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

[BoomstickS3000]

Hey man, I am making a mod atm, and I want to ask:

Can I use this for my own mod? (With credits ofcourse )

I can understand if you say no.

 

[Tiberius]

Some more feedback, at least based on what I think:

- On horseback the guy should definetly use both vanilla and modded spear thrust animation. It'd be cool on foot, but not absolutely necessary.
- I see you used the same animation for both spear and short sword. That's fine, but for some reason the sword thrust "ready" animation seems a tad too long because of this.

 

[Outlawed]

Hey man, I am making a mod atm, and I want to ask:

Can I use this for my own mod? (With credits ofcourse )

I can understand if you say no.

I'll convince Papa to make this an OSP package =p

 

[FrisianDude]

Isn't it already, then?

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

Could you give a spear (with shield) more thrust directions? Or maybe make it switchable into overhand and underhand modes?  (underhand longer reach, slightly slower, overhand short reach, slightly faster)

I think I could, yes. I'm now thinking that I might make all thrust attacks low, which would allow me to give spears a "downwards" attack that was a high thrust (blocked with the high block). I could possibly also give spears an X-switch for a reverse-grip thrust (with range/speed according to the new movement) as well. Still learning how to do those things, but I think the high thrusts at least should work.

Amazing, you even added the underhand for 1 handed swords!

Do both vanilla and modded spear/blade animations play, or just yours?

Just mine. I'd like to use mine as a replacement rather than an addition, and I don't really like the idea of randomised animations, since I personally like to have direct control over what the character does. Also, my animations tend to aim higher than the Native animations, so randomising them would make it harder to hit specific targets. So the standard mod will have mine only (for all possible actions), but if demand's great enough I might release an optional pack that includes both.

I like how the thrusting animation looks so casual.

I hope it looks less casual in-game! Let me know if you think it needs a specific improvement (I was planning to tweak some aspects anyway).

First off all i gotta say that i really really like this mod. The fighting looks MUCH better though i havent tested it as much.
BUT do me a big favor and make this one work with cRPG. That would be awesome

Well I'm more than happy for other mods to include my animations if they ask me. If you want them in that mod, you could suggest to the cRPG team that they include them. Like Merlkir said, since it's a multiplayer mod, my animations would need to be included as standard to avoid problems.

Hey man, I am making a mod atm, and I want to ask:

Can I use this for my own mod? (With credits ofcourse )

Sure can - glad you like them!

- I see you used the same animation for both spear and short sword. That's fine, but for some reason the sword thrust "ready" animation seems a tad too long because of this.

Yep, I was a bit lazy. But I also wanted to see whether people wanted a low or high thrust for swords as standard. I'm leaning towards the low thrust for all weapons, since it would make blocking more intuitive, and free-up high thrusts to be used as downwards attacks. Thanks for the specific point about the ready position - I'll take it into account if I end up tweaking the thrusts (which is pretty likely).

Isn't it already, then?

Pretty much. I'll look in to the OSP thing more later I think.

 

[CounterPoint391]

Nice video. Well put together

 

[Outlawed]

Sword thrust animation = perfect.
Spear thrust animation = I think he needs to show more bodily movement, use arms more, pull elbow back a little higher, just more emphasis on the actual readying of the thrust, actual thrust looks fine.

My 2 cents.

 

[Shik]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klOc9C-aPr4#t=2m40s
Just a random critique about the 1h spear thrust: I think that the spear should be braced against the elbow, rather than hanging loosely. This grip provides more stability to the spear, I think.

 

[Outlawed]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klOc9C-aPr4#t=2m40s
Just a random critique about the 1h spear thrust: I think that the spear should be braced against the elbow, rather than hanging loosely. This grip provides more stability to the spear, I think.

How about adding an X, like switching between 2 handed mode and polearm mode for axes but one with normal underhand thrusts and the other with over hand for shorter weapon.

check this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-xtFXThEOc&feature=related

Same guy as the person from Shik's video.

 

[Jabarkis]

Nice video. Well put together

Many thanks for the kind feed-back

And anyone who is interested: as my signature says, my video-capture and editing services are available for other projects on request. Just send me a PM and I'll get down to consultation with you on what you want for your promotional videos as soon as I can!

 

[Outlawed]

Papa, are you going to change the stance positions for swords on horseback?
It seems sort of weird that I would be in full gallop and still have my sword point upwards rather than stretch my hand out and have my sword 'dangle' to the side. AKA this, and yes its from M&B 1 lol

Also animations for sword thrusts starting from that position might be more interesting on horseback and would add an extra momentum feel to the whole cutting process.

