Request: Player melee cancel attack animations

[Ishtvan]

It turns out if we want to be able to cancel a melee attack, we need animations that start at the "backswing" stop point, but go backwards back to the weapon idle position. Just like we have for the bow cancellation where it starts out drawn and goes back to idle.

 

These can probably be pretty fast animations, in case the player wants to rapidly change attack directions (they'll still have to go thru the backswing of the other attack, so the actual recovery from backswing to center should be pretty fast).

 

Any takers? I believe Flanders has files for the attack animations (and they are really good btw ).

[Ishtvan]

Btw, if it's too difficult to cut the animation at the back-swing and run it backwards, one alternative that might work is just a number of frames of a static back-swing, that we could then try to anim-blend into the idle pose, letting the blending do all the actual joint movement. I'm not sure if that would work/look good enoguh though, so the safest bet IMO is still taking the existing anims, cutting them at the back-swing and reversing them.

[Domarius]

I just sent a PM to Flanders letting him know about this thread. Worst case, I'll have a go.

[Flanders]

So many posts, so little time . Can't do this any time soon.

[Ishtvan]

Are we likely to get this animation before release? If not, we will probably have to disable the ability to cancel melee attacks, because with no recovery animation you can cancel your attack and start a new one faster than the AI can ever respond to it and always win fights.

 

It would be a shame to forbid cancelling of attacks though, because there are still situations where we want to be able to cancel: player changing their mind, jumping on a rope or in water which currently forces a swing before cancelling the attack, usually resulting in a loud noise getting you caught.

 

There might still be a way to do this with animation blending, but I can't figure out how. How do you slowly blend from the attack-ready animation into the idle animation? Whenever I play with the blend frames commands, it just cuts off the end of the animation and immediately jumps to the next one.

[Flanders]

Are we likely to get this animation before release?

I don't have time before 29-06, then is the last of my exams.

[Flanders]

I can see why you should be able to cancel an attack when you jump on a rope or in water. Then the attack should be cancelled automatically. But were not gonna use a new button for cancelling an attack in other cases right? Combat controls should be kept simple. In any thief game, if I want to abort my attack I just let it go in a direction where I can't hit a wall.

[Dram]

In any thief game, if I want to abort my attack I just let it go in a direction where I can't hit a wall.

 

Ahh, but in T1/2 you could'nt actually hit a wall with the sword Only doors and other entities.

[Ishtvan]

I can see why you should be able to cancel an attack when you jump on a rope or in water. Then the attack should be cancelled automatically. But were not gonna use a new button for cancelling an attack in other cases right? Combat controls should be kept simple. In any thief game, if I want to abort my attack I just let it go in a direction where I can't hit a wall.

 

We already have a button to cancel the attack, the block button. It works fine for the bow, because we have a cancel animation for it. This control scheme also works fine in Mount & Blade. With the sword there is no animation right now so it teleports back.

 

Letting the attack swing forward is not really cancelling it, sometimes you actually want to cancel it quickly without swinging your view around first.

[Flanders]

cancel anims are in the broadsword folder now

[Ishtvan]

Great, thanks! When I next get free time, I'll edit the weapon script to play the right one when you cancel.