The Grand Thread For Animation Improvements And Fixes. [Constantly Being Updated And Tweaked!]

[Aure7]

Part 2 of this thread focused on mobility and parkour --> https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/509059-parkour-feedback-thread-20/

 

Very relevant topic (and video) about Indie approach to procedural animations  --> https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/245184-indie-approach-to-procedural-animation-clever-ways-to-animate-and-how-this-relates-to-wf/#entry2850133

 

TL;DR: This thread encourages developers to work on various animations and programming of animations as much as possible. We DO notice it and it's important to make the game feel smooth, currently the blending and programming of animations is almost always disappointing on anything other than your own character.

 

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A lot of unappealing animations come from bad connection on co-op games and how netcode handles it. Other players usually seem floaty and their character animations lag behind. NPCs suffer even more with jerky transitions, out of sync walk cycles and horribly laggy jumping and climbing animations.
 

This can also cause actual gameplay problems in pvp because it's especially hard to read player actions with if netcode for animations is so rough.

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1) Ability animations have no blending with anything else, except for vauban. Fixed for most basic abilities

Could still use some work for many other abilities to make the gameplay more swift. Maybe a blend between upper body animation and then full body animation so player still has some control while character begins the animation and then it locks/slows player only very briefly.

 

2) No momentum on wallrun melee attack and you can only aim horizontally. Fixed!

 

 

3) Mid air shooting animation does not trigger while jumping from a sprint.   Finally fixed!

However I still think we shouldn't be forced into a roll all the time. When player is not sprinting, there should be an animation similar to firing a bow in mid air so that character could naturally land on it's feet instead of diving chest towards the floor.

 

4) Leg behavior based on the floor height (inverse kinematics I believe). With this feet would always be in contact with the floor and legs bending according it. 

 

Example:

 

 

 

it could also be applied to sliding where I think it is most needed. (currently legs never lay down on the ramp and just hang horizontally)

 

and running/sliding on ziplines too because legs often hover or clip trough it.

 

 

5) There are no turning animations while aiming and shooting.

 

 

You can't make this one look perfect, but can we have something like current sprinting turning which I've mentioned in the beginning?

 

6) Turning animations when quickly changing directions on sprint?

from thisto something like this

This is not a huge issue but it's still worth mentioning. You can see in slow-mo that in warframe she simply turns around on her leg with no other animation whatsoever, while these days it's very usual to see some sort of animation that would show you quickly kicking of into the opposite direction. Of course in warframe it could be vastly quicker to avoid taking away the control of the character.

 

8) It would be nice if Constitution would share the animation with Handspring mod.  Constitution now properly does the handspring animation! Stacking however seems inconsistent.
 

9) Better blending for wallruns (mostly discussed on part 2 thread)  wallrun has been removed.

 

10) Better and fixed blocking animations. Current one is a little too smooth and repetitive for something like bullets. Doesn't match some weapons like lasers firing at you or enemy melee attacks. As seen in https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/128983-blocking-animation-improvement-suggestion/

 

it's just too smooth to create the illusion that your blocking bullets. A better approach would be having EACH bullet blocked trigger it's own lightning fast blocking animation. Give each weapon 6 or so quick poses to jump to (you could probably take half of them from the current animation set) and have a random pose trigger for each bullet blocked.

 

Also when player has proc status on him or environment damage like freeze in ice planet tileset, animations do not work properly or simply play the same blocking animation.

 

11) Animations for Zephyr tilting, turning in midair.

You can control the flight in air, but she remains in a fixed orientation even when you're actively pushing buttons and flying other directions. This also ties to some movement problems. Roll after such flight can feel weird, it should follow a direction in which you were flying just before touching the ground.

12) Valkyr ripline could be better. Pulling enemies could result in valkyr taking few steps back and it would be nice if body naturally flowed along the direction you're pulling to.

Grabbing to ceilings and floors seems weird since valkyr is flying in a horizontal position as if she pulled herself horizontally. I also talked a little about the ripline behavior and trajectories on the part 2 thread.

 

13) Ash bladestorm needs polishing. There are still occasions when ash plays awkward old animations where he often stabs or hits empty air somewhere in the general area.

Phobose made a full list of enemies with no animations assigned to them https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/250301-ashs-bladestorm-not-performing-animation-on-certain-targets/

 

Some enemies should probably be removed from the targeting (like rollers) and common types like moa should get some animations.

 

14) Rolling is inconsistent across the board. Sometimes you unintentionally end up doing a side "dodge" or a backflip which are not as fast and far reaching as regular rolling.

Seems like rolling is based on character orientation. If you roll to where your character is facing, you'll do a regular roll. In air however, you can't turn so you end up air-dodging with these awkward side and backflip animations which feel terrible in mid air and don't provide necessary momentum boost.

15) Sometimes when performing a "wall-hop" the character still plays double-jump animation.

...which causes confusion because you can still do an actual double jump after that, contrary to what the animation tells you.

 

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Fixes for weapons:

 

1) Staff ground finisher is weird, looks like it's not in sync with the damage. fixed

 

2) Stealth and finisher melee animations are very often out of sync with ragdolls and enemy locations.