As for spears on horseback, I also think the standard riding animation could be changed a bit with the spear 'hanging' lower and more straight than its current status.

Just some suggestions =p

 

[Sir_1-1al]

The quality of the animation is great, although none of them have any force behind them. Every animation lacks any power and the sword animation looks as if he is using his wrist to swing the sword.

The lack of the weapons having any momentum is a real flaw in the animation.

 

[Merlkir]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klOc9C-aPr4#t=2m40s
Just a random critique about the 1h spear thrust: I think that the spear should be braced against the elbow, rather than hanging loosely. This grip provides more stability to the spear, I think.

Lloyd keeps repeating his idea over and over. I've heard it mentioned by other people quite a few times. Of course, he's right that you can get quite a lot of reach that way, but he misses one thing - battle is never the same and one setup wouldn't work all the time. Using a spear (which I'm sure he does in reenactment, I just wonder why he doesn't mention it in his videos) is very dynamic, you shuffle your hands on the spear, change the grip, switch positions...

He treats overarm like it's useless, because the range is shorter and you can't so easily reach opponent's feet, but he forgets there is of course use for exactly this length of spear.

So, yeah. You get some more reach using braced underarm, but it's a bit rigid and often you have to switch to something else. (and you can also brace overarm to a similar effect, which he never shows)

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Sword thrust animation = perfect.
Spear thrust animation = I think he needs to show more bodily movement, use arms more, pull elbow back a little higher, just more emphasis on the actual readying of the thrust, actual thrust looks fine.

Friggin' commitment problems again! Yeah, I'll look at this for the next draft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klOc9C-aPr4#t=2m40s
Just a random critique about the 1h spear thrust: I think that the spear should be braced against the elbow, rather than hanging loosely. This grip provides more stability to the spear, I think.

That's an interesting technique. I guess the main advantage is reach, since you can hold it closer to the butt without overloading the wrist. I might experiment with this, but I don't think I'll animate the spear like this at this stage. It might come in handy when I shift the grip on polearms though, since I might be forced to use a close-to-the-butt grip for one-handed spears.

How about adding an X, like switching between 2 handed mode and polearm mode for axes but one with normal underhand thrusts and the other with over hand for shorter weapon.

Yep, like I said, I'd plan for something like that. (I forgive you for not reading my monolithic posts.)

For horseback, I plan at least to tweak the wrist for the one-handed slashes. I don't know the first thing about sword-fighting from horseback, so I might go no further than that, but we'll see. For the lance thrust, I might tweak it like you suggest, depending on constraints (like the fact that the same thrust must be used against targets on foot and horse).

The quality of the animation is great, although none of them have any force behind them. Every animation lacks any power and the sword animation looks as if he is using his wrist to swing the sword.

The lack of the weapons having any momentum is a real flaw in the animation.

I wouldn't say they don't have any force behind them, and the character is definitely moving all the right parts of his body in pretty much the right way (just not quite extremely enough). But lack of body-movement certainly seems to be a common complaint, and one that I have too. I've just had a hard time fixing it - partly because I'm afraid of over-doing it. Haven't given up yet 

Lloyd keeps repeating his idea over and over. I've heard it mentioned by other people quite a few times. Of course, he's right that you can get quite a lot of reach that way, but he misses one thing - battle is never the same and one setup wouldn't work all the time. Using a spear (which I'm sure he does in reenactment, I just wonder why he doesn't mention it in his videos) is very dynamic, you shuffle your hands on the spear, change the grip, switch positions...

Yeah, I definitely like the idea of weapons being used in a variety of ways. Seems pretty sure to me that there'd be lots of different situations that could arise in spear-fighting (opposing lines, duels, close scrums, etc.) and I'd bet they had a lot of diverse techniques and tactics for those possibilities - things that might at first seem strange to an untrained person.

Basically I'd be going with the low thrust from a normal grip by default (if I can only have one attack for spear and shield), and beyond that I'd go for a high thrust from a normal grip (providing another attack direction), and then a high thrust from a reverse grip, available after an X-switch. Like I said, not sure how possible those things are, but I'd love to implement them if I can.

 

[Outlawed]

Its probably a certain script of code that allows you to switch between weapon modes, shouldn't be too tough to figure out. Once you get to it we can do our little 'try this! it might work!' again =p

I was also meaning the normal riding with lance and riding with sword animation not the actual attack ones. It just seems weird, especially for the sword, to have it in its current position as opposed to letting it dangle to the right =p

 

[Shik]

Basically I'd be going with the low thrust from a normal grip by default (if I can only have one attack for spear and shield), and beyond that I'd go for a high thrust from a normal grip (providing another attack direction), and then a high thrust from a reverse grip, available after an X-switch. Like I said, not sure how possible those things are, but I'd love to implement them if I can.

