My compilation of Titan Weapon animation and effects problems
By
Bosstone,
Posted on: 2011-12-14 11:50 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I think you're half right. The contact effects on the enemies (the dummies in your vid) definitely look delayed. Most of the arcs and "swoosh" effects that you are asking about seem, to me, to be simulating the sheer mass of these weapons, and actually look correct to me for the most part.
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I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
The arcs themselves aren't out of place, but they start at odd moments and end at own moments and actually travel with the weapon like they're attached. It's their timing that concerns me, because a lot of the time I've seen my character turn her weapon on its axis and the arc will turn with it, which a "motion path" shouldn't do.
There are also a few "boomerang" arc effects that seem to emanate from nothing at all and point in directions that aren't at all consistent with the weapon's actual direction of motion. The Arc of Destruction "What is that?" swing arcs are, I think, the best examples, as those quite literally seem like they're from another power entirely.
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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.
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THANK YOU for making that vid Sam.
This was one of the first things that Hubby mentioned as we were playing our shiney new TW toons. Not only are the animations not synced up well, but sounds seem to be off as well. He finds it very distracting. I've noticed it in some of the more egregious instances, but honestly I'm still adjusting to the molasses animation of those initial strikes.
You are not hallucinating, crazy, nor alone in these observations.
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Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson |
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I have absolutely no idea whats going on when I play my TW char. I swing, the screen shakes, I get a good rumble, people "get arrested". There is too much chaos going on for me to see any of this stuff.
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Hew in drag baby
I'm gonna have to agree with you here, Sam. The hit delays and misaligned arcs are something that should be fixed. I remember how quick the changes to Dual Blades' hit times were (Vengeful Slice, most notably) when it came out, so hopefully the devs can fix the times here quickly as well.
EDIT: You forgot one MAJOR thing with Arc of Destruction (No Momentum): Watch your character's left forearm and tell me just how they were able to follow through with the rest of the attack. During the downswing, the left arm seems to either rotate and break the character's arm, or the arm resets itself and passes through the weapon. There's no way you could wind up that attack with your left forearm twisted around 180 degrees.
EDIT2: I meant left arm. Oops.
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I can't watch the video at work, but I'm sure all those animation problems exist. Still...I dunno? I've had fun with the set and I don't really get confused about what's going on, at least no more so than with any other attack powerset. And I seem to be the only person who has no issue with the sound effects at all.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
I only watched about two minutes of this, but thank you for putting this together. Time Lapse Weapons is getting to me. Have you noticed whether or not the damage effect (the actual -hp/orange numbers) correspond with any particular point in each animation? It seems to me that they happen last of all, and well after the animation has concluded.
Without filming things, I can't prove this, but I want to say that one in five attacks results in me attacking someone before the damage from the last attack has hit yet.
In some cases, I'm attacking someone who is already defeated/dead.
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Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
Without filming things, I can't prove this, but I want to say that one in five attacks results in me attacking someone before the damage from the last attack has hit yet.
In some cases, I'm attacking someone who is already defeated/dead. |
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Hew in drag baby
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Actually, Dual Blades Vengeful Slice was the first power I did a slow-mo video for exactly because it was so mis-timed and no amount of reporting it seemed to do anything. I ended up PM-ing the video to BABs directly at one point a few months before it finally got fixed. I can't say whether my video is the one that did it or if we just piled on enough complaints, but in my eyes that seemed to take forever. That power had four swings, FIVE hit effects in terms of graphics but played only three sounds and nothing was synched with anything else. Oi!|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
I'm gonna have to agree with you here, Sam. The hit delays and misaligned arcs are something that should be fixed. I remember how quick the changes to Dual Blades' hit times were (Vengeful Slice, most notably) when it came out, so hopefully the devs can fix the times here quickly as well.
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Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
EDIT: You forgot one MAJOR thing with Arc of Destruction (No Momentum): Watch your character's left forearm and tell me just how they were able to follow through with the rest of the attack. During the downswing, the left arm seems to either rotate and break the character's arm, or the arm resets itself and passes through the weapon. There's no way you could wind up that attack with your left forearm twisted around 180 degrees.
EDIT2: I meant left arm. Oops. |
But, no, I didn't notice the arm. I just got Arc of Destruction yesterday, which is what I'd been waiting on to do this compilation, so I haven't had a chance to play with the power proper. I'll keep an eye out for it, though.
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Originally Posted by Bosstone
I can't watch the video at work, but I'm sure all those animation problems exist. Still...I dunno? I've had fun with the set and I don't really get confused about what's going on, at least no more so than with any other attack powerset. And I seem to be the only person who has no issue with the sound effects at all.
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As for the sound effects, I suspect they changed a little since Beta. They seem louder to me, at least. More metal banging, less just wind. That, and Whirling Smash has a very heavy, hard impact sound, almost like what you used to hear in the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons when two cars collided. It's distinct enough to make it sound very heavy. Arc of Destruction, sadly, does not have the same sound, which is disappointing.
I didn't include sound effects in this because I'm running the footage at a quarter speed and the sound is REALLY funky when played that slow
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Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
I only watched about two minutes of this, but thank you for putting this together. Time Lapse Weapons is getting to me. Have you noticed whether or not the damage effect (the actual -hp/orange numbers) correspond with any particular point in each animation? It seems to me that they happen last of all, and well after the animation has concluded.
