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Animations! How do they stand out to you?

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notears
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I liked the second option for

I liked the second option for the fireball animation, the one where I'm waving my arms in a short cone like I'm Guile from street fighter. I also liked both animations for fire breath, the one where actually breathing the fire and the one where I'm extending my arm and it's shooting out of my hand.

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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I don't know if I'm just

I don't know if I'm just weird or something...but I enjoyed the teleportation travel animation. And ESPECIALLY "TP Friend". And the "zhh-zhing" sound it made was spot on.

I used TP for my main, and loved it. I can only imagine how that basic animation could be updated.

Also, the weather control had some really nice animation/effects. If you do something along the lines of necromancy....raising the dead could have excellent visuals.

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My fave power hands down was

My fave power hands down was the old school animation for knockout blow. That and footstomp were the entire reason I had 2 super strength toons. Once it started winding up, you just knew that if Knockout Blow connected you were going to give someone the chance to see the curvature of the earth. So satisfying.

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Shatter Armor from the VEAT

Shatter Armor from the VEAT Anchillary Pools, or the t9 power in mace/axe.

Not only was it great the fire this off myself, but seeing the animation go off on ME in PvP was always an "oh crap" moment that made it a VERY fun power to use.

Ex Night Widow PvP main

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I think my all-time favourite

I think my all-time favourite animation was the alternate animation for Super Strength's Foot Stomp, the one where you simply lift your fist and slam it down. Second favourite was the Crane Kick from martial arts, though my training gives me a bias.
I think the customization of animations was very important, so following in CoH's footsteps on this one would be to expand them even more. A KS update did talk about this, where fireballs could come from the hand, or a sword, or wand, or even a pet (my favourite). So I think CoT is going the right direction on this one.
One thing i'd've like to have seen in CoH was great customization for brawl; they did have some adaptation for it as Wanders mentioned, but to have a great range for such a simple, non-descript power would be a great touch. A knife-hand attack, or and elbow-strike (again, my training bias coming), or more weapon-matching, using the front of a sword OR the hilt, rifle-butting and pistol-whipping, but what i'm talking about is the ability to arbitrate these as a character. This would make even non-melee toons feel their hero is more unique.


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The particle fx from the

The particle fx from the energy blast powers always stood out to me, Energy Blast: Power Burst in particular was one of my favorite blast powers, visually. It just had a look and feel of raw power to me.

Another favorite was Energy Melee: Energy Transfer... at least, the remainder of the animation after the "holding your hands near your face for 2 seconds" charge-up... where you'd duck down just a little, pulling your arms back, then WHAM!

There were of course, others... Street Justice for the most part, and Staff Melee.. zomg Staff Melee. A lot of the newer sets coming through had some pretty nifty looks.

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I admit, it just might be me,

I admit, it just might be me, but I hope melee attacks get some inspiration from fighting games. And hopefully with UE4 we can get some grapple/throws.

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When I say "animations" I

When I say "animations" I mean both the character animation (the way the skeleton moves). I love the gymnastics of any power. Arching the back, doing backflips, the fan service ass-shooting.. anything that spins the character on the XYZ axis tend to be my favorite (see pistols in Champions). I also like it when things just FEEL powerful.. a punch that has a good wind up and a fast animation between position a and position two is something that you can only do in animation.. but it turns a swing into a PUNCH. Live action a punch almost always looks like it's been choreographed by the WWE but in animation you can really make those jarring animations well.

The FX are seperate to me as it seems the same animation will be able to be used with multiple FX.. I tend to love FX that are more than light particles.

- I want liquid powers that when it hits a surface it makes an actual splash!
-I want my "wave" based attacks (heat wave, radio wave, magnetic wave, psychic waves et all) to have distortion in them (like what happens when you look at the air just above hot desert sand).
- I want powers that are made of light particles to actually light up textures in the world around me (including my shiny black hair). If you're shooting a beam of light particles (be it made of energy or concussive force or heat) I want that light to translate. (Hell even Psylocke can use her psychic knife as a flashlight apparently..*Greg Land..*)
- I want flames that actually share the properties of combustion instead of looking like they're made of tissue paper.
- Anything made with "darkness" like shadow powers of any powers used with a fog/dust/cloud effect I hope light can still pass through it; so many games have made the "dark" powerset just look like ugly black stuff.
- Oh and any physical objects used as FX (chains, plants, swords, hammers, ribbons, guitars, tendrils/hair) I really hope have unique textures and debris so the plant FEELS like a plant.. things like leaves/flowers falling offand my steel skin to look like steel (even if it's brushed steel instead of shiny steel) and I want my Rock Armor to have debris that appears to crumble off as I am attacked.

