Suggestions Options

[Lord-Jyssev]

Hi guys. Decided to make a new topic for suggestions instead the so-called "TODO list."

[WoRm]

This will come in vastly handy when I start uploading .gif animations of upcoming creature animations.

[Lord-Jyssev]

glad to be of any assistance!

[Lord-Jyssev]

the hill giant's back is a little bumpy...

[Baronius]

and it is dark yellow (I suppose it has such colour in NWN but I find it weird)... can the colour be changed (not by you, but by the user of the animation) ?

[T.G.Maestro]

the hill giant's back is a little bumpy...

ALL of the animations are a little bumpy, but I fear there is little to be done to avoid this - since NWN animations are put together from several "body parts" instead of being directly drawn in 2D, they will always looks a bit worse - even in NWN.

and it is dark yellow (I suppose it has such colour in NWN but I find it weird)...

I see nothing wrong with this, but if it is changed to a bit more greyish tone, its all the better.

Now, lets see the previews one by one.

Hill Giant: looks good, but the skin color could be changed to soft grey instead. Also, it would be essential to allow them to use a club.

Minotaur Prince: great one. Both the animation and the coloring looks nice, the multiple weapons are also appreciated.

Gelatinous Cube: niiiice .

Balor: the basic animation looks awesome, yet the flames on the sword, wings and the whip are lacking. WoRm, you said these will be added MUCH later - why is that, if I may ask? Also, what's wrong with dual wielding?

This post has been edited by T.G.Maestro: Jul 22 2005, 07:53 AM

[WoRm]

Tg Maestro is right here,,,the earlier animations are far more 'polygonal' then some of the newer stuff since the expansions.

as for coloring...its mostly area lighting that gives the creatures color...so its easy enough...just don't know what color a hill giant is supposed to be? greyish?...this can easily be done.

what do others think?

[T.G.Maestro]

Oh, we posted at the same time WoRm - see my edited post above!

This post has been edited by T.G.Maestro: Jul 22 2005, 07:55 AM

[WoRm]

Hill giant will definitely have access to a club as well as a few other weapons...and the color will be adjusted and re-uploaded

as for the balor...the reaon for the flames being added in later is because the flames have to coincide with the actual animation, and since this will rely on particles and gravity modifier, not to mention the looong time rendering for each frame I want to have the 'base' animation as good as the community feels it should be before moving on to said flame renderings..
also it would be possible to dual wield but in a rather unorthodox way.. you see each creature can be assigned a special prefix which allows a weapon to be wielded ...like S for Swords, D for daggers,so on and so forth..so the only way to dual wield this would be to create a weapon animation that consisted of BOTH sword and whip then creating an item with a unique identifier that would play said animation upon equip....perhaps I was too soon in saying it wouldn't be done....just that it wouldn't get done till all other aspects of the Balor are complete...

also a note on the size of the creatures...no can do here. as mentioned in other posts here and other forums only a 256x256 animation can be rendered by the game thus if I make the frames any bigger it won't display in game....and if I zoom in anymore on the creature the wing animation for some actions...namely attack sequences would clip horribly.....I might possibly have a workaround for this by adding the wings as a seperate animation added into the weapons animation....but we'll see

hope this all made sense

[Galactygon]

My main problem about the animations (besides the polygonal appearance) is the angle you view them from is not consistent with the ones in-game; they are a bit to close to being vertical (I don't know how to phrase this correctly).

So when you play them in BGII, you will find their angles out of place from the surrounding orthogonal creatures and environment.

-Galacctygon

[WoRm]

this can and could be easily fixed

[T.G.Maestro]

also a note on the size of the creatures...no can do here. as mentioned in other posts here and other forums only a 256x256 animation can be rendered by the game thus if I make the frames any bigger it won't display in game....and if I zoom in anymore on the creature the wing animation for some actions...namely attack sequences would clip horribly.....I might possibly have a workaround for this by adding the wings as a seperate animation added into the weapons animation....but we'll see

This would be a fine improvement for these otherwise perfect animations - it is worth experimenting with it once you have some extra time on your hands.

[Nerik]

In BG2 very large creatures (i.e. dragons) are built up of several animations stuck togeather - does anyone know how this is done, and if so, whether this would allow WoRm to build larger creature animations?

Charles

[WoRm]

well it definitely would...and I have been tinkering with replacing som,e of the unused dragons (purple...multicolored,etc) in order to add a Drcolich and several of the good metalic dragons...i.e. bronze,goldetc.

I just don't have time to figure out how the animations work in this aspect.

any news would be extremely helpful.

[T.G.Maestro]

several of the good metalic dragons...i.e. bronze,goldetc

Another problem with these larger NWN animations would be their visual quality. While a Dracolich would look great (because of it's skeletal structure), a large Gold Dragon would look quite crappy compared to the original BG2 dragons.