SigniferOne's Animations Pack

[PM Trajan For Name Change]

Amazing work Signifer keep doing it!

[Timotheus Londinium]

Now with the campaign map bouncing characters bug fixed this mod is so much fun! I look forward for more of your works, Sig.

[Ano2]

Okay first off I have given the new hoplite animation to all hoplites (Including Corinthian and Athenian, I'm playing RTR5.41). I have also changed the stats so that all shield defences are now 14 instead of 9, and all armour defences have been reduced by 1,2 or 3 across the board. I have disabled the phalanx, removed their swords values and enable guard mode everytime I play.

Critisicms: None apart from for the Corinthian hoplies I can't see the spears. I am yet to work out why this is but its no biggie.

I then started a Greek Cities campaign. My first conflict was against Greek rebels in Messina. The animations worked perfectly, althoguh on the walls the spears are a bit biga nd tend to go past the enemies (This is an istant when I wish they could use swords). The hoplites keep formation quite well when in guard mode, though i tryed engaging when they did not have it and the formation got far more broken up. On a side note is there any way to start battles with guard mode enabled for certain units?

My next battle(s) was 4 units of Athenian hoplites and 2 cav units versus 3 waves of Macedonian armies. These were elite hoplites, thoguh when I charged one into the front of a levy phalanx they barely got through (Like most other troops). This is good since I beleive the pikemen were developed to counter the hoplite charge. Of course once my hoplites got on the enemie's flanks they tended to kick *** (though sometimes slowly because of guard mode, but at least they kept formation).

One animation bug I noticed was that once my general's guards got rear charged and their spears turned without the men turning. The men turned a second later but it looked really odd. Also when going up ladders there was clipping issues since the men's hair on their helmets went through their shields (I imagien this is a result of the shields being bought in closer).

Also when selecting phalanx formation from the army set-up, the men stand quite far apart, so I think a new formation will be needed, given that the men can no longer form phalanxes.

Overall the new hoplite animation is great. I have had to change my tactics, gone are the days when I could march my hoplites head on into a pikemen phalanx and decimate them. Still this is a great improvement.

10/10

[SigniferOne]

1) Could you post screenshots of those clippings on the wall where the hoplites crests clip with their shields?

2) Have you tried playing without guard mode on? In vanilla, guard mode actually lowers performance because there's not a huge benefit from shields, but a large penalty to unit mobility. However in your setup, and even more drastic changes between armor and shield values, guard mode should be a huge boon to civilized nations where keeping formation and a unified shield front to the enemy was important.

3) Regarding the spears turning before the head did, yes that's a big unusual but Verci is working on an improved version of the CAS script so I think you can expect some further improvements in the future Whether it will solve that particular problem I don't know, but you can expect even further improvements down the line.

4) Can you elaborate on what you mean you don't see the spears? That's weird.... do you never see them? Do you see them in those hoplites without my animation being used? Do you see the spears in other hoplites? Etc let me know mre.

5) How could you march your hoplites head on into the Macedonian phalanx and decimate them? Hoplite spears were shorter, so in vanilla hoplites and hypaspists are really jipped versus phalangites. So I don't know how you could beat those phalangites head on... And wait a sec, you can charge them head on now, and win?

[Spartan357]

1)4) Can you elaborate on what you mean you don't see the spears? That's weird.... do you never see them? Do you see them in those hoplites without my animation being used? Do you see the spears in other hoplites? Etc let me know mre.

I have the same problem. If I use certain other hoplites, like ones from Zhuge's Expansion set, the hoplites hold their hands above their heads, but with no spears in them. They stab and attack, but with empty hands. The spears work fine with other hoplites, and when the animations are not in effect.Their shields also clip into their bodies. Are your animations only for certain models? The anims work in the regualr vanilla hoplites and from what the other poster said, certain RTR hoplites but not with these hoplites. Ill try to post a couple of screenies to demonstrate.

[SigniferOne]

Ah okay, let me make this general announcement for modders:

"When you create a hoplite model, make sure to attach the shield to the arm joint, NOT the hand joint!! If you attach it to the latter, the wrist will control where the shield goes and it will look realy weird. My animation is based on vanilla Armored Hoplites, hence the left arm linking with the shield should be the same in other hoplite models for them to work properly with my anims."

Please relay this message to your favorite modeler/skinner, so that adjustments can be made.

[Prof]

I noticed that the hoplites hold their spears upside down when they charge

[SigniferOne]

Yes that's because of a problem with the CAS script. It will be fix it as soon as Verc updates the program. Right now those are just vanilla javelinman animations, because if I introduce my own charge running anims, some graphical glitches get introduced (flickering spears)...

[Cyber Ice X]

Spartan 357: I think that's because many modders don't bother to texture the spears of units that will normally be in phalanx formation.

