Emancipist wrote:

... one would need to move in that manner to teleport. ...

I want others to see this sort of TP, as i'm walking away. :)
[img]http://i.imgur.com/DNKzEyd.gif[/img]

Gradually going up in Translucency (1 second before teleporting) wouldnt hurt either. ;)

Also, we need to work on the Translucent effect itself as well. When you turn and you are semi translicent, i dont like to see the arm or leg or whatever's in the back of the body. We should look at some Unreal Post Process effects to see if we can blend the background with an opaque version of the rendered character and use the opaque (non-translucent version) of the character and apply the translucency to the solid/opaque pixels.

Basically.... have translucency without showing hidden faces/vertices.
Think of it like the Material isnt really getting translucent, but a mirror image of the background is being blended on top to make it seem like the character is dissapearing gradually, essentially blending into the background.
ex:
[img]http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/979/19i7.png[/img]

Very close to a DebthBlend.. but Evenly applied to the whole object.
[img]http://keenleveldesign.com/pimp/protools/shaderfusion/examples/depthblending.jpg[/img]

Not a City of Heroes animation, certainly, but one of the animations that I always liked to see in Tabula Rasa was the Tuck And Roll Sommersault animation done when you fell "far enough" to warrant that kind of a move. You can see an example of it [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOC9jiPJ5L0&t=35]HERE[/url] at the 0:36-0:37 mark (video starts at 0:35). It was just one of MANY little animation touches that Tabula Rasa had.

In fact, on the very DAY that the Tabula Rasa servers went dark, Lin Chiao Feng and I dropped by their offices to say goodbye, in person, to the few Developers who were left. We'd both been there for the War College when the place was bustling with activity, and now the place was stripped bare, with offices cleaned out and the walls empty of all the "stuff" we'd seen on our first visit 6 months earlier. Lilo, who was the Producer, welcomed us into her office and offered us both any and all of the Swag we could carry out of there (so as to save them the trouble of moving it), but we really weren't in the mood for hauling off Swag (although we did take some). During that brief visit, I told Lilo (in glowing terms) that although City of Heroes had [b]Sexy Jay[/b] [i]THE LIVING [b]GOD[/b] Of Costume Design[/i] working for them ... Tabula Rasa had [b]The Animation Guy[/b], who just made so many wonderful "little things" about the game, and that he deserved to be recognized and rewarded for his work. A raise, a bonus, a pat on the back ... SOMETHING!

Lilo then said, "Wait right here" ... left her office, and came back with ... The Animation Guy. Lilo just smirked at me and simply said, "Tell him."

So I did, repeating to him what I had just told her.

Let's just say that that Developer (and I'm sorry I don't know his name) practically [i]lit up and lifted off his feet until he wasn't touching the floor anymore[/i] hearing just how much his work had been recognized and appreciated by Players who had stopped by on the last day to pick up some Swag, but were actually more interested in giving him the Kudos he really deserved. The handshaking that followed that brief exchange was some of the most vigorous and heartfelt I've received in a long long time. It's not often that a Developer gets reduced to tears by being praised for his work, and certainly not on his Last Day with a company. When he went back to his desk (and we were allowed to follow him), he was so totally PSYCHED as to be practically ON FIRE ... and we got to see, that very night, just what he'd been working on when Lin and I stopped by to interrupt his last day of work, because he was building the animation model for the Neph THAT DAY ... the Last Day ... when we dropped in to say our goodbyes to the people who remained in the final hours of Tabula Rasa.

First a couple of comments to add to what you had said...

Voltknuckle wrote:

kinetic melee was a set that had interesting animations to me, the literal-hand-wavyness of them added a mystical nature to the attacks, acting like a magic brawler. (upon looking back, I regret not getting into this more often.)

For a long time, I had been looking to make a Jade-Empire-like character, but CoH just didn't allow that, so eh. When Kinetic Melee came long, though, I went for it. I was really jazzed with how the attack animations flowed as I played it up... it was perfect. I was really looking forward to seeing the Tier 9 attack, but that ended up turning me off to the set entirely. The bending over backwards and flailing your arms around felt like it was just there to fill up the animation time. For whatever reason, it didn't feel like it was part of the attack and was visually annoying enough to me that it kept me from wanting to play the character. So, I think KM was a mix of awesome except when it really counted, for me.

