Disappearing weapons during spell casts and abilities

Valdek

I noticed in a video that when a mage was casting its spells, the staff it was wielding blinked out of existence. I completely understand how this isn't necessarily a priority and I don't know how difficult it would be to create animations for the different weapon types, but I have always particularly been a fan of spells being cast using the magical staff or wand which is equipped. Is this a possibility in the future for AoC?

VmanGman

We do not have confirmation on this specific situation yet. However, my best guess is that this will be addressed and that the items are currently disappearing only because this is an early iteration of the animation.

daveywavey

How do you imagine it working if the spellcaster isn't using a staff/wand?

It would seem weird for the weapons to just disappear, but it makes sense from a game point of view.

Talents

If I'm not mistaken, they've said that there probably won't be individual animations for each weapon type as it would be way too much work and they simply don't have the number of animators necessary to do it.

Songcaller

Talents wrote: »

If I'm not mistaken, they've said that there probably won't be individual animations for each weapon type as it would be way too much work and they simply don't have the number of animators necessary to do it.

I feel fortunate the Devs are willing to do 9 Racial Differentials for each class. Some Devs do gender and race locks for classes to cut down on Animation Costs. I'm not sure how much work Racial Augments amount to though. I also prefer magic to come from hands rather than wands, but, I understand some people would consider a full hand spec to be a tad bland.

Jamation

Talents wrote: »

If I'm not mistaken, they've said that there probably won't be individual animations for each weapon type as it would be way too much work and they simply don't have the number of animators necessary to do it.

I believe I remember this too since weapons will not be locked by class so they'd need to make an animation for every weapon, for every class, for every skill and potential augment if it changes the skills appearance.

So taking into consideration there will be 18+ weapon types, 64 classes, and with (let's just say 25 for the low end) skills for each class, this already comes out to 28,800 different animation types that'd need to be made. This also doesn't include potential augment changes, future weapons, and new skills. Not to mention the animation's might look even wonkier if let's say a person was using a two-handed axe to cast heal (I will slice you to health! muwhahaha...oh you're just dead...oops)

Considering if this ever was added in it would probably be years down the road, I'd suspect that by that time everyone would've grown accustomed to the setup that the shift would be jarring. But there's always a possibility, just a low one.

McMackMuck

I hope that they will be able to work relevant animations to look they are coming out of the end of a generic "pointing weapon" position ( or 1-2 foot in front of an extremely short weapon ). This pose should already be available for every weapon and just be an overlay of the SFX.
They might need to adjust the starting height of that SFX for different races. I hope that doesn't start another fantasy racism bun fight.

Songcaller

Some weapons will also have effects in the composition, like Legendary Weapons. I can't wait to see the renditions.

Merek

Intrepid really will need to animate the weapons. Why would a Spellswords sword disappear during casting? They would use their sword as a conduit... no?

George_Black

Valid concern to date. Might type some more later

Jamation

Merek wrote: »

Intrepid really will need to animate the weapons. Why would a Spellswords sword disappear during casting? They would use their sword as a conduit... no?

Not necessarily. They could use any weapon. Certain weapons will of course be more effective with certain classes, but the Spellsword could equip a bow or staff just as easily.

George_Black

Jamation wrote: »

Merek wrote: »

Intrepid really will need to animate the weapons. Why would a Spellswords sword disappear during casting? They would use their sword as a conduit... no?

Not necessarily. They could use any weapon. Certain weapons will of course be more effective with certain classes, but the Spellsword could equip a bow or staff just as easily.

The weapon animations of a Spellsword will not be optimal, just so that bow and staff are available, but useless.
That's wrong.

Jamation

George Black wrote: »

The weapon animations of a Spellsword will not be optimal, just so that bow and staff are available, but useless.
That's wrong.

Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. Do you mean like, it's wrong that animations won't be optimized because any weapon could be used, or that I'm wrong in my information, or something else?

Valdek

So, the challenge would be to figure out a way of doing it well and at the same time cutting down the amount of work generating new animations.

Suggestions:

1. Create a set of 'weapon' animations for each weapon that can adopt the spells cast by a character. (e.g. staff has a ranged target animation already created for weapon specific skills, which can now take on a class ranged target skill with that abilities flavour and particle effects.)

2. Have a default 'hold weapons in offhand while casting the spell with a single hand.' Again, this would mean that no matter what weapon, that hand held to the side would be the same animation for any spell otherwise created.

3. Create an algorithm that automatically converts the animations made for one character using a spell with a weapon to other races and classes. This could then be tweaked slightly to iterate and improve vs clipping and for flavour.

What do you think?

Valdek

I guess I would prefer 3 of my spells casting with the same animation of pointing a staff at a target with different spell effects and particles than I would 3 different fancy animations where my staff disappears

Arkethos

Valdek wrote: »

So, the challenge would be to figure out a way of doing it well and at the same time cutting down the amount of work generating new animations.

Suggestions:

1. Create a set of 'weapon' animations for each weapon that can adopt the spells cast by a character. (e.g. staff has a ranged target animation already created for weapon specific skills, which can now take on a class ranged target skill with that abilities flavour and particle effects.)

2. Have a default 'hold weapons in offhand while casting the spell with a single hand.' Again, this would mean that no matter what weapon, that hand held to the side would be the same animation for any spell otherwise created.

3. Create an algorithm that automatically converts the animations made for one character using a spell with a weapon to other races and classes. This could then be tweaked slightly to iterate and improve vs clipping and for flavour.

What do you think?

I think I want too much...

I’d like each race to have a sort of “flavor” for how they cast. Additionally, I’d like each class to add some sort of special touch to each racial style of casting. And finally, I think casting with a weapon is important. Having the weapon disappear just doesn’t seem logical from an immersion standpoint.

Having the weapon float in front of you or channeling the cast through the weapon both interest me, despite the complexity involved in animating that for each weapon type, for each class, for each race.

Ultimately, I’d be content with each class having a personalized casting method, and maybe 3 types of “weapon” casts (unarmed, 1-handed and 2-handed) per class.

maouw

Talents wrote: »

If I'm not mistaken, they've said that there probably won't be individual animations for each weapon type as it would be way too much work and they simply don't have the number of animators necessary to do it.

That's the impression I got from discussion about the cleric skill animations.

Partly to save on animations, combat is split into 3 parts:

• weapon skills
• passives
• spells

Weapon skills will be specific to the weapon type that you equip - nothing new here.
However, spells are unrelated to the weapon you have equipped - so they won't have specific animations for each weapon type. I don't think this design will change in the ongoing combat redesign, but it's possible.

Personally I would prefer spells to have weapon specific animations, but that's asking for a lot.

Valdek

I don't know. If they just copied and pasted the weapon animations they've already created to apply to those spells, it could actually be less work as they don't have to create a whole new set of animations for all 64 class spell lists and variants, only the base animations for all of the weapons. Maybe?