Dagger seems to the best one, while others like scythe are quite horrible. It snaps you and your target into fixed position that is off where both of you originally have been standing, then proceeds with animation which often ends with target standing straight up. Then it turns into ragdoll and falls right back again even though the final hit has been struck during the animation itself and it should have collapsed earlier.

 

3) MAJOR tweaks to bow animations are needed.

Just tested it recently and it has to be the worst animation blending in the game. It's justifiable, because holding a bow is complicated, but can we get to fixing some of it?

 

Here's an entire album of pictures showcasing everything: https://imgur.com/a/lGeun

 

4) Throwing secondaries still have regular handgun animations in some cases.

looks fixed, however not sure if entirely or just partially

 

Originally posted here https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/302055-need-some-animation-for-the-throwing-weapons/#entry3428464

 

5) Tweaks to thrown weapon animations because it twists warframes too much on their torso. Is this simply a bug for some people? seems fixed to me

 

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AI and other animations

 

1) Enemy jump animations are still quite bad.  AI animations like climbing or jumping still look very stiff and awkward. The main problem of them all are unbelievable jump distances and trajectories as well as flight speeds which simply feel weird to the eye.

Currently there is a decent variety of animations for this, and I know that procedural nature of this game makes these things hard, but in the end the tiles themselves are handcrafted. The speed at which AI move when jumping feels too linear and fast, the sudden speed comes out of nowhere and they jump distances greater than players. I think some of jump paths should be completely removed for specific enemies and left for others like infested or moas. Then there should be more believable ways for weak human based enemies to move like short grappling hooks, or some sort of mini jet-burst pack which comes with every crewman suit.

 

2) Animations for enemies fleeing from terrify. As seen in https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/108398-terror-totem-simple-but-effective-tweak-to-enemy-animations/

they run in a very generic way, not looking terrified at all. Need something like corpus capture target fleeing animation.

 

3) AI needs varied jogging animations. They often point their weapons at random spot while running to a destination, or sprint in unexpected directions while continuously shooting (or aiming) at a player and twisting on their torso unnaturally.

 

There could be some transitions between different speeds of running, so it would feel more natural.

 

4) Bad web connection and probably other things causes AI to have weird and twitchy animations.

 

I've seen enemies slide their legs around when standing in place, rapidly switching in and out of various animations while not actually doing something meaningful (again AI issues). They are always more or less fault when not hosting, legs are always shaking, sliding, downed enemies are spinning, enemies jumping and rolling over obstacles are twitchy and teleporting all over their animation path.

 

lying down death animations also cause enemies to randomly spin until they turn into ragdoll

 

5) Death animations need more variety, need to reflect the cause of death better and have ragdolls more often.

While death animations are mostly satisfying, sometimes they don't feel right after you shoot them with a powerful blast or explosion. I noticed they sometimes fall over on their belly when shot from the side or after an explosion, there really should be way more occasions where the enemy would just be ragdolled with a slight impact from the bullet or an explosion. Or just more combinations of various animations with ragdolls appearing at different times, kinda like in left 4 dead where it's so natural looking you don't even know where is what.

 

 

sorry for any fixed issues that I missed, I am not an active player all the time and I am not some sort of paid tester.

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Do you agree with these? Do you think this is worth their time? Do you also want to see a perfect game animation wise?

 

[Casardis]

++++++++++++1

 

These are issues that have constantly bugged me throughout my 1000+ hours. Animations are a nitpick of mine when it comes to gaming.

 

Thanks for the GIFs too. It really helps getting into the point with clear visual examples.

[-CM-Zura]

YEZ!

[Noogums]

I will always agree with most of these. Since you have updated, there are a few things I personally might not agree with, but overall, you are right. These things bug me, I just tend to overlook some of them.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Noogums

[Meenmu]

Totally agreed, also very nice gifs; good presentation. I know exactly what you're talking about. Animations can have a pretty big impact on immersion, especially in cases like that casting animation.

[Aure7]

Totally agreed, also very nice gifs; good presentation. I know exactly what you're talking about. Animations can have a pretty big impact on immersion, especially in cases like that casting animation.

especially because of the fact that this is a ninja game, you know... stunts and maneuvers. Basically sleek and precise motion.

[Syndrella]

Would be good more better animation but still they can't make it better. This things needs a lot of time and needs more animation to the different moves. Similar with the map glitches when you stucked in a part of map or you stand on a door or on the edges. I have also a small suggestion what they need adopt. 

 

 

Edit: I know this is different engine but with more time to spend polishing animations almost can be reach this level.

Edited October 6, 2013 by animafan10

[Aure7]

Would be good more better animation but still they can't make it better. This things needs a lot of time and needs more animation to the different moves. Similar with the map glitches when you stucked in a part of map or you stand on a door or on the edges. I have also a small suggestion what they need adopt. 

 

 

Edit: I know this is different engine but with more time to spend polishing animations almost can be reach this level.

Yeah I've posted that in my thread. These probably won't happen but a portion of it in some way would be vary pleasing.