While I've not seen/done alot of skeleton modeling/animation in Unreal4 I know that they particularly excel at the FX/Texture/Lighting side of things to adress my FX concerns. Animation wise I'm always scared that the movements aren't fluid enough and can come off "jerky" so the more natural the animation feels (even when doing backflips in heels) the happier I'll be.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

And hopefully with UE4 we can get some grapple/throws.

Suplex the Ghost Train anyone? I mean, as soon as you "allow" grapples and throws into a game system, that's the FIRST thing you have to start thinking about ...


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\o/ YUSH! Or LAUNCHing the

\o/ YUSH! Or LAUNCHing the Giant Godlike Killing Machines into the air with your bare hands (Oh Snow... you rule so much)

Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...

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One thing that struck me when

One thing that struck me when I went to other games after CoH was how jerky the movements in the other games were. I guess they are trying to make it feel more actiony (I know, not a word :P) or dynamic, but it just feels fake and unrealistic to me and looks ugly. CoH just felt more heroic because the movements were beautiful and graceful, not just stacotto fast.

Also, CoH wasn't afraid to go BIG with effects. Novas were just MASSIVE and that damned sure felt heroic. It got crazy sometimes with lots of big powers going off, but it was AWESOME!

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Well time to throw in a

Well time to throw in a little Rotten Luck here.

I had many tries with Rotten he been a Corrupter, a mastermind, a scrapper and final the Brute.

Range just wasn't in the character so the corrupter and other range types was out. Same with MM's the Zombies were fun but not fitting the style I wanted.

So I went Melee, tried having a shovel for an Ax or club. Went MA and the fight style wasn't right.

OH Then came the Street Justice powers. I WAS IN LOVE! They had a less "Learned" style to punching then the other sets like someone learned to fight on the streets rather then taught in a gym, ring, or other type of training. The animation was smooth and would be something you would think a THUG would use to fight. Face it how many goons would use MA style fighting? NO they will Punch and kick like what they are dirty fighters. It was with that my Main finally Crystallized just right in CoH.

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I really liked the old

I really liked the old animation for Storm Kick that was like Flurry only with kicks.

I liked the alternate flight animations, albeit not the way you had to use them in game.

The Crab backpack (as was mentioned by someone else, I believe) was extraordinarily well-animated.

The Titan Weapon attacks stood out, but they always seemed a bit unfinished to me. Like they needed some tweaks.

The Kinetic Melee attacks were something I really wanted to like. But it's like they found an Uncanny Valley of martial arts - they were either a bit too much or too little like Tai Chi.

And for some reason I really liked the eyebeam attack wherever it showed up. On a potentially-related note, I also liked all the simple little laser blasts for the energy weapon blaster set, not to mention the Bots Mastermind attacks.

Speaking of Mastermind attacks: the whip attacks for the Demon set were nice.

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I like flashy moves as much

I like flashy moves as much as the next guy, but sometimes it can be over done. I think solid, heroic looking animations in general are best. I love playing a game where after performing an ability, I just feel...epic. Just find a good mix between epic/flashy and believable and you are golden.

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CoX had so many great

CoX had so many great animation. From the simple way brawl would change based on what was in your hand, to the explosive nova of energy blast.

But when you get right down to it I want a animation that depicts the power without limiting your character on theme.

Original sonic blast (while not the best power set) had simple animations that fit the sonic screaming style while not limiting you in character concept. Well other than it was a scream, but CoT promises to give customization to cover that.

I loved most of Fire/stone/ice melee except the constructs. The specific nature of this animation (a fire/ice/stone weapon construct) hampered the character theme.

I really loved most of Rad blast. The snipe was a lot of fun with its star trek sounds to the multiple globs that shot out. And the nova was fantastic, a mini mushroom cloud.

Fire blasts had fire was almost thrown instead of shot and the snipe was interesting.

Street Brawling had some cool attacks.....the backfist, the knee both looked great.

The worst were some of the assassin strikes, some of the armors from sets (lookin at you Poo monster from stone armor) Basically anything that limited you in character concept, look or theme too much bothered me.

What I would love to see from animation in CoT is options. Lots of options, its game effect is a quick strike, its animation is a backfist, an elbow, a knee, spitting acid in a guys eye or any of a dozen other choices. Now I know a single power cant have dozens of options without bogging down the development. But maybe some generic options that any power of type can get (melee sets all have the same punch, kick, slap attack for example) along with a couple or three animations specific to that power.

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I may have said this

I may have said this somewhere before, but the natural, smooth, fluid movement in CoH made the twitchy, jerky, unnatural movement in most games I've played since hard to take,

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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a very good animation to me

a very good animation to me was mako's spirit shark attack, loved that with the sharks surrounding the enemy, oh and if we could use kick without removing our weapons, and maybe a buttstroke with attached weapon for a punch instead of just making the gun poof then reappear when using a blast

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I don't remember the names,

I don't remember the names, but several melee sets had a sort of "rise up into the air in slow motion then unload on the target for massive damage" attack that I really liked to look of.