When Staff Fighting came out I rerolled the character and gave it another shot. While I wasn't nuts about that set for various other [more game-practical :) ] reasons, the animations didn't have any feels-breakers for the character, so that was a better deal.

Voltknuckle wrote:

-brawl was a skill that looked awkward to me, maybe it was because it was so basic, and there were so many other skills that used different animations that I wish could be used for brawl.

While I would agree, in general, I think Brawl had a positive aspect that you should definitely keep in mind. In some cases, they replaced the animation with one that related to your primary set (I believe this was just for the weapon sets, to avoid redraws, but maybe I am forgetting some cases). So, if you had your katana out and hit Brawl, you didn't punch, you bonked them with the butt of the handle.

To me, that is an example of making one attack feel like it flows with another, which I think would be an awesome goal to aim for, based on the sets involved. Like, if you have a gunkata-themed set, and a martial arts-themed set, and those can be taken on the same character, they should work together in terms of animation flow. Those same sets should also flow even when they are paired with other sets instead. I don't think it is something you would always have to worry about, but for sets where flow is a thing (either due to genre-beauty or the need for having some pseudo-realistic balance or momentum involved), finding tricks to make it easier to keep the animations from other sets from breaking that flow would be a win.

Other kind of random stuff...

Obviously, having choices in the animations is a good way to make people happy. The power customizations they added in CoH, such as what they did with Superstrength, were a big plus... I really liked the default Footstomp for one of my SS characters but the fist slam worked better for another, etc. I'd like to have had more choices available, especially for the lower-tier punches, which were kind of basic.

There were sets that made you feel like you were doing a lot even when you were being pretty average in effect (Stone Melee was like that for me). Lightning Rod was cool more for the FX than the character animation itself, but they both worked there. Thunderstrike and Bonesmasher has a solid feel to them.

The ponderous nature of Broadsword was fine. I really liked the kerCHUNK of Headsplitter and the popup of Disembowel. Slash felt too swipe-y so I usually skipped it, but the rest of the set worked for me. Avoid having other animations make weapon folks redraw, is all I'd add to that.

When they added the power customization choices for the ranged attacks, I was pretty happy there. More would have been nice. Oh, talking about ranged animations does bring one thing to mind. I hope animations for "not hitting" will be handled differently. You can "not hit" because something is blocked, or dodged, or because you actually missed-missed, and I think the attacker and defender animations you see should reflect that. One thing that bugged me when I was in close (I had a tendency to blap >_>) was how my character would point both arms up at the ceiling to fire a Power Bolt at it.

I liked the "I have you now" animation that was used for a Siphon Life and the end of Teleport Other (among other things).

Most of the animations felt natural and fluid.
I really liked the standard movement. I didn't realize how much until I played CO. There I feel more like I'm lumbering than running.
I preferred the more subtle animations for powers.
Some of the snipes felt too exaggerated. Blazing Bolt, in the fire blast set for example, always made me think my toon was constipated.
Twilight Grasp in Dark Miasma was a bit much, also. Something simpler like an outstretched hand or even just a flick of the wrist would have felt more powerful by making it look more effortless.
It was a bit gimmicky, but I loved flash arrow. I never got tired of the "boom" of light. I just wish it had done more than a perception debuff...seems like it should have been an aoe stun.

As a matter of fact... I believe that Icon can be used to view the power animations. So anyone wanting to study them for duds and gems can do so. Now that I've realized that, I'M going to boot it up and check :D.

Redlynne wrote:

Voltknuckle wrote:
-kinetic melee was a set that had interesting animations to me, the literal-hand-wavyness of them added a mystical nature to the attacks, acting like a magic brawler. (upon looking back, I regret not getting into this more often.)
Kinetic Melee was given a truly awesome set of animations because they FLOWED in a Soft rather than Hard style fashion. There was a "circularity" of movement to them that was just beautiful to watch and see animated. I would have preferred it if Tunnel Rat or one of the FX Devs had toned down the "glowy streaks" used on the power by maybe 10-15% or so, and if the Sound Devs hadn't made the sounds for the set quite as loud as they did ... but for animations, the powerset was really top notch.

