Tauer's Models 2.0

[Heinvers]

All the movements (the movements of his chest, right leg, and left leg) being synced up make it look a little robotic. You could try delaying the movement of his chest by a few frames or his arms, if you choose to add more motion to them.

that!
Also Hardtime's suggestions seems quite ironic but good

 

[Deolrin]

It should be a special death then. Like "Death - Alternate" or something.

 

[Hardtime]

Ohhh and make him have an attack slam animation similar to Grom's. It can serve as an animation for attack slam or bash since he weilds the doomhammer which spells doom for those who go against the owner of said hammer.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Give him a death animation where he dies in an attack from behind. It'd be ironick since he's called the backstabber and in actual lore he actually died in an attack from behind.

That would be super-cool for a sort of 'cinematic death' (translation: super high-poly and unnecessary but awexome). Having an actual assassin plant an actual dagger in his ever-loving back as he crumples to his knees as distraught & confused like "why/how could this happen?..."; the assassin smiles and then disappears.

Basically a second, hidden mesh of a simplistic assassin that "de-cloaks", stabs, then stands straight & smiles, then 'cloaks'.

Do it Don't do it; the poly-gods will cry.

 

[Hjorleif]

I vote for Zul'jin next as well, it would be amazing to see what you come up with. I remember you stating you'd want to do an old and young version of him if you ever made him, do you still feel this way?

 

[Hardtime]

Actually he died when a knight was charging at him and the hit was actually strong enough to pierce through his armor but your idea's good as well

 

[Darkloid]

Hmmmmm I would vote for a revamped Durotan as the next model, something more loke this (original artwork and all).

Durotan (Like this but in green :D)

 

[Tauer]

Sorry guys, I wasn't home yesterday so I didn't do any animation work. Weekend now however ;D

Give him a death animation where he dies in an attack from behind. It'd be ironick since he's called the backstabber and in actual lore he actually died in an attack from behind.

That would be super-cool for a sort of 'cinematic death' (translation: super high-poly and unnecessary but awexome). Having an actual assassin plant an actual dagger in his ever-loving back as he crumples to his knees as distraught & confused like "why/how could this happen?..."; the assassin smiles and then disappears.

Basically a second, hidden mesh of a simplistic assassin that "de-cloaks", stabs, then stands straight & smiles, then 'cloaks'.

Do it Don't do it; the poly-gods will cry.

This is a really cool idea, but also a bit excessive. I might do it, but I probably won't make a whole assassin that stabs him. I would probably just make a spear that appears and stabs him in the back. Then people can put in a knight themselves in the WE if they want to

I vote for Zul'jin next as well, it would be amazing to see what you come up with. I remember you stating you'd want to do an old and young version of him if you ever made him, do you still feel this way?

Hm, don't remember saying this. I think I said this regarding Khadgar not Zul'jin.

Hmmmmm I would vote for a revamped Durotan as the next model, something more loke this (original artwork and all).

Durotan (Like this but in green :D)

I respect your opinion, but I don't know if you know my opinion regarding WoW concepts
I prefer to stick to the older concepts I'm afraid. This is mostly because they've been around so long, and that's just the image I have in my head when I read about them now. So whenever I read Rise of The Horde, I see the Durotan from the cancelled Lord of The Clans game.
Thank you for the input though, I appreciate it

Quite nice so far. I notice that his belt looks quite rigid now (maybe you could make it move a bit during his walk/ I know it's a WIP) As for stand 2 sequence, well that looks great.

All the movements (the movements of his chest, right leg, and left leg) being synced up make it look a little robotic. You could try delaying the movement of his chest by a few frames or his arms, if you choose to add more motion to them.

Alright, I did a little more work on the walk cycle, still far from done:

Trying to make the movement a bit more organic.
There are some things that I'm aware of, mainly the end of the animation looks a bit weird as it loops. Still, I think it's improving. Any input so far?

 

[Hjorleif]

Ah, you may be right. I think I was mistaken. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Heinvers]

It looks much more alive now Tauer. I'll check it from time to time. Good job

 

[Hawkwing]

It does look a lot better. You could move the hammer around a bit more. Even if I tried, I think I would have a hard time running and keeping an object in my hand that still. I'm really fucking uncoordinated and physically incapable though. The braid looks a bit rigid too, but that's not noticeable. Other than that, looks good.

 

[Tauer]

Ah, you may be right. I think I was mistaken. Sorry for the confusion.

No problem Hope I didn't come off as too harsh in my answer.

It looks much more alive now Tauer. I'll check it from time to time. Good job

Thanks!