One that I used to dislike was the one from the fire blast set where you put your hands up in the air like you were being taken hostage and then fire balls shot out of your open palms. That animation looked like "ok, how can we make it look like the guy isn't even trying to aim this blast attack, or for that matter, how can we make it look like he's not even attacking at all and them just have fire balls come out of him from somewhere".

There was also a Radiation Blast set power (Neutron maybe) that had you make a big ball of radiation and them hurl it at a guy like you were hoisting a bag stuff at the target. Inever understood why they used that for Radiation Blast effects. Ice maybe, because that presumably has some heft, and I could see making a big ice ball then hurling it at the target, but with radiation it felt wrong.

I felt that the TP animation was to ostentatious and took too long to animate, given the often repeated nature of the power. It made me feel like the power would work faster if only they had given it a shorter animation. Maybe that was on purpose, I don't know.

There's a good "rope a dope" punch that I think one of the melee sets had, or if not I[m thinking of Carl Weathers in Rocky where he wheels his one arm around and get's you to look at it and then jabs you with the other one because you don't see it coming, I thought that would make a good attack.

I liked the "slow walk" animation, just for fun. I liked the Ninja Run too. It would have been cool if, when they rolled out the wild west costume stuff, they had given us some "draw!" and "hold up smoking gun, blow on the the muzzle" etc type emotes.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I don't remember the names, but several melee sets had a sort of "rise up into the air in slow motion then unload on the target for massive damage" attack that I really liked to look of.
One that I used to dislike was the one from the fire blast set where you put your hands up in the air like you were being taken hostage and then fire balls shot out of your open palms. That animation looked like "ok, how can we make it look like the guy isn't even trying to aim this blast attack, or for that matter, how can we make it look like he's not even attacking at all and them just have fire balls come out of him from somewhere".

That would have been the original animation for flares. Thankfully, the animation was changed when the power got rebalanced.

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syntaxerror37 wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:

Radiac wrote:
I don't remember the names, but several melee sets had a sort of "rise up into the air in slow motion then unload on the target for massive damage" attack that I really liked to look of.
One that I used to dislike was the one from the fire blast set where you put your hands up in the air like you were being taken hostage and then fire balls shot out of your open palms. That animation looked like "ok, how can we make it look like the guy isn't even trying to aim this blast attack, or for that matter, how can we make it look like he's not even attacking at all and them just have fire balls come out of him from somewhere".
That would have been the original animation for flares. Thankfully, the animation was changed when the power got rebalanced.

I always skipped Flares just because of that animation.

I liked most of the snipe animations, but fire's (was it called Blazing Bolt?) always made me think I looked constipated.

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Every one skipping it was one

Every one skipping it was one of the reasons it got rebalanced and a new animation.

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Now that I think about it,

Now that I think about it, Blazing Bolt's animation looked like it should actually have fired from your butt.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I don't remember the names, but several melee sets had a sort of "rise up into the air in slow motion then unload on the target for massive damage" attack that I really liked to look of.

I totally agree, that's the first animation that came to mind for me. Super satisfying.

I also saw a couple people mention flurry's animations being pretty cool, which is true, but that was also one of the ones that annoyed me the most. I only say this because if your attack missed, it suddenly felt incredibly dragged out. An attack that makes you look speedy suddenly makes you look like the slowest guy in the world cause you haven't realized you're not hitting anything yet.

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Maybe this has been mentioned

Maybe this has been mentioned, but I thought the Scrapper "Claw" set was a little off, there was an AOE power, where you would spin around (With the claw aimed at the ground) and then jump up, slamming your first into the ground, and it exploded outward... to me it was just awkward. I guess just a spinning animation would of been weird also. So I don't know how to make it any more fluid looking.

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Stormthrasher wrote:
Stormthrasher wrote:

Maybe this has been mentioned, but I thought the Scrapper "Claw" set was a little off, there was an AOE power, where you would spin around (With the claw aimed at the ground) and then jump up, slamming your first into the ground, and it exploded outward... to me it was just awkward. I guess just a spinning animation would of been weird also. So I don't know how to make it any more fluid looking.

Yeah, the Spin move made no sense at all. It dealt lethal damage even though your claws never touched the opponent- it would have made much more sense if you just twirled in place and sliced everyone adjacent to you with your spinning claws.

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Stormthrasher wrote:
Stormthrasher wrote:

Maybe this has been mentioned, but I thought the Scrapper "Claw" set was a little off, there was an AOE power, where you would spin around (With the claw aimed at the ground) and then jump up, slamming your first into the ground, and it exploded outward... to me it was just awkward. I guess just a spinning animation would of been weird also. So I don't know how to make it any more fluid looking.

