All Things Art: Animation Edition

Here's something else that came to mind: More intricate and eloquent blast powers. There really is one easy example of this - every fight ever fought in Avatar: The Last Airbender, especially the fights right at the end. Seriously, Avatar's style of fighting is amazing, especially as a take on what comic books have traditionally interpreted as "point and shoot" attacks like fire blasts. They don't have to be, and this is proof.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Not a new request so much an old request to fix a long-outstanding animation bug:

The Peacebringer CCEmote's timing is broken when flying or hovering -- specifically, the emote triggers, but the costume doesn't change until about 5-7 seconds after the animation finishes. It's been broken, as far as I can tell, since the CCemotes went live a few issues back.

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Echoing alternate power animations (and the ability to assign animation choices to individual powers as opposed to whole powersets).

Non-flight wing emotes.

Animated costume details.

Fix Dark Shield, please. The setup allows for color changing but opting to do so doesn't actually change the color (3rd request btw).

More animation/life from the surrounding architecture/landscape/tilesets. People, shadows and lighting it the windows/doorways.

Better animation/contrast between day/night cycles.

Rolling fog near shorelines and spooky places.

Better AI for pedestrian vehicles (cars and boats) in relation to player proximities. (ie. they come to a halt when you get in their way or honk loudly)

Pedestrians actually stopping to interact when you R-Click: Chat them.

Actually seeing ferries in transit redside (like the trains on blueside).

More creepy crawlies (and other shadowy life) in cave maps.

Animated vegetation.

Allowing players to flip through their costume variants at the character selection screen.

Opt-in/out screen shake and/or controller rumble for hitting/getting hit with certain attack types or specific attacks.

Now that we have animated tails... how about animated ears?

Alternate Animations that change the apparent source of the power

Specific Power Example.
- "Fire/Ice Breath " that has a cone animation coming from the arms, like most other powers. If I'm making a tech-based ice blaster akin to Mr Freeze, I can make a case for arm-mounted blasters... but something coming from his mouth... notsomuch.
- Fire/Ice Sword Circles and Greater Fire/Ice swords that just show flaming (icy) fists rather than a blade manifest?
-" X-Ray Beam" comes from the eyes? so much of the set would work for tech-sourced arm cannons... shame to skip this power to maintain the theme. Why not an arm beam alternative?

A Full Powerset Example.
- SONIC (Most/All)- Again, the animations seem to focus on a mutant biological origin using the mouth.. How about a sonic cannon for tech players (see Goldbrickers)? How about arm mounted sonic sources?

DEVICE POWERS
How about magical /Superscience Items As Power Sources? The most iconic example would be a certain *ring and lantern combo* but wands, amulets, gauntlets, swords, hammers, and rings could all be good sources of power for a hero. Right now, the fist-origin of so many powers lets us do reasonable gauntlets and rings. But...

- You could point a mystic "fire sword" at a target, causing and the flames to leap from there.
- A swing of the sword unleases the cone attack.
- A massive build up to an overhead swing replaces the snipe.
- This would have a high bang for the buck as it applies just as well to fire, ice, energy, electricty, darkness, etc.
- Possible Tech limitation- might need to add a 'redraw' animation to sets that don't currently need redraw.

Another thing I'd like to see would be an alternative animation for that silly chest beating emote that you get when you turn on Integration - it's really unsuitable

Here's kind of an off-the wall suggestion: why not make some animations and/or emotes that are Origin-specific? Currently, a character's Origin is irrelevant, for the most part.

For example, Caemgen mentioned that the "tricorder" gizmo animation from the Medicine pool power was incongruent for their character of Magic origin. What if the animations for the Medicine pool power was linked to the character's Origin, instead? That way, Aid Other could have these different animations:

• Technology - the original "tricorder" gizmo
• Science - a different gizmo with a different animation
• Magic - character casts a spell with a fancy rune (like from the MM Demon set)
• Natural - character tosses a bandage roll or first aid kit (like from the MM Merc set)
• Mutation - character lobs a blob of "healing goo" onto target

Minor thing: can we update the /em cellphone emote with a 21st century phone, please? The current one looks like we bought it in 1985, and haven't upgraded since.