Very much so, I had a scrapper with Kinetic melee whose story was that he was a hand-to-hand combat mage. The animations worked perfectly with this, the smooth motions serving as the casting of the spell.

Bullet Ballet, Bullet Ran, basically all of Dual Pistol's animations.

Wyvern wrote:

Energy Transfer was just pathetic; the sound was good, but the animation really didn't sell the heavy-hitting nature of the attack.

Was that the "I'm gonna jump up in slow motion because gravity has suddenly gone to 1/4G so I can hang in the air THE WAY BRICKS DON'T letting you sniff my belly button for a while before I eventually get around to attacking you, finally, at some distant point the future" Power?

It's been 4 and more years for me now, so I remember very little, but by that token anything I specifically point out obviously had an impact, whether good or bad.

The good:
- Air Superiority
- Dark Tentacles, and Miasma mist; although tentacles needed to be... more

The bad:
- Stalker AS, especially En/
- All snipes
- Dark Maul/Flurry/Sands of Mu. DM was my bread and butter attack and I wanted to cry every time I used it. The DM set in general wasn't great in this department, but I'd say DM was the only really terrible one. I would prefer to see a Dark Melee set work like the kind of thing you see from Crowley in Supernatural, when he goes hand's-on, or Abaddon. It's less about having a differently coloured theme on punching, and more about attacking the enemies souls; open hand, infusing darkness into hosts, drawing light/ lilfe out of them; it just wasn't evident enough in either the Dark Melee or Dark Blast set, imo
- I didn't like the MA set; it was too karate focused. Martial arts are diverse, and there many different types; if you're going for a generic set then mix up the animations a bit. Otherwise create distinct sets based on actual fighting styles, and give 2 or 3 different types of MA. It might even be worth splitting Martial Arts into groupings; open hand, close fist, sword, throwing, kicking, mixed and I'd use as inspiration the following, respectively: Aikido / Silat / Kungfu; Karate / Chinese Boxing / Boxing; Kendo / Iaido; Judo / Sumo / Wrestling; Kick-boxing / Tae-Kwon-Do; MMA / Muay-Tai / Kungfu. Of course, this ignores laregly most weapon types; staff/ nun-checks, etc. For those, Karate / Kungfu are decenet sources, and there are probably some I don't know about.

I think that would have to be a case by case thing, actually. Some you could get away with it a whole lot more than others. For instance, ranged attacks are inherently easier, though some would still suffer. But I bet you could make the lowest two tier attacks so they looked fine while not moving, and let the rest root so you could convey the more elaborate attacks more effectively.

And thanks to the person who reminded me: Tough animation. Absolutely horrid.

The reason splitting upper and lower body looks stupid is because they're actually not independent. What the upper body does requires at least some level of support from the lower body. (And there have been no end of visual bugs caused by having some kind of emote running for the lower body while something completely incompatible is happening to the upper body.)

Another problem with rooting is that it breaks when flying. When I'd be "dogfighting" Sky Raiders in Terra Volta, flying through the air with my 6-slot Hover running, seeing my character stop in mid-flight, [i]stand on thin air[/i], fire her gun, then kick back to the "hover" emote looked hackneyed. Not to mention it prevented me form controlling the range, which is important for a blaster.

What I really liked was:
- Typhoon`s Edge and One Thousand Cuts from the dual Blades set...the taunt was nice too.
- Kinetic Melee, others have complained about the waviness but I enjoyed it.
- Titan Weapons, those animations made the weapons look really heavy.
- The wind up version of Knockout Blow.
- Assassin's Strike for Spines... had such a nice FATALITY feeling.
- Executioner's Shot and everything with speed shadows from Dual Pistols.
- Ninja Run, especially when holding weapons.
- /em facepalm
- /em teabag

and my favourite
- The ground pound animation for Foot Stomp.

In my perfect world animations for casts (powers) would come decoupled from the mechanics..
You picked your role, You picked your frameworks (lets call one framework "burn" for this example), Then you pick two animation sets (which works like an emination point)

Each set has an animation for:

Single Target Melee Click
Single Target Melee Charge
Single Target Melee Maintain
Cone Target Melee
AoE Target Melee
Single Target Range Click
Single Target Range Charge
Single Target Range Maintain
Cone Target Range
etc

Animation sets would include: Head, Palm, Fist, Foot, Staff, Bow, Single "Sword", Dual "Sword", Single Pistol, Double Pistol, Rifle, Heavy "Sword", Flying Companion (like the hawk in the kickstarter photo)

After you've included a basic set of animation sets then you can sell some really cool alternative animation sets that won't change the mechanics of your powers but will add things your players want. This way you're getting directly PAID for the added work for animators.