Thats Easy.. Spin with arms outstretched while Crouching... and at the end of the last Spin (maybe 2 spins total, maybe) you do a Dragon punch to Finish IT! ;)

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Yeah I thought about that,

Yeah I thought about that, and just can't see it where it would look good, I mean, crouching down and spinning around with your arms out, spinning like a top? I don't see it.... though considering the costume it might be comical. I can quite clearly see a slashing attack that dealt cone damage in front of the character The sands of Mu animation which was also in the Dark Melee set. An animation that might work for a Claw type character doing an AoE attack? I envision something like the animation starts with him looking around, as if to see how many enemies are around him, and then dropping down to a knee, his arms blurring for a moment, and when they come back into focus they're up at an angle slightly above shoulder level stretched out, and the damage lands. Kind of like a Ninja strike, you don't really see it until after it's done.

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Stormthrasher wrote:
Stormthrasher wrote:

Yeah I thought about that, and just can't see it where it would look good, I mean, crouching down and spinning around with your arms out, spinning like a top? I don't see it.... though considering the costume it might be comical. I can quite clearly see a slashing attack that dealt cone damage in front of the character The sands of Mu animation which was also in the Dark Melee set. An animation that might work for a Claw type character doing an AoE attack? I envision something like the animation starts with him looking around, as if to see how many enemies are around him, and then dropping down to a knee, his arms blurring for a moment, and when they come back into focus they're up at an angle slightly above shoulder level stretched out, and the damage lands. Kind of like a Ninja strike, you don't really see it until after it's done.

With a bit of refinement, that could quickly turn into an epic animation.

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In general, the flow of

In general, the flow of animation stances is, IMO, the single most important aspect that usually gets done wrong. Either there is a "hard switch" in stance animation where your character 'blinks' into the start position of the next move, or they never change their stance regardless of the attack, both of which hit an instinctive "wrong" trigger in my brain.

Oddly enough, from old CoX, I think Duel Pistols probably got this the closest to correct from an animation standpoint. DP's gun-fu had the character extremely mobile, but the moves flowed into each other. As unrealistic (just noting, not complaining) as it was, the animations still flowed well enough that the overall busyness of the animations distracted from any hard-switches.

Early Broadsword I think was a particular offender of having little to no footwork.

Claws seemed to have some hard-switches without actually being busy enough to distract the eye.

As I'm writing this, I have some thoughts on how to reduce the workload on the animators (who I assume are already under a brutal workload).

If you focus primarily on footwork and hips, it seems reasonable to design a semi-fixed set of stances or poses that act as start and finish points for various animations. For instance ranged attack would each start or finish in Ranged Heavy, Ranged Quick, Ranged Aggressive, or Ranged Protective. It would then be relatively easy to create 6 transition animations for ranged power-sets, reversing it as necessary. And this is probably more complicated than it needs to be, as you could probably boil it down to "Left foot forward" and "Right foot forward"

Perhaps also have a designated "transition" pose between Ranged and Melee stances if those end up being significantly different at all.

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....i want to see girls do

....i want to see girls do the sexy walk.......

and guys do the macho guy mode walk.

because more of our time will be spent moving around, than fighting, so moving around poses should count for something.

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masterghostartist wrote:
masterghostartist wrote:

....i want to see girls do the sexy walk.......
and guys do the macho guy mode walk.
because more of our time will be spent moving around, than fighting, so moving around poses should count for something.

It's about bloody time we talked about stances! If there's one thing Champions Online had over CoX, it was the ability to determine your character's stance. They didn't do much with it, but it's a start. I think you should be able to pose. You could pose like a savage brute with your back hunched over breathing hard, you could cross your arms and stand there looking badass, you could levitate above the ground to compliment your battle aura, you could constantly have your character on high alert looking everywhere, or you could have his default posture be to stand as still as a statue to perpetuate anything from a disciplined royal guardsman to a creepy silent type.

And then there's running stances. Since most people tend to move around more than stand around, this should really be given some love. Let's see people running on all fours, leaping and bounding across the ground, hovering a foot off of the ground, turning into a mist and snaking low to the earth, and doing a ninja run like what CoX gave us the honor of doing. For walking, I really think the sexy/macho walk is ideal. I'd like to throw in creeping forward for the stealthy types, striding with your hands behind your back like a high-class hero, and maybe also an alert and nervous walk with short steps and fingers interlaced with the character's head looking left and right for any sign of danger. We could even have characters limping when they're below half health, which I think if absolutely sublime!

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save some code, and use

save some code, and use limping for zombie pets or as a mode for all the time on zombie characters.

ambiance.

it is what the game is all about. so, the smallest things are the biggest.