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Also, when your damage numbers start coming in late, keep a VERY sharp eye on your netgraph. Red bars and lost packets on that can cause damage numbers and enemy defeats to be delayed on your end. I've had that happen quite a few times because my connection occasionally spazzes out for seconds at a time and just starts dropping my packets left and right. However, in normal play, I've not experienced damage being delayed past the hit effect on the enemy.
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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.
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Magisterial as always, Sam. I've been enjoying my TW Brute, but I definitely see what you're talking about in the video.
EDIT: I spotted a typo! "Rend Armour" instead of "Rend Armor"! What a wacky spelling mistake! 
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
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It would appear from your video that the hit effects are timed with a normal attack without momentum so when you get the momentum buff and a faster animated attack the hit effects are delayed. The other stuff is just sloppy on a designer's part.
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This is also my "presumption" as well. |
Originally Posted by Grae Knight
It would appear from your video that the hit effects are timed with a normal attack without momentum so when you get the momentum buff and a faster animated attack the hit effects are delayed. The other stuff is just sloppy on a designer's part.
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As Impish Kat mentioned, I find the delayed hit effect, animation, sound and "orange numbers" when you've got momentum a bit immersion breaking. I mentioned this in the Titan Weapons beta bug report thread shorty after TW went live.
I find the other sloppiness to the arc animations etc. less immersion breaking as I'm distracted by the delays, etc.
As for you "not hallucinating, or being crazy"... I leave that up for others to decide.
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Originally Posted by PapaSlade
Rangle's right....this is fun.
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I did notice that it's the Momentum animations of powers that most often had delayed hit effects, but I don't think the culprit is as easy to point to. The difference in attack speed between having and not having Momentum is not insignificant, and is quite a bit longer than the delay in these attacks. If hit effects actually were delayed by as much as the Momentum difference, this would have been far more obvious to far more people and would likely never have been allowed to go Live. Well, so I hope, anyway |
Originally Posted by Grae Knight
It would appear from your video that the hit effects are timed with a normal attack without momentum so when you get the momentum buff and a faster animated attack the hit effects are delayed. The other stuff is just sloppy on a designer's part.
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At the very least with Rend Armour, it's pretty obvious that its non-Momentum animation is that of Assassin's Blade from Ninja Blade, but with added "wind" effects, which makes it obvious why everything is timed right - it was timed right in the animation this is drawn from. The with-Momentum animation of Rend Armour, however, looks to be brand new, and as such is mistimed. To be honest, the "wind" effect on the with-Momentum animation for Rend Armour is also early, but I didn't want to break the video down into such small segments as it would have become confusing.
All it all, it seems to me that the brand new attacks which were made for this set are the biggest culprits. Whoever made the effects for these did a great job in terms of manufacturing the visuals, but either didn't have enough time to finish timing them down to the individual frame (which is somewhat dubious since we reported this weeks before the set went Live) or was otherwise pulled off to do another project and simply hasn't had time to go back and tune up the timing. I don't want to come off as insulting the artist's work, as to me this is more unfinished than anything else, and I hope the timing is tightened up a lot.
For the record, perfect timing is not a creature of myth. Quite a few of the Titan Weapon attacks already have frame-perfect timing. I have a strong rig and was filming a dead spot, so the video is shot at 45 FPS for the most part. Even at 45 FPS, slowed down to a quarter speed and advanced frame by frame, the timing I called perfect quite literally WAS perfect, with the actual weapon animation coinciding with the power's hit effect within a frame of each other. It's doable.
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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.
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Let me start by saying that I LOVE Titan Weapons. I haven't been this excited about a new set... In living memory. However, because I like it so much, I can't help but talk about it, and most people I bring it up with who've played the sets come back with a single complaint - the power effects of the set are not synced up with the animations. It's a complaint I share, and one I attempted to describe with words back in Beta, but it's pretty clear that I failed.
To this effect, I spent the last five hours straight putting together a slow-motion video of all Titan Weapons animations, as used on a Rikti Dummy, with notes on what what I see as a problem where. There are typos, which I found only AFTER the movie was compiled and the source video deleted, for which I apologise. If there's something ambiguous, please let me know and I will elaborate. In fact, I welcome any and all feedback, because it's possible I'm seeing things or not getting things or maybe I'm just being too anal. I was intentionally nit-picky because, let's face it - when am I going to devote five hours in a lump to this again. Might as well get it all out. If it seems like I'm stalling, it's because the video is taking AGES to upload and process
Check out the complete video here.
Aside from my Byzantine creation tools and generally low production qualities, what do you think? Am I seeing things? Are there legitimate problems? Is that worth actually posting as a bug report? And please note - I'm not trying to pick on the set. I LOVE Titan Weapons even with the desynced animations. I really just want to see if it can be made even better.
*word to the wise*
Windows Movie Maker 2.6 on Windows 7 x64 is GARBAGE! It crashed on me no less than 50 times - it crashed every time I ran it - and it failed to save progress more often than not. Do not use it!