Whip Animations $5 - The FX are added to the whip and the whip also shoots FX for powers over XX ft away
Ninja Animations $5 - A special set that has a different melee style and funky kung fu shooting animations
Wing Fighter Animations $5 - Yes this means the wings will shoot the FX and you can wingslap your enemies!
Guitar Animation Set $10 - Because its extra awesome to bash people with guitars and play chords of flame!

The above are just ideas, but its a great way to expand your game for different concepts without needing to come back and create new powersets every time.

Again the FX (Fire, Ice, Sound, Light, Poison, etc are determined by the framework you choose)

I'm in the minority, because I always loved the slow-animating attacks with long windups. That moment of anticipation before the hit was always exciting to me (especially since, as far as the combat code was concerned, the attack had already landed, so now I was just watching the show). So attacks like Thunder Strike (and similar animations in the Enerrgy and Stone sets), Knockout Blow's "twisker punch" animation, and, yes, Energy Transfer were some of my favorites. I was also a fan of Sky Splitter from Staff Fighting, the way it hit on the way up and the way down. (Granted, that wasn't exactly how it worked behind the scenes, but the damage ticks were well-timed to the animation), and I even liked Eye of the Storm. I think Staff Fighting has my favorite animations for a full powerset (but Thunder Strike remains my favorite single power animation).

I never got to try Titan Weapons, Street Justice, or most of the other paid-for sets (Staff Fighting was the exception), but seeing Street Justice animations in Icon, I really like Ribcracker and Crushing Uppercut. I also like Dragon's Tail and Eagle's Claw in Martial Arts, another set I never played (or, at least, never played with for any significant amount of time). They flow nicely.

I second Suppression on Crab Spiders as being a well-animated attack. Most Crab animations were meh (why did most blasts shoot out of the same "leg"?), but that one stood out, and some of the melee attacks were nice (though I primarily played mine at range).

And not an actual attack animation as such, but I loved the way that, when my Bots/Storm Mastermind would select "Attack my target", all six bots would raise their arm simultaneously. (Sadly, none of the other MM sets really had that)

Most animations were merely "all right" instead of actively disliking them, but I definitely didn't like Jump Kick. I actually took it once, and it was not what I was expecting at all. (Though I could actually see it on a Spider-Man-ish agile fighter, but I had it on a Stone/Stone Tanker). I also didn't like the animation where the character would "wobble" around after the attack. For example, Lightning Rod, and I think an attack in Spines had it, too. I liked the build up, but the wobbling afterwards just made it look like he was drunk.

Worse, however, is Champions Online. Every melee set in CO feels like a whirlwind of randomly flailing limbs with no real weight to the hits. I know some players would prefer faster attack animations, but avoid going too far in that direction. It just makes the character look like a goofy and cartoony "ball o' violence".

"I can't comment in a positive manner about flurry's toHit/accuracy, but I did think it was a hoot to watch. (as well as Sands of Mu)"

I loved that animation on my main villian. Mainly because of the way it would just keep going even after her opponent was down. It was like, "You're down, now I'mma make sure you DON'T get back up!"

:D

Thunder Glove wrote:

... melee sets in CO feels like a whirlwind of randomly flailing limbs with no real weight to the hits. I know some players would prefer faster attack animations, but avoid going too far in that direction. It just makes the character look like a goofy and cartoony "ball o' violence".

+1

My favorite set for both game play and just the way it looked was martial arts and super reflexes, my combo of choice for my main toon (falcon striker), not to mention the many various emotes, coh to this day is un rivaled when it comes to emotes and passive animations, really gave the game life.

One thing I didn't care for too much that comes to mind, I felt some of the blaster animations were a bit too similar at times, which is understandable to some degree. Basically anything that wasn't weapon related, all seemed to use the same or similar arm movements, I think finding ways to make them look a bit different from one another would be a nice touch. Like comparing radiation to energy blasters, just as an example.