What a man thinks of himself, that is what determines, or rather indicates, his fate. - Henry David Thoreau

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I loved many of the CoH

I loved many of the CoH animations, my personal favorite was that glowing blue cube in the library that had it's own song and reconfigured itself. Just loved that thing, it was my number 1 favorite. The jet pack, 15 minutes of speedy flaming glory, I really, truly wished it could've been a power on it's own right, it would've been awesome for a gadget-geared hero I also loved the winter version with the blue flames and snow flakes but I really hated the music on it.

I'm going to go ahead and give this post MY all :)

When I was in college I had this spalding roller bag that had my books in it, and I kept imagining that it had this white translucent snow globe 8 inch attached to end, and the globe would light and whirr with blue and golden scillating lights whenever I walked around. It was a crazy imagination thing but I think it kept me amused when I felt very much alone.

Wings, wings just kind of sucked I mean even when you were flying downward they had the same stupid animation. Maybe it changed after I left but I'm betting it didn't. You see I owned many pet birds and I just know that when a bird is in downward descent the flight, the angle of the wings is very different from flying straight or flying ascending, and also with winged flight you could turn right and left but the painful unrealism really, really bugged me. A tight right turn should've led to a 15 degree camera shift to the side. During descent you should see the first 3 pinions of each wing to either side of you on the edges of screen. Pet peeved.

Another favorite was the super-speed animation.

Oh oh oh! I think you should have unlockable or purchasable animations for powers. So if you got really really bored with winged flight you could drop 20 gold on it and get a different animation for the flight, different timing, sequencing all of that. I think people would enjoy buying things like that in years 2, and 3.

While were on the topic of animation I am going to bring up a power I wanted to see from a game 40 years older than Mutants and Masterminds. Animation as a power. The ability to animate any texture, and to define yourself by that texture. So if you wanted your animation texture to be feathers or bricks, or wood, that would be your thing, or if you wanted to purchase the texture of platinum or gold, jewels, gears, rocks, plants, fur, tinted glass, jello for yourself. Now Animation as a power and to keep it simple would simply be the Animator gets to pick from objects and animate them. So simply put as an Animator you might start with a ball as your first animation, a ball walking with legs as your second animation, a ball with legs and arms as your third animation, and then you could either go with increasing complexity or increasing the number of them. I would say each one would do damage as a blunt weapon, and the amount of damage might depend upon how advanced your animation was. Although if you got a swarm of say 40 level 1 animations all dealing damage that would be pretty nasty to walk into. Animations would get a defense bonus of hidden, meaning that unless perception is really high or else being attacked by such characters don't typically notice them. Another part of the Animator is they would have to draw the element out of say an object. So if an object was tagged cement and the power was cement animation then the character could create up to their maximum of animated objects from that cement. But if they'd chosen a more rare thing like glass, gold, jewels, then they could target car windows, cars, vans and go from there. An animator can also form temporary game objects. Such as, choosing the option to Castle which would create a box around the hero and push out any mobs. The mobs would still be able to attack the box and wear it down. Glass obviously would be see-thru so you could see what was going on around you while so enclosed and protected. The box would not move with the hero, the hero can exit the box and the box would disolve, different damage reductions for different materials should apply. :)

Okay I have to remember where pet's forums were for the rest of what people were throwing at me :)
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9/8/2014 edit
the zingy golden sparks you get from a dremel cutting tool sliding across metal would be nice for a speedster or maybe a fire-class speedster.

Imaginitive young lady looking for clients, talents are imagining the realistic possibilities of practically anything, and applying new technologies to practical applications in all types of business.

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One thing that really

One thing that really impressed me about SWTOR based on something that definitely didn't (the fact that all character classes were mirrored), was the way Jedi Knight and Sith Juggernauts animated their saber-strike-equivalents so differently. Particularly awesome was seeing Luke's triple-strike slash down literal-disarm maneuver on the Juggernaut because the anger in it is obvious and it was a fun nod. The best animation, IMO, helps tell a story. To have the option to bring anger, dogged determination, shao-lin-monk-trained expertise, religious fervor or whatever else could possibly be imagined to fighting moves or a class of movement would a be a huge upgrade from CoH's brilliant character creator.

Also a crap-ton of work of course but if you do it right, you have at least 8 years to keep adding new animation sets.

But I'd like to add that mediocre animation with great sound will trump weak audio with stellar animation every single time. Audio's role in making things badass is strangely overlooked in gaming all the time and I've never understood it. When it's not overlooked, it's amazing and people don't even know why. It is so much more fun to hit with a powerful punch when the foley artists twisted that celery just right.

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One animation/effect that I

One animation/effect that I have enjoyed in another game was how when you went into a river it swept you down stream. the mechanics of the character control are important so they flow and maybe a double tap for high jumps would be something to consider. Interesting emotes for sleeping, sitting, laughing as well as running and the obvious walking/flying. Sometimes in CoH the flying was good but with todays engines it would be great and more realistic feeling. I will think of more and note them later

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Azrael wrote:
Azrael wrote:

Izzy wrote:
Sailboat wrote:
Loved Force Fields, hated seeing the entire world through a soap bubble. Is it possible to make bubbles like one-way mirrors that one can see OUT of normally, but they are visible from outside the bubble looking IN?