It does look a lot better. You could move the hammer around a bit more. Even if I tried, I think I would have a hard time running and keeping an object in my hand that still. I'm really fucking uncoordinated and physically incapable though. The braid looks a bit rigid too, but that's not noticeable. Other than that, looks good.

Yeah, makes sense. I was trying to make it look like he has a lot of control over it. In the books the hammer is described as being heavy enough that it would need several men to carry it, and Doomhammer waves it around like it's a child's toy.

I rotated the hammer a bit:

I'm still trying to experiment with his braids, no matter what I do I can't seem to make it look organic. The feet could use some work as well. Any thoughts?

On a totally unrelated and off-topic note, I don't know if anyone here plays Telltale's The Wolf Among Us, but the latest episode was fucking awesome!

 

[Hardtime]

The braids on his shoulders could use a little animating too. Maybe slashing it back and forth just like Thrall's after he puts his foot down to make it look more realistic.

 

[Tauer]

The braids on his shoulders could use a little animating too. Maybe slashing it back and forth just like Thrall's after he puts his foot down to make it look more realistic.

You have a point, although that would require more bones, which would make the filesize bigger. Personally I don't care much for filesize (since I never play online which means the file size limit doesn't apply), but many people do..

I've decided to move onto Stand Ready for the time being, I might go over the walk cycle again later.

Still a little rough, but I like where it's going so far.

 

[Hardtime]

The right leg and the left arm look stiff. Maybe you could give it a little movement that goes with the rest of the body. You could also give the head a little animations or give it a little delay. It looks good though so far good job. Excited to test this model for myself

 

[Tauer]

The right leg and the left arm look stiff. Maybe you could give it a little movement that goes with the rest of the body. You could also give the head a little animations or give it a little delay. It looks good though so far good job. Excited to test this model for myself

Trying to get some more movement in there, but also trying to be careful not to have too much movement. Too much and it will look too exaggerated and silly.

I apologize for progress on Doomhammer being a little slow lately, real life getting in the way again. So while it may be a little slow I'm doing my best not to pull another dissapearing act

 

[Heinvers]

wow. Looks pretty awesome. Yes the walk cycle could get a few tweaking, but not that much. I really like the results you've attained with the stand ready sequence

 

[Tauer]

wow. Looks pretty awesome. Yes the walk cycle could get a few tweaking, but not that much. I really like the results you've attained with the stand ready sequence

Thanks Yeah, I'll probably go tweak it a bit when I'm done with all the animations. Right now I want to finish the animations to a an acceptable stage. After that I can do whatever tweaking is neccesary.

A rough sketch on Attack - 1:

Still some areas that are not so good. The braids needs some work as does his left arm (as usual, I never know what to do with it lol)
But it's a start.

 

[Heinvers]

It looks like a good start
--------------
Here's what I think you could do:
1. I notice that his hammer is in a tremor or something, his right shoulder too. You could smooth-en it up a bit.
2. His left foot is like a brick (no offense I hope).
3. Yes the braids need some work, it's rising too high as I see.
--------------
I'll the seniors say their opinion now.

 

[loktar]

Hmm, I think it would look better if you rotated the hammer 90° in the walk and stand ready animations, so that the point is pointing forward. Not sure if I'm being clear

About the braid, maybe make it float instead of flapping up and down?

 

[Zaljinzoo]

Looking good so far, Tauer! Sorry for my silence for the past few days, haven't had time to come on and try to look at your stuff critically DX

I agree with the earlier post that the walk cycle should be a tad more aggressive, almost like a charge. Just fits Orgrim's character, I think. Not much else I can say there.

For his Stand - Ready, I think it's shaping up nicely except for the angle of the hammer, really. It seems off somehow, not sure how to explain it.

For the Attack - 1, it looks good, had a nice level of power behind the swing and a decent angle, I think. Just needs a little polish and it should be good, methinks!

I would like to suggest three possibilities for future animations though, one of them being an "Attack - Slam" pair of animations, for if you wanted to give Orgrim a Pitlord-esque Cleaving Attacks ability. I think these alternate attacks would seem slower, and he would hold the hammer with both hands to convey having more power behind them, and they would be in long arching swings, to get across that he would be hitting multiple targets.

The other idea was a Spell - Slam animation, and I think it would be cool for something like Shockwave or War Stomp or something along those lines where he could slam the ground with the hammer, similar to Thrall in the cinematic where he and Grom fight Mannoroth.

