New Bow Anim

[Dram]

Ok, I changed it and I think this is decent enough to aim with.

 

If you think it's good Spring I'll put it up on SVN.

 

Also, the bow does'nt get in you way when aiming, so it's much easier to track a target. It's a 15 degree slant like the original was so yeah. You can't really use the arrow itself to aim because all of our arrows are slightly different size, but I think this is satisfactorily reliable to aim with. Where it's aimed in the screenie would hit the zombie in the neck or thereabouts.

[Springheel]

Looks good atm. Can you put in on the ftp so I can test it out?

[Dram]

Okay it's up. Clickeh

[SneaksieDave]

Hmm, the angle of the arrow looks very sharp. Gives me an overwhelming feeling of aiming left.

 

I was a fan of the version on SVN now, except for one thing: it was too low as a whole, so it felt like lobbing the arrow upward; as if aiming from the neck, instead of the cheek and eye.

[Dram]

well that's literally the same animation just just turned. If I were to make it more like the one i made for the bow sight one then I'd have to redo all of the anims from scratch. Which is what I did for the bow sight one. I'll pop that up onto the FTP and you guys can check it for the animation if it's easier to aim with. I'll apply it to the normal bow not the one with the sight....2 secs....

[Dram]

Ok, here it is. It uses your normal bow with no sight bow. Same drill as above, but upright atm. You'll also notice that I changed the anims completely to be more like T1/2, so you won't see the bow in the bottom left anymore with this. Of course, all can be changed.

 

These anims are the easiest to aim with btw.

 

Clicky

[Dram]

I tweaked the upright anims further, made them much smoother. The advantage is that the bow moves off the screen to the bottom right instead of turn and down like the original ones, which obscured your view.

 

These new ones are'nt uploaded though. I'll try these new bow anims with the sightless bow

[Dram]

And even more tweaked specifically for slanted sightless bow. I think it's perfect now though there's no corner of bow in bottom left of screen, though I can add that in if' it's really loved. Uploading the anims now, as soon as they're done I post link.

[Dram]

Ok it's up, here's the link. Please try. Bow moves off to bottom right after shooting.

 

Slanted Sightless Bow anims

[Dram]

And finally finished the Thief-like bow anims.

 

For anyone who wants to try here is the link: Clicky

 

I spent ages adding the little subtleties like the hand wobble etc. Spring, please look at these too as I can modify them for the slanted bow, would only take about 30 minutes work for that.

[New Horizon]

Could someone post the latest guis folder for me? I can't update from SVN right now for some reason, and I would like to try this but things aren't working properly for me right now. Would like the full experience.

[Dram]

ok uploading the zipped guis folder now. It's a 50mb zip btw, should be done within an hour ar thereabouts.

 

The link (for when it's done) is here: The GUIs Folder

 

Is this the only thing you need NH btw?

[Springheel]

Whoa, that's a lot of links.

 

I'm at work at the moment so I won't be able to check these for a few hours.

[SneaksieDave]

Wow, very different. Hm. I'm really not sure what to say, I get mixed feelings. I like that it draws tight toward the face, and higher up the cheek (though perhaps a little low still... it's probably enough for a game though, and might look odd if higher - the shaft would be much thicker and that might not look so great). I also like seeing that much of the hand, and the anims themselves are quite good (I especially like the way the arms settle when the arrow is drawn fully - I don't know if that's new though, or I'm just paying close attention to it right now - very cool though). On the other hand, I've never been a fan of using the aiming sight, and doing so now has the arrow aiming significantly off-center to the left. So it wouldn't just be a matter of disabling the sight, or making it invisible - you'd still be shooting off center without it.

 

I gotta say as I did perhaps a year ago... I'm not sure why we got rid of the original Oddity animations for this.

[Dram]

@NH: Ok, it's done uploading.

 

@SD: Which anims are you talking about btw, the last one's I posted? Could you draw a quick mockup or something to show how you wanted the bow? or a link to a pic or something? Then I can make them to fit that

 

I basically made these uprightbow anims so I could use them or anyone else who liked the T1/2 bow with the sight. Since the bow functionality is unaffected, it's a matter of taste.

[SneaksieDave]

Yeah I only checked out the last ones; I assumed they were the most updated.

I'll see if I can find a pic or something... damn, I think the best we could do would be to get a POV cam view of an archer drawing and hitting a target.

 

Edit:

Since the bow functionality is unaffected, it's a matter of taste.

Are you sure? It looks very much like it's aiming off to the left of the screen. In fact when I aim the way I got used to with Scott's anim, the arrow ends up going off left (because it's sent toward the sight). Then again, I guess that could be an illusion, since I didn't measure the screen.

 

Re-Edit:

Nevermind, yep, just took a second look and it appears the arrow still goes to the center. Weird, I must be so used to the other one now. Going to need to do side-by-side comparison movies or something.

[SneaksieDave]

Okay, some side by side analysis.

 

In the first image, we see both anims (current (1) and new (2)) in a similar knock position. Here I think #1 wins out, but barely. It just looks more natural. Perhaps it's the slant. #2 looks good as well.

 

In this image, the animation is drawing back. Again, I still think I prefer some slant, but I think #2 wins out here. In #1, I'd never noticed but the arrow is through the fingers, and the rope is through the hand - they're not being held by the hand as they are in #2. However, the upright grip on #2 does feel rigid, as if it's a robot mounting an arrow, instead of a person.

 

Finally, full draw. IMO, #2 wins out here. #1 is too low; it feels like you'd be lobbing the arrow upward, aiming from your chest, instead of your chin or cheek. This makes a big difference in my opinion. However, I think the arm position in #1 is a bit better. I would personally take #1 and draw the rig up to #2's anchoring position for this one.