I would do something like this guy did for Forcefields...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VozAvdeY8eA

That's not a bad idea. Phased effect when hit and ripples with power. Like when the Enterprise gets hit in star trek you only see the FF when hit? It has a phase effect? Maybe a soft hum aura until then?
I didn't mind the detergent effect of bubbles. But from the inside it could be a little unclear at times. From being a bit too subtle or too squiggly somehow. I liked Personal F. Field though. Very attached to my FF/Energy Defender...
Room for some innovation here. But even a jazzed up graphics version of the set in Coh would be fine with me.
Maybe a choice of effects? From clear field bubbles to phase modulation when hit to body auras? A choice perhaps?
Azrael.

I have to agree, trying to see from the inside to the outside in the middle of some of the 'bubble' effects was pretty disorienting. I also often had trouble targeting when with a team who had a member with Storm powers - all that fog and clouds and whatnot really obscured the field of combat for me, at least.

So, having the ability to see THROUGH it - reduced opacity from within, perhaps? - would be helpful.

ALSO, it really bothered me that men and women would have different "walk" and "sit" animations. If I'm playing a tomboy heroine, I don't want to be limited to sitting like a prim schoolmistress. If I'm playing a tomboy heroine, I don't want my only style of walking to be the "high-heeled Model Runway Strut." As a role-player, as much as I loved and appreciated having those emote options, I chaffed at having choices restricted by gender.

I really loved the 'Dipping the Teabag in the Cup" emote -- but it saddened me that I couldn't also have a "Sipping Tea from the Cup" choice as well. After all, not all heroes (or villains) swill their drinks from pint-sized mugs.

Or, for that matter, the 'drinking while sitting' option, either with glasses or teacups. :-)

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With how changes are being

With how changes are being made towards power customization I think it would be fantastic if brawling/super strength power sets had more options. While simple punches and jabs work for most scenarios I think it would be nice if there were some more dramatic effects than "enhanced" punching without adding elemental/energy effects in. Something I primarily had in mind being more pounding type effects. For example there could be an option for single target punches to be replaced with downwards strikes focused at the target that end with the fist hitting the ground or close. The effects combat wise would be unchanged however a crushing/smashing noise would go off and a crater texture, with size depending on the strength of the ability, would appear for a few moments before vanishing. Possibly even throw in some rocks or debris based on the floor texture. This would look rather well with huge characters and help super strengthers who want something flashier than jabbing and the occasional foot stomp/AoE achieve this without adding flames or an energy aura to their fists and effects. Not sure if this has been brought up in the past but I thought this seemed like the right area to post the idea.

Puny Heroes.

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There was a darkness attack

There was a darkness attack that I absolutely LOVED! I forget the name but it looked like a punching bag attack and did a butload of damage!
I one free at the start of the game (as a bonus) and had the original one by level three. Both attacks one after the other made for a great one/two punch.

another darkness animation that looked great but never did much was a patch of blackness on the ground with tentacles coming out. if this could entangle people it would be great.

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I am pretty sure it was Jump

I am pretty sure it was Jump Kick, but it was one of the most useless powers I ever chose and the animation was very over the top and not conducive to a proper fight. If there was one thing I would get rid of it's that. If not the whole power at least make the animation better.

Everything I loved in the game animation wise usually came from Controllers, there are a few powers I could do with out but Earth/Weather/Fire/Ice/Illusion/Mind Control were so good! Also blaster animations were spot on.

As far as travel powers are concerned, I wish there were different animations for teleport. It would be so cool to have an animation similar to Nightcrawler's TP in X-Men. Also something like Izzy had mentioned about fading in and out would be cool

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I loved Jump Kick. It's

I loved Jump Kick. It's damage was garbage but it's over the top animation was why I loved it!

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and That is why we like

and That is why we like option for animations

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

I loved Jump Kick. It's damage was garbage but it's over the top animation was why I loved it!

Well if they matched the damage output for how over the top the moves were I guess I wouldn't have minded it, but as it was with crazy animations and garbage damage, no bueno

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Hey folks,

Hey folks,

Brand new, here. Well, mostly. I've been stalking the forums for a month or so just reading various posts, but this thread finally encouraged me to go ahead and register. As a former CoX player and current CO player, animations have always been a big deal to me next to costume design. As such, I wanted to relate what I think are good and bad animations from both CoX (from what I can remember, it's been six years) and CO.