You can see it with TTO's Spartan Pentykosties, but there they are textured incorrectly. Since Signifer One's brilliant animations don't use CA's phalanx, then the textured (or not textured!) spears must be used.

[Spartan357]

Thanks for the info. You wouldnt happen to be willing to texture them would you?

[SigniferOne]

CyberIce, ah that makes sense. Not texturing a phalanx unit's spear will save time and video memory, so it does make sense. But yeah there's this one big draw back to it, that it cannot NOT have the phalanx ability.

Hopefully with time, as my anims become more widespread, the modelers will bring the spears back, or those of you who are suffering from it already can ask them to fix it.

[Ano2]

2) Have you tried playing without guard mode on? In vanilla, guard mode actually lowers performance because there's not a huge benefit from shields, but a large penalty to unit mobility. However in your setup, and even more drastic changes between armor and shield values, guard mode should be a huge boon to civilized nations where keeping formation and a unified shield front to the enemy was important.

Yeah they perform better without guard mode on, but the formation is incredibly loose. Anyway to tighten the formation? If you enforced Guard mode thoguh you could effectively mak them act more like hoplites.

3) Regarding the spears turning before the head did, yes that's a big unusual but Verci is working on an improved version of the CAS script so I think you can expect some further improvements in the future Whether it will solve that particular problem I don't know, but you can expect even further improvements down the line.

Yeah its probably to do with the way they designed the hoplite.

[QUOTE=SigniferOne]
4) Can you elaborate on what you mean you don't see the spears? That's weird.... do you never see them? Do you see them in those hoplites without my animation being used? Do you see the spears in other hoplites? Etc let me know mre.[/QUOTE}

You've already answered so I won't bother

5) How could you march your hoplites head on into the Macedonian phalanx and decimate them? Hoplite spears were shorter, so in vanilla hoplites and hypaspists are really jipped versus phalangites. So I don't know how you could beat those phalangites head on... And wait a sec, you can charge them head on now, and win?

Well with 1.2 phalanxes actually walked right into each other, so my hoplites used to always win head on. No now I charge them head on they tend to lose.

[Cyber Ice X]

Thanks for the info. You wouldnt happen to be willing to texture them would you?

Sorry mate, but my modding abilities are zero.

[Obi Wan Asterix]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sig thanks for the proper overhand animiation And great pioneer stuff from your part

[Spartan357]

Np Cyber. Just thought i'd ask

[The White Knight]

Okay SigniferOne; what's your next project? Elephant archer-animations (*sounds hopefully*)

[almeja]

Firts of all, I hope you all join me in an uproar of thanks for Signifier's work. Thanks to him we now have greek hoplites who fight as they were supposed to do.
Second, I still don't understand how the CA people managed to overlook such important aspects. I will agree with Signifier that the game they have given us is wonderful, but wouldn't it be a a pity if all their research (which they obviously did!) were marred by inconsistencies such as those corrected by our modders here?
Third, I have a question that is primarily addressed to Signifier, but also to anyone who can possibly help or at least tell me to despair: after installing the new hoplite animations I watched them perform brilliantly in combat, but when I ordered my hoplite unit to move, chaos ensued. Troops were moving all over their line, much like cavalry that has just charged through an enemy line, then doubles up to charge again etc. There was no order, nothing resembling a disciplined line.
I am using no mods, I have not upgraded to version 1.2 or otherwise, and I have simply tweaked the units to my liking. But I suspect the unit stats have nothing to do with it. Could it be that some other factor, such as spacing between the troops, could affect the animation? Or the fact that I have not bothered to take away the secondary weapon, as suggested by Signifier?
In any case, please respond. It feels that I have been given the most extraordinary gift with one hand, then had it stolen with the other. I suspect children feel much like that when you take away their candy. If I were 10 years younger this problem would have resulted in my becoming a deprived child, with serious sessions with a therapist laying in store in the future.
And thanks for kindly reading this and taking the trouble to answer.

[SigniferOne]

almeja, that sometimes happens with infantry units, they begin to act like cavalry (which is what I presume happened here). It's a sort of bug from CA, and just need to wait two months until it's fixed (in the expansion). This bug happens very rarely (clearly, because you were able to move them successfully beforehand), and the best solution to it, for now, is to Stop the soldiers when they begin doing this, and give the order again.

White Knight: don't you mean elephant javelin animations?

[almeja]

Well, now, thank you for your incredibly fast answer. I will have to wait for the expansion pack, if that's the only way... I will, however, experiment with other factors (such as soldier spacing, guard modes etc) and if succesful I will let you know. In any case consider myself in your debt (deep bow and a preposterous flourish).

[Prof]

the animations are awesome

do you think, you can make a javelin-animation for elephants and chariots? and a spear animation for elephants?