Thanks for the comments, everyone. Apologies for the gigapost.
Next up is a new ready position for overhead polearm attacks, a new and hopefully final one-handed cut from above, and a one-handed low thrust.
Outlawed 说:
If I were to comment I would say lower the swing a little bit. So that the target of the attack at the middle hits around the lower abdomen of the opponent. This is fine and all, but it sometimes feels that he is always going for a headshot lol.
Well in a sense, he is always going for a headshot. Basically I'm done the moves so that they extend out from the shoulder line. This means that with a neutral camera pitch, the attack will have maximum range. I'm not sure about the gameplay effects though - it does seem to make headshots a lot more common. I don't think that's such a bad thing of itself, since it was always too hard to hit the head in native if you ask me. Of course if it causes massive balance problems I'll rethink it though.
Munchkin9 说:
About the step: you do know that native already has this and doesn't actually make the player move forward: simply takes the step back after attack. So just saying you could do that too.
Possibly - trouble is that it might look strange with repeated attacks (character would move his foot in and out and I think it'd look weird). Also, in reality the footwork is never really visible, since no-one actually attacks from a standstill.
From a martial perspective (I do fence: foil, saber, and some long sword) you definitely want to take a step into your attack, adds a lot of power and usually you need it to actually get in range and hit the opponent. Not so sure if that second applies to M&B.
I find if I turn my hips enough it doesn't feel too weak. Boxers punch of the back leg as well, so there's some precedent. As for getting in range, I prefer to leave that to the movement controls.
It is a shame that I can't make the game's footwork look nicer though. Some good combat footwork would be a great replacement for the jogging look we have now.
The attacks do need more weight. To do this you could make the animation make the sword drag behind from the wrist (what I mean is: the arm starts moving and the wrist bends back a little as the sword slowly accelerates, and then bends forward as the sword keeps on going after the arm has stopped.
Yes, I definitely think the attacks might look better with more commitment. I'll be adding some recovery frames to the one-handed attacks, so that the momentum is dissipated when they're made in isolation (rather than just flopping down). That should help a bit. I may also add more of a "chamber" (more bending of the elbow/shoulder) to the start of the sideways cuts at some point.
The only weapon this is not true is something like a knife. Which leads me to your wrist movements: they are fancy but look 1. Unrealistic 2. Too fast and 3. VERY painful...you need to find something to do about this.
Eek. Well, I certainly wasn't going for fancy, or unrealistic or painful when I performed them! I was going for a simple, natural movement that could easily flow into other attacks. I think the animations resembles my real performances fairly closely, so I'm not really sure what's giving you this impression. Can you tell me specifically why it looks painful or unrealistic? Or maybe post a video of some swordsmanship that doesn't have those problems?
They might be a bit too fast though - the game has the attack animation last about .6 of a second, and the ready animation last about a third of a second. So the attack rate is a bit faster than one per second, which seems reasonable to me. Having said that, the attack part might be a little quick, especially since I'm including part of the recovery movement in it. I actually think the one-handers are alright in this regard, but the polearm attacks might be a little quick.
The above only applies to the one handed animations on the videos I saw. The polearm animations look fine, though the transitions don't look quite as clean, but that might be just me and I only watched them once.
No, I agree with you there. I'd like to fiddle with the positions a bit, and see if I can get the recovery looking more circular.
Apart from that threatening wall of text, this is one very promising mod, and if pulled of well (which looks like it will) should be used in all mods/native?.
Keep up the great work, I am avidly looking forward to this.
Thanks! The detailed feedback is very helpful.
I do plan to release the mod for Warband, and the original M&B, both as a stand-alone mod, and as an add-on that will allow my animations to be used in existing modules (i.e., so that individuals can customise their installed mods to include my animations). I'm also making them available to any modders that want to include them in their projects as standard.
Sahran 说:
That's fantastic! Papa, do you think you might be able to do a two handed spear/lance from horseback animation in the future?
Possibly, though I know even less about that than I do about fighting on foot!
Shik 说:
nitpick: is it possible to have the right hand in front of the left hand so that the polearm animations are right-handed, instead of left-handed? I know that the polearm animations were right-handed in 1.011.
It is possible, but I don't plan to do it at the moment. Reasons being that, (1) the right hand can't move on the haft, so in attacks from the right there'd be no sliding hands to maximise reach, and (2) making repeated attacks blend together nicely might be tricky.
But now that I think about it, point 2 might not be such a problem, so it's really just the fact that the right hand can't slide down the haft. I may well reanimate the polearm attacks I've done so far, so I might experiment with making them all right-handed and see if I can make it work.
Thanks for that point - I had dismissed the idea of swapping hands but now I think it might be feasible.