[lautalocos]

this topic +10000

 

unluckily, for some reason DE decided to make another trailer for presenting the new corpus boss, which is quite unecesary.

really, improving the animations or making a trailer? the choice is obvious

[Taihus]

I was just about to make a thread about this. You sir get all my +1s.

Maybe we need a petition to focus on animation improvement after the current trailer is done?

[Valiant]

You would think some of this stuff would've been touched up sooner considering the upcoming PS4 release.

[MrCranky_BR]

Nice thread and illustrations!

 

except.... I actually like the slidey Scythe attacks... XD I really do.

 

In fact, they should add sliding sparks beneath the frame's feet when doing the sprint+charge attack. And the scratchy sound fx. C'mon, that would be pimp...

 

Cheers!

[Dreykan]

Bumpin' for reality

[Grekkatarq]

Animation polishing is really needed.

[Aure7]

Nice thread and illustrations!

 

except.... I actually like the slidey Scythe attacks... XD I really do.

 

In fact, they should add sliding sparks beneath the frame's feet when doing the sprint+charge attack. And the scratchy sound fx. C'mon, that would be pimp...

 

Cheers!

well sprint+charge as I said might be intended. But spamming regular attacks looks just silly. Like if he was on ice or something trying to disco dance.

[Aure7]

Injected with some brand new GIFS, please keep the attention if you think it deserves that.

[Sorez]

all my +1

[Casardis]

I think Saints Row and Mario games have very fluid animations when it comes to running and changing direction.

 

However, for the dodge roll, I'm not sure about the suggestion. The main difference is that the Saints Row one is more of a dive-into-roll, while Warframe's is a quick, low height dodge roll, which would be more effective to dodge incoming attacks due to bullets often shot towards the head/torso. It also shows great agility and experience in their own maneuver.

 

In the game Dragon's Dogma, before a certain patch, Dodge Roll used to be like the Saints Row one, and it didn't really feel good, nor was it fast enough. If the speed of that animation was made faster, it may actually look weird due to the nature of the dive before the roll. After a certain patch, it was changed to a faster dodge roll which doesn't involve a jump, but a very quick somersault/roll which actually brought the player further in distance.

 

Warframe's current dodge roll may get a few tweaks in animation, but the performance of the roll itself is good.

 

I made a topic about implementing unique dodge moves that can affect gameplay:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/108684-optional-dodge-moves-for-warframes/

Edited October 7, 2013 by Casardis

[SpacePirateKing]

YESYESYEYSYESYESYEYSYESYSEYSYEYSYESYSEYSEYSEYESESYESY

[ScorchedIce]

ALL OF THE YUP!

In the meantime, i'll blame the game still being in beta for the clunky-ish anims.

[Roltair]

@Aure

 

What is your opinion on the long sword / dual sword animations?

[TwoCrabs]

HOLAAAY LOTUS this game would look SO much better with these improvements *-*

[Tangerine]

Agree with pretty much everything here.

 

One thing to add might be jumping physics, it's very stiff. The dojo obstacle course really highlights how annoying attempting to jump on platforms can be.

[Aure7]

@Aure

 

What is your opinion on the long sword / dual sword animations?

Not that bad as scythe animations. Well I mean you can see actual steps you make instead of just sliding your legs all over the place.

 

I think Saints Row and Mario games have very fluid animations when it comes to running and changing direction.

 

However, for the dodge roll, I'm not sure about the suggestion. The main difference is that the Saints Row one is more of a dive-into-roll, while Warframe's is a quick, low height dodge roll, which would be more effective to dodge incoming attacks due to bullets often shot towards the head/torso. It also shows great agility and experience in their own maneuver.

 

In the game Dragon's Dogma, before a certain patch, Dodge Roll used to be like the Saints Row one, and it didn't really feel good, nor was it fast enough. If the speed of that animation was made faster, it may actually look weird due to the nature of the dive before the roll. After a certain patch, it was changed to a faster dodge roll which doesn't involve a jump, but a very quick somersault/roll which actually brought the player further in distance.

 

Warframe's current dodge roll may get a few tweaks in animation, but the performance of the roll itself is good.

 

I made a topic about implementing unique dodge moves that can affect gameplay:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/108684-optional-dodge-moves-for-warframes/

well that dive-into-roll would help me dodge bullets and hop into cover much more effectively. Current roll is slower than sprinting, that's why It's not use to try and dodge things with rolling.

 

Agree with pretty much everything here.

 

One thing to add might be jumping physics, it's very stiff. The dojo obstacle course really highlights how annoying attempting to jump on platforms can be.

that falls into parkour improvements which sadly they probably won't do. They would rather put another 10 OP weapons with tenno reinforcements.

[Taihus]

Don't lose hope now. If we make a loud enough noise then the animators might actually stop making trailers and get to improving anims instead.

that falls into parkour improvements which sadly they probably won't do. They would rather put another 10 OP weapons with tenno reinforcements.

Not necessarily. Weapon design and modeling isn't done by the animation team. As said, it would be more along the lines of "they would rather make another lore trailer than improve movement anims".