The greatest modding limitation to the combat system is that you can't add new attack directions. (i.e you can't add two different direction thrusts). All the attack directions are already defined, and the only thing that can be done is to replace the animations that are used in the directions. One handed spears only have one unique direction, unfortunately. Technically you can add multiple animations into one direction, but for combat animations, there will be blending issues. (they will still be considered the same attack direction, of course)

The only possible way I see of adding two separate direction thrust attacks to a one handed spear is to add a 1h overhead attack to the spear and replace it with a thrust animation, but the problem will be that it will still be classified as a slash (i.e it will do blunt damage). The second problem with that is that there will no longer be an overhead attack for 1h swords, but two thrusts instead.

As for the x-switch, you can have the alt weapon use a different stabbing animation, but it will have to be shared with a different weapon, since you cannot add any new directions. You could probably achieve this by having a 1h sword thrust use the same animation as the overhead stab but it might look funny.

About horseback fighting:
guan dao related stuff:

Spoiler

I saw this one video of a Korean horseback competition that involved 2h polearms as well, I'll see if I can find it again.

Hans Talhoffer's Fighting Manual:
http://www.kb.dk/da/nb/materialer/haandskrifter/HA/e-mss/thalhofer/thott-2_290.html
Check out pages 192-196 and 250-263 for some horseback related stuff. I'm sure there's also other relevant stuff in the other pages, especially regarding swordplay and polearms.

 

[Tiberius]

The only possible way I see of adding two separate direction thrust attacks to a one handed spear is to add a 1h overhead attack to the spear and replace it with a thrust animation, but the problem will be that it will still be classified as a slash (i.e it will do blunt damage). The second problem with that is that there will no longer be an overhead attack for 1h swords, but two thrusts instead.

I don't think that's a problem, you can modify the item and make it so it's overhead attack does piercing damage as well. I doubt that's hardcoded.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Yeah I'd suspected that might be a problem. I may not be able to do it if I need to cannibalise another overhead attack. Which would suck, since the game has a bunch of redundant attack actions (like "thrust_onehanded_horseback"), but none of them seem to be overheads!

I was also meaning the normal riding with lance and riding with sword animation not the actual attack ones. It just seems weird, especially for the sword, to have it in its current position as opposed to letting it dangle to the right =p

Ah right. Yes I might look at that at some point, though I'm a bit frightened of idle animations, since they actually require creative skill in animating 

I'm not actually doing any modding at the moment, so it'll be a little while before there's any new content. Like a week and a half or so.

 

[Sahran]

Personally speaking I would put a priority (if there's a limited spot of overhead attacks) on an overhand 1 handed spear attack. It feels like it'd be widely useful since my impression is up until the transition to kite shields for infantry (Pretty much the 11th/12th century), overhand would be more of the popular way of thrusting with the spear.

And personally I'm just a fan of it, even from horseback. 

 

[mouthnhoof]

The only possible way I see of adding two separate direction thrust attacks to a one handed spear is to add a 1h overhead attack to the spear and replace it with a thrust animation, but the problem will be that it will still be classified as a slash (i.e it will do blunt damage). The second problem with that is that there will no longer be an overhead attack for 1h swords, but two thrusts instead.

As for the x-switch, you can have the alt weapon use a different stabbing animation, but it will have to be shared with a different weapon, since you cannot add any new directions. You could probably achieve this by having a 1h sword thrust use the same animation as the overhead stab but it might look funny.

Using the overhead strike with an overhand thrusting animation and a corresponding damage type change to pierce works. I did it in old M&B for the two handed spear thrusts to get two thrusts. The problem with doing this for the 1H spears is that the stats will carry over to the 2H use if you drop the shield. Again that would not be a problem if you set 2 thrusts for the 2H mode, except that if you want swings on the spear, they too will do pierce.

What can be done (although complicated) is the following:
- Default mode spears get overhead thrust with pierce damage for a total of 2 direction attacks. The only 2H abilities it gets are also thrust and overhead thrust (no side swings).
- X mode is used to switch the spear to mode designed for 2H use: the regular 2H attacks (only regular thrust and 3 swing directions for blunt damage).
- the X mode can be combined with a shifted mesh to change the grip position to further back on the pole instead of in the middle (and corresponding "reach" stat increase). This gives the proper range for 2H use and the added advantage is that in 1H use (only 1 thrust like this) you can get the back-grip braced against the arm like is demonstrated in the Lloyd vid.