Animation for casting spells

[Florian]

Inspired by Schmurck's work for the missiles and the rotating torso I though we might add something similar to casting spells. When the player is not in a fighting/walking/anything animation the char could raise an arm for some spells like remote heal or poison.

 

/EDIT: no server command is needed. The client gets the eye candy message to draw the effect and all arm movement is done in the message handler. This will also help with keeping the arm movement and the spell in sync.

Edited January 3, 2008 by Florian

[Learner]

Inspired by Schmurck's work for the missiles and the rotating torso I though we might add something similar to casting spells. When the player is not in a fighting/walking/anything animation the char could raise an arm for some spells like remote heal or poison.

 

/EDIT: no server command is needed. The client gets the eye candy message to draw the effect and all arm movement is done in the message handler. This will also help with keeping the arm movement and the spell in sync.

Considering you might be fighting or defending yourself when you cast a spell since EL does allow both at the same time, this could be a problem with adding animations.

[Fedora]

mmm...interesting. This way could it be possible to implement gestures on the client without server changes? I mean we could:

 

- capture the local chat where people usually roleplay by prefixing ":" before an action (i.e. ": waves at", ": nods"...)

- move the bones of the actor according to the action

[Florian]

Considering you might be fighting or defending yourself when you cast a spell since EL does allow both at the same time, this could be a problem with adding animations.

 

... When the player is not in a fighting/walking/anything animation ...

 

IIRC the actor struct "knows" if the player is currently in an animation, so it should be quite easy to check if the player is idle.

[TheComet]

If possible it'd be neat to see different animations for different magic levels, kinda like a visual way to telling how skilled someone is, IE:

lvl 0-9 - slightly clumsy waving of the arm, not straight up

10-19 - more structured and smoother movement

20-29 - clean movement accompanied by some small eye candy effect

30-39 - increased eye candy effect, light halo at the hand when cast

40-49 - more dramatic version of the previous, perhaps have the cape wave a little if that is ever possible (would take some mesh editing I'd imagine though)

ect ect

[Khalai]

If possible it'd be neat to see different animations for different magic levels, kinda like a visual way to telling how skilled someone is, IE:

lvl 0-9 - slightly clumsy waving of the arm, not straight up

10-19 - more structured and smoother movement

20-29 - clean movement accompanied by some small eye candy effect

30-39 - increased eye candy effect, light halo at the hand when cast

40-49 - more dramatic version of the previous, perhaps have the cape wave a little if that is ever possible (would take some mesh editing I'd imagine though)

ect ect

 

Sounds very good!

[xenkoriu]

I like this idea seeing as in the past I have suggested more animations being added, especially for when using the manufacture window, your char simply sits there and does nothing. Go magic animations too!

[ChrisC]

necro ftw, but i was just playing oblivion, and liked the way it had animations as it cast spells. seems to have been talked about a bit here, but now that we have emotes in-game, kinda seems like a good time to bring it up.

 

say heal or restore the character raises his fist up and clenches it as you see the eyecandy. well the problem in fighting would be the person would jsut stop, well wouldnt it be posible beings its only using the upper half, have where the player is still in the stance but only moves his upper body.

 

exc.

fighting frame 1 ->2 ->3 Normal

fighting frame 1 ->2 ->3a (uses restore after frame 2)

if restore is used after fram one then "frame 2a" is used, if its used after frame 2, its "frame 3a" ect. ect.

Hope you know what i mean, trying to explain it the best i can

[Devnul]

At least it would be nice if all the spells have eye candy. For example Life Drain is still just a message from server

I think creating eye candy for it won't be a lot of work.

[Fedora]

With emotes, adding casting and summoning gestures is very easy, it will be done if not in the next update in the summer one. If I'm not wrong, the animation files are already there. But no support for casting animations while fighting is possible due to the limitations of cal3d.

 

As for eye candy...the life drain effect IS in the client, but for reasons unknown to me the function for it is not called when the fx message is received.

[nathanstenzel]

With emotes, adding casting and summoning gestures is very easy, it will be done if not in the next update in the summer one. If I'm not wrong, the animation files are already there. But no support for casting animations while fighting is possible due to the limitations of cal3d.

 

As for eye candy...the life drain effect IS in the client, but for reasons unknown to me the function for it is not called when the fx message is received.

I imagine it would be bad to have light effects and gestures show while you are about to cast Invisibility while anywhere near someone you wish to sneak up on since it would bring attention to you.

 

We must always imagine that some spells would be designed to be cast in such a way as to not notice them or it might be impractical to have gesture components. The gesture components is why in most games and roleplaying games, the magic user can't be in combat without losing the chance to cast spells, since receiving a hit would stop the spell.

 

I suggest verbal components to some of the spells. Some non-violent ones could be said softly while violent ones could sound loud and harsh. A great language to use for it would be Greek, but utter nonsense should work too.

[eadricng]

On a side note...does that mean mages can't double harm anymore? (if they have to wait for the casting animation to end before casting another spell, for eg.) But in general, yes, I think it would be a good addition.

[Devnul]

With emotes, adding casting and summoning gestures is very easy, it will be done if not in the next update in the summer one. If I'm not wrong, the animation files are already there. But no support for casting animations while fighting is possible due to the limitations of cal3d.

 

As for eye candy...the life drain effect IS in the client, but for reasons unknown to me the function for it is not called when the fx message is received.

 

Any ideas how to fix missing eye candy for LD?

[bluap]

I've just put in some debug code and the Life Drain effect does not appear to be sent from the server. Also, the main effect parsing routine does not include a call to create the life drain effect even if the messages was sent.

[Fedora]

I've just put in some debug code and the Life Drain effect does not appear to be sent from the server. Also, the main effect parsing routine does not include a call to create the life drain effect even if the messages was sent.

 

LOL, that's why the effect is not played then

[Devnul]

Anyone reported this as a bug or something?

[learg]

Any hope that LD effect will work?