Animations I liked:

Assassin's Strike (Ninja Blade) -- City of Heroes/VillainsWhile I didn't much care for the idea of having a melee-range snipe, the crouch mixed with drawing the blade back and resting its tip on the back of the hand before delivering the coup de grace looked so cool and felt so right when it landed.
Might -- Champions OnlineI infinitely prefer the animations of this set compared to its CoX counterpart, Super Strength. Might feels more powerful at nearly every turn from its energy builder, Clobber, to its granddaddy of all punches, Haymaker. Even its gap-closer feels great with a solid, flying shoulder-check to your enemies.
Smite (Dark Melee) -- City of Heroes/VillainsSomething about this quick, right-hook felt so good; especially, when paired with Shadow Punch. I never tired of chaining these two moves together.
Plant Control -- City of Heroes/VillainsI still miss this set and CO has no equivalent. The animations fit rather well with giant stalks slapping punks into the air via Carrion Creepers to enemies struggling within the grasp of your vine patches to a huge Venus Flytrap spitting thorns at some unlucky foe. So awesome.
Skull Crusher (Heavy Weapons) -- Champions OnlineThere's just something fun about repeatedly performing a two-handed, overhead weapon slam down upon a fallen enemy over and over and over...
Bestial Sprint -- Champions OnlineWhile I'm not particularly enamored with most of CO's movement animations, if you paired Bestial Stance with any fast-moving, ground travel power (e.g. Acrobatics, Super Speed, etc.) you transitioned into a cool sprinting animation on all fours.
Unleashed Rage (Brick Ultimate) -- Champions OnlineThe actual roar sound effect is a little weak, but the prior animation really sets the tone, letting everyone know you're about to vaporize everything around you through anger alone. The fact that it can do incredible damage also helps.
Telekinetic Maelstrom (Telekinesis) -- Champions OnlineAh, the power people love to hate because it can cause serious lag, which is unfortunate because its animation is great. Float into the air, arms crossed over your chest, debris rising up as you prepare to unleash a torrent of TK energy? Yes, please.
Foot Stomp (Super Strength) -- City of Heroes/VillainsI know I said I prefer Might to Super Strength; however, I think Foot Stomp slightly edges out its CO counterpart, Havoc Stomp, due to having some terrain deformation. The animations for both are similar (if you just tap Havoc Stomp), but Foot Stomp created actual furrows in the ground whereas Havoc Stomp just creates cracks.

Animations I didn't like:

Knock-Out Blow (Super Strength) -- City of Heroes/VillainsYes, I know this borrowed from the whole Popeye super punch concept (at least when I played the game), but it looked so darn goofy it irked me. See CO's Uppercut, Room Sweeper, or Haymaker for punches with more oomph.
Hawk's Talons (Claws) -- Champions OnlineApparently, your character sucks down a Mountain Dew Big Gulp, snorts some Fun Dip powder, and snacks on some Pixy Sticks before brandishing his/her claws for this energy builder attack because you animate like a complete spaz, flailing your arms about while hopping into the air on occasion so you can have an aerial conniption fit.
Parry (Katana) -- City of Heroes/VillainsI tap you on the head. 'Nuff said.
Idle Stances -- Champions OnlineWhile I appreciate having several options for how my character can stand while idle, most of them don't look very good in CO. Heroic is alright, Bestial has limited use, and Vixen is okay for some characters, but overall they just strike me as silly. To recap: Having a choice in how I stand is a fantastic idea just offer plenty of options and try not to make the offerings embarrassing.

Anyways, I can probably think up more for both categories, but I'll start with these.

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Kiyori Anoyui wrote:
Kiyori Anoyui wrote:

Brand X wrote:
I loved Jump Kick. It's damage was garbage but it's over the top animation was why I loved it!

Well if they matched the damage output for how over the top the moves were I guess I wouldn't have minded it, but as it was with crazy animations and garbage damage, no bueno

Well yeah, it's why I only took it on characters who had the extra slot and just used it for the animation.

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Najarati wrote:
Najarati wrote:

Idle Stances -- Champions Online
While I appreciate having several options for how my character can stand while idle, most of them don't look very good in CO. Heroic is alright, Bestial has limited use, and Vixen is okay for some characters, but overall they just strike me as silly. To recap: Having a choice in how I stand is a fantastic idea just offer plenty of options and try not to make the offerings embarrassing.

Thanks for joining Najarati.