Redlynne wrote:

Wyvern wrote:
Energy Transfer was just pathetic; the sound was good, but the animation really didn't sell the heavy-hitting nature of the attack.
Was that the "I'm gonna jump up in slow motion because gravity has suddenly gone to 1/4G so I can hang in the air THE WAY BRICKS DON'T letting you sniff my belly button for a while before I eventually get around to attacking you, finally, at some distant point the future" Power?

No. That was Total Focus (Thunderstrike had the same animation), and I loved that animation. Energy Transfer was the quick one punch that was turned into a bend at the knees, elbows in, charge up by having a seizure than releasing a punch.

Are we talking about character animations or can this include any actual effect along with animation?

I liked the teleport "star" and warshade "portal" a lot but that was more gfx than the character pose
Kinetic melee wavy attacks were awesome
Dual blades, broadsword, axe, mace and claws were all good with pretty much all attacks
Build up from weapon sets, especially broadsword
Charged brawl/energy punch/stone fist etc similar simple brawls
Fault/foot stomp/solar flare but again a lot to do with the cracking earth gfx but animation was also nice
Hand clap/lightning clap
Touch of Fear
Fireball throw attack which was rather common but nice animation
Lightning Rod
Hurl/hurl Boulder
Crab spider "tentacle blaster" animation

Never much liked:
Seismic smash/thunder strike jump-into-air-and-smash animation
Life siphon/suphon power/siphon speed character animation
Twilight grasp/electron haze had weird animation

For melee attacks I suggest looking at fighting games and taking some of those animations ^_^ Even from some of those other MMOs!

Xnarl wrote:

I would suggest to base fighting animations on the actual use of the weapon as much as possible. In these cases you avoid the phenomenon of knowledge fighting ruining everything, (at least in the best case) without disappointing the laymen.

Sooo..have normal dual pistol use and not gunfu? o.O I'd rather have nice looking, omg animations, ala Street Fighter, Tekken, Dead or Alive or Mortal Kombat. It's a game, should be fun!

Xnarl wrote:

Maybe it would be better to say "include animations based on the actual use of the weapon as much as possible. " Also, note that I said "as much as possible" - Dual Guns would probably not be touched by the demand. However, I think if you have the choice of having a cool move that breaks immersion to anyone who knows something about fighting, and an equally cool move from real martial arts (or at least some grounding into reality), you should take the more realistic one, as it will please both those who want cool animations and those who want (semi)realistic animations.
Would someone please think of us simulationists?
PS: I would also comment that the amount of (obvious) exaggeration should be handled careful. I think that most of Staff Fighting is still acceptable as "Heroic Exaggeration" (but note that my actual knowledge on melee combat is very limited). Eye of the Storm, however, is exaggerated to such a degree that it screams "BULLSHIT!":

Eye of the Storm was my favorite move of Staff Melee >_> I built for Single Target effectiveness in CoH, and I took that attack not for the AOE but the animation!

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?

If the Bubbler can't see how far their PBAoE field extends because the soap bubble is invisible to them from the inside then it becomes very hard to tell where to move yourself to get the best area coverage of other people who are moving around. Star Trek Online had this particular problem right now with the new Cruiser Auras (or at least did the last time I played a month ago) in that there's no visible "bubble" telling you where the edge of your aura field is, meaning that the only way to know if someone else is within range of your aura is to "fly the gauges" telling you how far away your teammates are (who are constantly moving too). Trust me, an invisible from the inside bubble is hardly preferable when it comes to situational awareness and tactical positioning.

Sailboat wrote:

Speaking of random, if we're having more than one animation for a power, allowing us to choose which animation OR randomly cycle through them would be nice. Some players might hate Animation A and never want to use it, but some players might like to see the variety.

Simplest way to accomplish this would be by use of a Checkbox UI system, rather than a Pick One styled system like City of Heroes had, allowing you to select multiple animations to randomly play for a specific Power.

Sailboat wrote:

Banking flight, please. At least as an option.

This is best achieved if Flying doesn't follow the same rules as Running for movement controls. Star Trek Online uses a Movement Throttle system, where you can go from -25% to +100% movement speed through use of a throttle. Net result is a return to the Battle of Britain style of movement, where constant thrust equals constant velocity. It's not a terribly complex change to effect, but it IS a different system of moving than just press forward to go forward.