 

One thing which exists in all animations; I've never felt the arrow draws back far enough. When fully drawn, it looks like there is probably around a foot of arrow beyond the bow. Unless these are really long arrows, they'd be drawn almost to the head, which might also help make aiming feel more natural.

 

Overall, I think my personal wish leans toward a relaxed natural look (slight slant), no sight (probably optional), and a jawbone-high draw with some perspective angle toward center, but not too much. I think both of the examples above do a pretty good job in the perspective angle - not so angled that you're looking at the side of the shaft, but not so straight, that you're staring down the barrel.

 

Hope this helps.

[ascottk]

Welcome to my world, Dram , I tried modifying the bow animations twice since I joined but you can only please half the people most of the time & most of the people half the time . . . or something. The greatest challenge is not the animations, but pleasing most of the TDM members

[Dram]

@ascottk: lol guess I'm in for a shift then

 

@SD: Hmm, did you try out the "Slanted Sightless Bow anims" - there's a clicky there called that, try those, I think it might be what you want SD

 

I'll wait for more people try it out too before doing further changes. Otherwise one person would be happy and another would'nt etc.

[Dram]

Speaking of bows and arrows, has anyone seen the new gas arrow effect?

[Springheel]

I tried the angled bow one. I like a few things about it, but I noticed some things that didn't seem quite right.

 

1. The draw animation seemed strange--you put the arrow out first and then move the bow out into place. Seems like it should be the other way around.

 

edit: After playing with it a little more, this effect seemed a lot less noticeable. There's something about the way the arrow comes on screen before the bow, but it seems like I'm getting used to it pretty quickly.

 

2. The 'launch' of the arrow seems slower somehow, and it looks strange.

 

3. The arrow doesn't quite go where you expect it to based on where it's pointing...it goes a little up and to the right.

 

edit: Again, playing with it a bit more this effect seemed less of an issue.

 

I don't have strong feelings either way about removing the bow from the corner of the screen when selected.

 

I agree with Sneaksie that the arrow doesn't seem to be drawn back far enough (when I was getting crappy framerates and the animation was in slow motion you can see that the end of the arrow is actually in front of the player's hand by a considerable amount).

 

 

has anyone seen the new gas arrow effect?

 

It's new?

[Dram]

I tried the angled bow one. I like a few things about it, but I noticed some things that didn't seem quite right.

 

1. The draw animation seemed strange--you put the arrow out first and then move the bow out into place. Seems like it should be the other way around.

 

edit: After playing with it a little more, this effect seemed a lot less noticeable. There's something about the way the arrow comes on screen before the bow, but it seems like I'm getting used to it pretty quickly.

 

2. The 'launch' of the arrow seems slower somehow, and it looks strange.

 

3. The arrow doesn't quite go where you expect it to based on where it's pointing...it goes a little up and to the right.

 

edit: Again, playing with it a bit more this effect seemed less of an issue.

 

I don't have strong feelings either way about removing the bow from the corner of the screen when selected.

 

I agree with Sneaksie that the arrow doesn't seem to be drawn back far enough (when I was getting crappy framerates and the animation was in slow motion you can see that the end of the arrow is actually in front of the player's hand by a considerable amount).

 

The launch is as fast as the original, in fact a little bit faster (the arrow flying out of bow that is), it might be the lagging of the bow afterwards? it basically jolts forward and then slowly recovers while moving off to the right.

 

The problem with the arrow not going where you expect is one which is very hard to solve. The arrow bone itself is pointing perfectly straight in the end of the pullback and shoot, so it's basically the perspective which is confusing, and is something that is very hard to fix. I could try rotating the arrow around a bit but I doubt it'll ever look perfectly correct, unless you have the arrow in bottom center screen, in which case it's easy of course, but would look silly.

 

The arrow drawback is a problem of the size of the bow itself. It's a shortbow and can only draw back so far before looking like a comet. I could make it draw back further but then the bow might look like it's about to snap.

 

 

So in essence, what should I change? Should I just forget about it and we use the old ones, or should I modify the ones I made a little further? if yes then please tell me more or less what I should change please. So something like:

*arrow draws further by about 5% etc

 

It's new?

 

Yeah yeah, I made a new one which starts from a small area and spreads out a bit before fading away. The original just started big and faded out, looked notsogreat.

[SneaksieDave]

Anyone know where Oddity's originals are? It'd be best to put them all on the table for comparison.

 

At the moment, I'm feeling most comfortable with the existing ones, except for the loft angle. If that were raised up higher, like how Dram's new ones are, the arrow anchored on (or at least closer to) the jawbone, it'd be better. But, I don't have Oddity's originals laying around to compare, and the only thing I remember problematic about them was the side-angled-ness.

[Springheel]

I only have a screenshot of Odd's, not any of the original animations (unless they're in his rar pack--that's worth a look).

 

Dram, let me have another look at them tonight and I'll give you more concrete suggestions. I have a feeling it's the kind of thing we can nit-pick to death, and after a while we just have to pick something and get used to it.

[ascottk]

oDD's bow didn't have the barrel joint, I added that, so the arrows shoot from where the arrows are attached instead of the center of the screen. With the barrel joint we can move the position of the bow & the arrow launch point. Without it, it'd look strange if we moved the bow & still had arrows launch from the center of the screen.

 

EDIT: I agree with Spring's assessment about the animations: the drawing is weird (angled too close to the face), the arrow does seem to glide along the bow slower, & the aiming does need some getting used to.