Attack/fight/move animation ideas

[Stratego (dev)]

I have received several requests on fight animations.
Naturally we can not make individual animations for all 300-400 or more units we have.

but here i ask for ideas that needs only one or two type of animations that can work for all units.

my idea is:
close ranged "blade" fights:
- a dust cloud appears and fighting is inside the animating cloud with proper weapon collision effects

long range arrow attacks
- thesehave a fairly good arrow animation - so i think it is almost ok.

[godOfKings]

How about using the throwing blade idea I made for mameluke but removing the hilt and showing it as more tilted on one side? It would seem like one unit is striking with sword that way,

But I think showing sprite will need a new mechanism for melee, first melee unit moves to enemy unit tile to atk like how currently happens.

And just wen the sword clashing sound is heard, at that EXACT moment, this sprite will also b shown on top of enemy unit who was atked (may b make it like the sprite overlaps the enemy image, at which case I can draw sprite a little far from centre) finally, sprite image should b reflected to face different direction like how ranged sprite is reflected

I actually thought about it b4 and wanted to suggest u but it seems u r already thinking about

[Belfry777]

Animations for fighting (such as barrel smoke for cannons) are very cool but impossible with the current art style we have. Yes we can upgrade the sprites (arrows, axe .Etc) for ranged units and even add attack sprites for mele units. Which I totally support. However animations like a sword man over head attack or pikeman jab would just take to long to create as stated before. In general, pixel animation is tough, but if the images were made in a 3D [link below] program and rendered as 2D sprites, we could make the pikeman jab ideas possible. (No joke ) However when aos was started all we had was pixel art and it's very well done. Another problem to think about is the space such animations would take up, almost double!

Ideas we can implement:

• One idea I didn't see suggested was giving the sprite animation! Such as a spinning axe or green tipped arrow for the poison archer.

• Building animations like fire when at low health (like the fire archer), or broken window for the church.

• Different sound effects for high moral.

Other then editing the sprite, there is really no other way of making animations. I hope this has helped!





3D images as 2D sprites: https://www.forgottenempires.net/age-of ... -a-2d-game

[Stratego (dev)]

i thought of an idea that needs no modification on current sprite. so a universal one that can be "overlayed" on/between the fighting units.

[Gral.Sturnn]

something like this but less exagerated
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source= ... 0715937370

[Stratego (dev)]

the most important is the "fog" in my idea (that hides their nonexistant "movement") but yes, from the "fog" such slashes can come out

[Stratego (dev)]

this is a sample for a "move" animation here if u can imageine the unit moving and the dust is animation will make it like it would move with its legs.

dust.png (46.31 KiB) Viewed 4335 times

and another sample concept of an attack animation

attack.png (20.1 KiB) Viewed 4334 times

these are only images but u can imagine the animation

[godOfKings]

I like attack animation, I imagined something like this, and the animation will b visible at the moment of attacking when player hears the sword clashing sound.

But moving animation I m not sure, there r just not enough soldiers in image to represent such dense cloud, looks like goku riding his floating cloud,

May b if there is a marching sound while moving it could b more appropriate

[Stratego (dev)]

I like attack animation, I imagined something like this, and the animation will b visible at the moment of attacking when player hears the sword clashing sound.

here i found the slash image, here it is for inspiration, i have simply removed the saturation making it grayscaled:
https://hu.pinterest.com/pin/432838214166615868/

if anyone would like to make the animation spritesheet: eg. a 3-4 image animation, than i could impelemnt it for "sword" like units.
naturally we would need different for other weapons like polearms and so on.

But moving animation I m not sure, there r just not enough soldiers in image to represent such dense cloud, looks like goku riding his floating cloud,
May b if there is a marching sound while moving it could b more appropriate

ok, than any other idea how to "hide" the not moving legs?

[godOfKings]

The only solution I can think of is animated dust, it will made of both dark and transparent pixels so sometimes legs will b visible and sometimes not, also it will have to give the impression of moving backwards to the direction unit is moving

[Gral.Sturnn]

I personally think we should scrap the moving dust idea, regarding the attack animation O think it should be smaller

[Stratego (dev)]

i am testing the first version of the "move" animations.
i set it to tanks in AOW for testing.
it has this "silly" animation on the wheels while moving, if anyone can polish it or make a good one would be awesome!

[Morningwarrior]

interesting why you don't do an animation on archery arrows like a white beam indicating speed you know, like in cartoons, like a white drawing behind an arrow you know ... I hope I was specific because I'm terrible in explaining ... anyway and my idea.

[General Brave]

Certain like the movement and attacking idea, I guess certain things can have that. Mainly the more important ones as it would take a bit.

[Stratego (dev)]

good news: tank dust animation is awesome in AOW it is there since a 2 years or so.

now i just wanted to make the slash animation for AOS/AOF here but i see there is no image made yet - can someone make a slash image - similar i made above?

[Stratego (dev)]

i made a quick but not sure how it will look in game

[Badnorth]

i made a quick but not sure how it will look in game

Looks great, it will probably look good in-game.

[Badnorth]

For Pole-arm wielders it can be a thrust.

[Stratego (dev)]

yes all type need a different.
eg. rapier need also diferent and that is not a swing weapon.

[makazuwr32]

I think it will be even more problematic with aof since there even more difference in melee weapons...

[Stratego (dev)]

this is not "problem" this is a decoration thing.

yes, one animation is good for only one type of weapons, eg. this one will be good for all melee unit with a sword (that is not a thrust like sword eg. rapier), but good for all one handed, 1.5 handed, 2 handed swords imho.

[Stratego (dev)]

ok a sample animation is in AOS Swordsman unit.
please check.

[Hyuhjhih]

Well i don't know if this topic is already converging at end. But since i noticed it now, i think it won't be a problem to involve.(as i think it is still in progress)

I made the given slash spsht a bit translucent, removed a useless frame, made the slash a bit more tilted so to match AOS swordsman. I wonder is it intentionally provided 64x64. Should i resize and redraw it to a 32 x 32.

If my involvement haven't been made any interruption in progress, and if favored, i could take the job to make almost each suggested animation.

[Stratego (dev)]

actually image was adjusted - this is the one in game now - also please check in game and modify after if needed - thanks!
also it intetionally bigger than a tile as it is intentionally overflowing unit tile boudaries.

[Badnorth]

i could take the job to make almost each suggested animation.

Nice Hyuhjhih. Im very amateurish at animating so i won't be any help here.

For these two:
Blunt weapons (Maceman, Flailman, Champion and Laborer) i think a splash of white or something like a heavy blow.
Pole-arms (Lancer, Spearman, Rapier units and Pikeman) A light of thrust like the slash stratego did.

[Hyuhjhih]

actually image was adjusted - this is the one in game now - also please check in game and modify after if needed - thanks!
also it intetionally bigger than a tile as it is intentionally overflowing unit tile boudaries.

Oops sorry my bad. Honestly i haven't noticed it in game yet.
Well , i made a 64x64 spear thrust , a blunt spsht.

[Hyuhjhih]

To get more highlights i made it in black bg just for contrast

[Hyuhjhih]

Or a bit more fantasy type.

[Hyuhjhih]

Like this

[Hyuhjhih]

Yellow tinted