Sailboat wrote:

And allow looking down while flying without having some "tap spacebar," kludge, please! Surveying the ground below is absolutely a fundamental use of flight.

I don't know what you're talking about. In City of Heroes is was perfectly possible to hold down Forward and Up (ie. spacebar) at the same time, yielding a diagonal forward/up vector of motion. Angle your camera down and you could align that up/forward vector to align with horizontal plane movement while looking down towards the street below. Lin Chiao Feng taught me how to do this (using 6-slot Hover) and called it Attack Helicopter Hover Movement. The key was to use the controls available in combinations in parallel, rather than sequentially, one at a time. Didn't take me long at all to get used to flying (Hovering, actually) forward while looking down to see what was below me. It was an easy Player Skill to learn.

That's fine for Outside of the bubble, but could get really distracting for Inside. Also not bad for a Personal bubble, but what about the Big one, which represents an effect on everyone within it?

Be Well!
Fireheart

I'm not sure if that's practical, unless you de-coupled movement from the Camera.

I also used to use this technique to fly straight, while looking down. And I never did fly perfectly horizontal, I just 'porpoised' up and down as I traveled. Only a mild annoyance.

Be Well!
Fireheart

Just thought I'd mention it again! Chain and Chained Kunai attack animations please!

JayBezz wrote:

So Many of my military friends consistently laugh at games that get it so very wrong.

Tabula Rasa had a terrible one of those issues. You had characters running around with rifles in their hands that were aimed "up" slightly above level when when moving. To be fair, City of Heroes did the same thing with Assault Rifle and the garage kitbashed Omnigun. This is basic gun safety STUPID. As anyone who knows gun culture (and this includes military personnel who didn't wash out of Basic Training) knows that when you're moving around you point your gun [i]at the deck/ground[/i] instead of up in the air, so that in case of an accidental discharge you stand next to no chance of shooting someone and having to explain afterwards. Now admittedly, in a game with "No Friendly Fire" that's something less of an issue than it is in the real world ... but still ... that's no excuse.

I like the overall flow of both staff and dual pistols animations. But I will agree with something I have seen hinted at all ready.
If time has been spent well on animations by the devs, and you have personally invested time in your costume........the ability to go "minimal fx is most welcome.
I enjoyed coh animations much more when I could select no fx, or only in pvp, or however it was labeled.
I much prefer the look of the motion and the sound fx sell the impact rather than a blinding trail of light and a sparkly impact.
In some cases (like my ss/elec brute) I was almost literally blinded. Rage+Overload=blind player, and totally lost animations.

Sailboat wrote:

Speaking of blinding the player, would it be feasible to recolor/resize/"jiggle" the mouse pointer somehow so we have a fighting chance of finding it onscreen?

THIS!!!

/Signed.... :)

Loved Jump Kick! Why I hope better from CoT version of Power Pool. Not saying such an animation will be in CoT or won't be available to the Primary Sets, but I only ever picked it up on characters I 1) thought would have such a kick and 2) had the spare power pick to grab it for fun (not all builds in CoH had room to pick up flavor attacks).

Fireheart wrote:

I heard that Jump Kick was Pretty and Strong...
Be Well!
Fireheart

Wasn't that Mace/EA Brutes?

Hellbender91 wrote:

10: i was very sad when i got to lvl 50 in COH when i first came out and even at the end. then i was disapointed that the end game was lacking so much that it seemed like the only reason to play anymore is to level another toon. dont make it a farm fest but look at (yes im gona say it) WoW for a great example they have a huge amount of end game content that really once you get to the max lvl then thats when the game really begins you can start doing a ton of stuff more and get more and more powerful.

Well, once they introduced the Incarnate content, there was tons and tons of endgame content. Did you try to get all the Incarnate stuff?

Frankly I wouldn't want a game to have [i]more[/i] emphasis on endgame than COH had with Incarnate. I [i]definitely[/i] wouldn't want it to "really begin" at the level cap. To me that's one of the worst features of the "older" style games; hopefully we've moved beyond that simplistic paradigm.

MORE HOLOGRAPHIC HONEYCOMB!

(All white? Perhaps light blue? maybe orange.. but not rainbow. Color changable.. maybe)