Also: maybe a new /em smartphone emote that looks like we're thumbing through text messages or web pages on a Blackberry or iPhone, instead of holding it up to our heads to listen? Does anybody actually talk on their phones any more, these days?

Origin locked anaimations would be too restricting - for example, someone might have a time-travelling magic user who's learning to use modern technology, so they'd want a blend of animation types for their powers - or a mutant that uses natural methods and items as a back up.

Please fix the sliding civilians.

Hooo boy. Here we go.

First off, and I've mentioned this to Chris MULTIPLE times: Add /em getsome and /em bringit as alternate taunt animations.

We like the idea of alternate points of origin for powers. That is all.

The Origin of our toons seems to have fallen by the wayside largely now that Invention Origin enhancements have all but replaced DO's and SO's. We should use the Origin to help define our characters thematic style. For example, Origin-thematic power animations. Wands and magic spells and shield wards, futuretech-style hand weapons or armors, bio-horror growths and plate scales, etc.

Here's an idea: Set flags for predisposition of animation based on Origin type. If you're a Magic-origin, sort the powers with wands and spellcastings first, biologics (stuff that would be mutant/natural sorted first), stock animations, then techno/sci implements last. This way you can STILL play a technomage if you so desire.
I think the idea of LOCKING animations to origin is a terrible idea. We need more options, not less.

For Power Pool customization, here is my list:
Expanded animation on Flight. Banks, rolls, turns. Tweak the wings so they act more natural. The abrupt stop animation is a start, expand on that. Have the rocket boots fire harder when accelerating or braking. Maybe have some craftable rocket gauntlets (think Iron Man's hand stabilizers or Dynaguy from The Incredibles.) that flare when you turn or function as Retro Rockets when you brake.
I honestly don't have a vested interest in rocket packs but I would like to see the ones we already have added as regular Fly animation.

Teleport: I like the idea of the presto-changeo poof from place to place. Also consider using the Ninja smoke bomb like we have for the CCE (Ninja, VANISH!), and the Wormhole animation as a teleport effect. But without the violent disembarkation. A more techno-themed teleport, like Star-Trek style transporter beam or the Sims Teleport command, wouldn't go wrong either. IDK what you guys have planned for the Mutant Pack but using a Burrow animation for TP could be worth a look. (Dive into the ground and leave the burrow hole, then spawn a second hole on the ground at the exit point and have the player "pop out" to the elevation of the target.

Superspeed: We need some motion blur. IIRC we saw a hint of that in the trailer for GR. It looked pretty good so this is a here's hoping. Also: Smoking feet. Running that fast causes a lot of friction. Maybe lay a smolder trail where we've run?

Superleap: We need more realistic jumping. There's no real pushing happening in the legs, it's just lift off and pull the legs away from the ground with a click of feet and a grunt. Also, some of the acrobatics and flippy goodness in Ninja Run needs to perpetuate to SL.
Perhaps we could also get some impact craters when we land? That'd be neat.

Fix the doors, please.

When you enter a building, the doors open outward. This is all good and proper. When you exit the building, however, they also pull toward you. This is not correct. Doors swing one way, and one way only, otherwise, you're going to smack someone in the face.

(And yes, this is an animation, in my mind.)

Also, how about some doors that slide from side to side, like they do at big, modern buildings? Or revolving doors?

It's probably already been said, but I would like to see ice/fire melee able to use all swords or all punch-y attacks through the use of alternate animations.

Since the swords don't cause redraw time to be invested, it shouldn't be a balance issue to make new animations for the other attacks.

Just as an example: I've got a desert warrior concept (video linked in my sig) that the fire scimitar works very well for. I would very much like it if the sword was all he fought with, and incinerate and combustion were given sword swinging animations.