I forget which game it was, maybe Champions Online, what i found a bit annoying was the Idle Stance transitions.
After you walk and stop, it would Immediately go into the Themed Idle stance. I didnt like that. I rather it went into the normal idle stance after you immediately stopped walking, and After a number of seconds (30?) it would Then transition into the Themed idle stance animation. :)

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

Thanks for joining Najarati.
I forget which game it was, maybe Champions Online, what i found a bit annoying was the Idle Stance transitions.
After you walk and stop, it would Immediately go into the Themed Idle stance. I didnt like that. I rather it went into the normal idle stance after you immediately stopped walking, and After a number of seconds (30?) it would Then transition into the Themed idle stance animation. :)

Thanks for welcome. Yes, when you cease forward movement in CO you will immediately return to your chosen idle stance provided a travel power doesn't override it. Personally, I don't mind this since the idle stance is supposed to reflect the demeanor or attitude of your character (and in the case of Bestial, the way you run) and having to wait too long would defeat the purpose a bit I think, but perhaps CoT can allow us to set some kind of threshold to determine when you go from simply standing still to standing in your idle stance.

Heck, it'd be nice if CoT allowed us to create a sequence of stances and gestures for our characters to cycle through while idling so we can better define our characters. For example, the red-blacker vigilante Mr. Edgy will fold his arms, randomly glare at people, and flip his hair because those are the gestures and stances I selected for his idle sequence. On the other hand, the ultra patriotic Captain Hero Man will stand with his hands akimbo, nod at passers-by, and occasionally wave because those are the gestures and stances I selected for him.

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

There was a darkness attack that I absolutely LOVED! I forget the name but it looked like a punching bag attack and did a butload of damage!

That would be Shadow Maul from Dark Melee. It was actually a short-ranged, narrow cone attack, so if you did your footwork right you could get two or three targets with it.

Cyclops wrote:

I one free at the start of the game (as a bonus) and had the original one by level three. Both attacks one after the other made for a great one/two punch.

The freebie version was Sands of Mu. While impressive, its problem was that it couldn't be enhanced like Shadow Maul.

Cyclops wrote:

another darkness animation that looked great but never did much was a patch of blackness on the ground with tentacles coming out. if this could entangle people it would be great.

Sounds like Dark Melee's Midnight Grasp. It had an immobilize component.

My personal favorite power in Dark Melee is still Soul Drain. Round everyone up and drink them dry.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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I thought there were an

I thought there were an abundance of good animations for powers in CoH. Anything on par with that with a large variety would be expected for CoT. It is my hope though that there will be choices of animation for every power. For instance, I hated MA because it was all about kicking. I would hope that in CoT you should be able choose your animation to fit character concept. For example, I had a dragon on virtue named Puff Dragon, he was a fire/fire tank. Loved this toon, he was fun to play. I always thought it would be great if I could make all the range attacks come from his mouth as a form of fire breath but fireball always had the throw animation.

I am hoping that CoT will do to power animation what CoH did for costumes. Give you the choice of how they are animated to further aid in character concept. I do however expect that you should not be able to choose a short animation to represent a powerful attack as many would abuse this to take advantage and make an attack chain much quicker. It would be very excellent though to be able to choose from several equally time consuming animations for each power. CoH offered this in some fashion, bringing to mind Super Strength. I hope there are plans to expand on this.

For me the concept of a toon often made more difference than the mechanics of said toon to my playing enjoyment. I remember hoping so much that the street fighting set would include an animation for headbutting but it didn't =(. I would like to see a system that allowed you to customize your power animations to fit what you want to see even though the mechanics under the hood are the same. Maybe this is too much to ask for, or maybe it is what you developers intend......I will wait and see what magic you folks perform and be very grateful for what I get. Especially, if it is half as good as I think this game will be.

I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.

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Follies wrote:
Follies wrote:

For example, I had a dragon on virtue named Puff Dragon, he was a fire/fire tank. Loved this toon, he was fun to play. I always thought it would be great if I could make all the range attacks come from his mouth as a form of fire breath but fireball always had the throw animation.

I think they will. Once the animations are available. (more here)

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TYVM Izzy.

TYVM Izzy.

I reserve the right to have an opinion. You reserve the right to not agree.

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My fav was the super strength

My fav was the super strength knockout blow. It had a small wind up leading to the upper cut. You knew when it landed it would be spectacular.

Sniper shots were a close 2nd. You would see the sniper power hold, tremble as it powered up, then a release of the shot with small recoil animation.

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I liked the "throw the

I liked the "throw the frisbee" animation (dark pit I think). The self heal from the dark melee and absorb pain from the empathy set. The "push" one from the dark set, it was the tendrals I believe.

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I didn't particularly care

I didn't particularly care for some of the teleport animations from COH. It was like your character got stabbed in the back.

I was hoping, that maybe for knockback characters that knockback maybe be emphasized on the final blow, like a death animation only the knockback looking twice as powerful as the character dies/goes unconcious.

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xabdiben wrote:
xabdiben wrote:

I didn't particularly care for some of the teleport animations from COH. It was like your character got stabbed in the back.
I was hoping, that maybe for knockback characters that knockback maybe be emphasized on the final blow, like a death animation only the knockback looking twice as powerful as the character dies/goes unconcious.

So what you want is the Street Fighter 2 death.

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