamism in the backhand animation, so the movement doesn't look machine-like.

This. It needs to look as if there's some 'force' in the movement. Although the test animation looks good, it also appears as if the character is simply waving his sword around for show.

 

[King Berend]

sweet! maybe you can make combo attacks!

greetz, Berend

 

[Aeon]

Interesting indeed !
Likely with light weapon, able to swirl without hard wrist effort. But heavier ones... mmh I don't know

 

[GetAssista]

BTW, why not add recovery frames to existing animations instead? Would slow and smooth things down too, it seems. And not so much work, as in constructing new anims. Does the game interrupt those prematurely?

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Thanks for the feedback on the animation. I know it looks robotic at the moment, and I cut many corners (leaving out lots of hip and shoulder movement) because I wanted to test the idea before making a proper animation. I'm planning to add a lot more body movement in the next draft, which I'm expecting/hoping will look a lot better. That said, this is only the fourth movement I've ever animated, so we'll see how it goes!

BTW, why not add recovery frames to existing animations instead? Would slow and smooth things down too, it seems. And not so much work, as in constructing new anims. Does the game interrupt those prematurely?

I don't think I could get the effect I'm going for by adding frames to the existing animations. With one-handers for example, the hand often starts or ends in places that would be hard (or strange) to circle to. I need all the start and end positions for every attack to blend together smoothly. I expect it wouldn't work too well if I left the hand out to the right side (as in the slash from the right), or low next to the head (as in the overswing). And that's just the one-handed attacks.

 

[GetAssista]

I don't think I could get the effect I'm going for by adding frames to the existing animations. With one-handers for example, the hand often starts or ends in places that would be hard (or strange) to circle to.

Well, the effect of circling is not needed so dearly actually, because when you land a strike your weapon does not circle through the opponent (in this case anim is not interrupted AFAIR, opposite to case of blocks) - it strikes the opponent. Circling only matters when you miss. And what matters for gameplay the most is the longer recovery phase to some common neutral position - which is exactly what can be done by additional frames

 

[Merlkir]

The position of the arm is already much more correct and less painful looking than in native, so good job with that. For the sake of gameplay, I'd just suggest lowering the angle a bit, tilting the sword arm a bit more to the side.

 

[Roveno]

Great idea, good luck for next animations, you tried also with 1handed and shield?

 

[Papa Lazarou]

If all goes according to plan I'll post a quick video of the second draft in the next 12 hours.

Well, the effect of circling is not needed so dearly actually, because when you land a strike your weapon does not circle through the opponent (in this case anim is not interrupted AFAIR, opposite to case of blocks) - it strikes the opponent. Circling only matters when you miss. And what matters for gameplay the most is the longer recovery phase to some common neutral position - which is exactly what can be done by additional frames

In the game a good hit is animated just like a miss - it's only when your hit does low damage that it bounces off, for better or worse. Also, I think for gameplay there doesn't really need to be longer recovery. If you miss, recovery should be pretty fast and use a circular movement. If you hit, recovery should be fast enough that you keep the initiative and get the next attack anyway. Finally, I think a common neutral position would make repeated attacks look strange, unless there's some fancy way of implementing it that I don't know about. In any case, the circular movements are basically the whole point of this phase of the mod, so unless they look like utter trash I'm probably not going to change that part 

The position of the arm is already much more correct and less painful looking than in native, so good job with that. For the sake of gameplay, I'd just suggest lowering the angle a bit, tilting the sword arm a bit more to the side.

I agree. I'm trying for a shallower diagonal for the next version of this attack.

Great idea, good luck for next animations, you tried also with 1handed and shield?

The same animations are used, shielded or not. I tried to position the arm so that it would more or less make sense for shielded and unshielded. I might show the next draft with and without a shield.

 

[xenoargh]

I'd really like to see attack animations that work correctly with shields.  It's pretty silly the way that people drop their guards when using right-slash, stab and overhand strikes atm.

 

[Night Ninja]

\o/

I've been hoping for this for a while.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

I'd really like to see attack animations that work correctly with shields.  It's pretty silly the way that people drop their guards when using right-slash, stab and overhand strikes atm.

Unfortunately my mod won't help with that, since I'm trying to avoid mechanical changes. Shielded characters are vulnerable while attacking, and the same animations are used whether you have a shield or not. That means I need animations that leave an attacking character open, keep a shielded character's weapon from hitting his own shield, and don't leave an unshielded character's arm too vulnerable. In the end it'll have to be a bit dumb in all cases to avoid massive dumbness in any individual case.

Edit: Okay, won't have the second draft posted till this time (time of edit) tomorrow.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Here's the second draft of the one-handed attack from the right - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psZaxzdAxvs

I think I might need a third draft to tidy up the actual cutting part and change some hand positions, but I think I've solved the robot problem, and I'm quite happy with the overall feel of this one.

 

[Turanien]

Very nice!