As for the final idea, it was an idea for a Spell - Throw anim. In the Warcraft RPG (Which I know isn't canon, but I still like to reference it), it stakes that Orgrim has a sort of dagger called a "Blackhand's Fang." I think it would be a cool idea for an anim for Orgrim to whip out the dagger and throw it, for a kind of Shadow Strike based attack. It'd be a nice little thing he could do with his poor, neglected left arm XD

 

[Hawkwing]

The stand animation looks awesome, and the walk is quite a bit better. Not perfect, but far better than I would expect out of a fan made resource. The movement of the hammer looks good to me now. I think the issue might have to do with the deceleration or lack thereof when his legs hit their most extreme positions. It certainly doesn't bother me though and I would only mess with it further if you feel motivated to push your animations as far as possible. I find smoothing out the cycling of the animation tends to be a bitch, but you know my method for rigging is different so that could potentially affect the animation process, I suppose. I'm seeing a lot of the same issues with the attack here as you had with Blackhand's attack animations. Not quite enough power. You could probably twist his torso more as he winds up for the swing. Also the movement of his left arm could be delayed and exaggerated a bit more. An issue that I'm seeing that is unique to this model is how his hammer seems to bounce after it hits its target. The bounce makes it feel like he doesn't have much control over his attack. If he were trying to land his strike somewhere above the ground, if he was to follow through with his movement. I imagine if he was targeting the ground the hammer would either land and stick to the ground for a split second, or at the very least the bounce would be slower and less significant.

 

[Hardtime]

I'll just get to the point of what I reviewed. The attack animation looks... robotic. It needs a lot of work. Try delaying his left arm. The legs also seem kind of stiff. Im sure you can adjust that too. He also looks kind of weird when he swings his hammer like that. It just seems kinda off to me and Im not sure how to explain it. Just try not to exaggerate his animations too much and this'll fit in perfectly with Blizzard's models.

 

[Tauer]

Hey guys, I have to admit I haven't had time to work on this yesterday or today. A little busy lately. I promise I will finish him though, I just need to find the time for it. Hopefully I'll have time to finish him completely this weekend.

Oh yeah, and today's Game of Thrones: FINALLY!

 

[Tauer]

Finally, I have some time to work on this. Sorry guys, I had a really busy week. No time for animating at all.

I tried starting on Attack - 1 from scratch. I'm trying to go for the same look but adding more force. I want to get it to look more organic, but I don't know why this one is so hard.

I know it's not perfect. But I am considering just moving on to the next one tbh. I just want to avoid spending too much time on every animation because it gets very tedious, and I really don't want to pull another dissapearing act

Still, any thoughts on this one are welcome.

 

[Heinvers]

Yes, it's a bit hard but you could move on to the next if you're feeling like it.

 

[loktar]

Generally it looks good. I think the forward swing should be a little slower. It "snaps" too much if you know what I mean.
There's also this weird thing, right before the hammer goes down, where you can see it held upwards for a split second. Like he holds it up before swinging it down, instead of it being one fluid movement.

 

[Tauer]

Made some more minor changes to it, but I think I'm moving onto the next animation now.

EDIT:

Started work on Attack - 2.

Still a little rough, but you get the idea. Any thoughts?

 

[paladinjst]

Made some more minor changes to it, but I think I'm moving onto the next animation now.

EDIT:

Started work on Attack - 2.

Still a little rough, but you get the idea. Any thoughts?

really good work ~ wish u finish soon and start to another epic one .

 

[Tauer]

really good work ~ wish u finish soon and start to another epic one .

Thanks mate. Yeah, I hope I can get him finished soon, he's getting a bit boring. Always happens during the animation phase, texturing is by far the best part hehe.

Alright, I think Attack - 2 is done. Since there are no comments on it, I'm moving on to the next one.

Feedback is welcome.

 

[loktar]

looks perfect

 

[PurgeandFire]

As I was scrolling through the page, I was just thinking "he should really add a 2-handed animation to give the attack some oomph". Then lo' and behold, you did it.

Well done. These animations look great! P.S. I'm really glad you took the time to consider animating the braid. Those details really pull the model together. (it is partially why I love the WoW tauren male/dwarf female casting animations)

 

[Tauer]

I f*cking hate exporting these models, the animations always gets screwed up in some way... Sigh.. Well, it's not as serious as last time, it's just fucking annoying to spend so much time getting the animations to look good and then having them look mediocre in the end because the exporting sucks..

EDIT:
OK, it is a little serious. For some reason the animations look okay in the Magos Model Editor and WC3 Model Viewer, but when imported into the game it's completely fucked up... This is getting old
It sucks all the fun out of an otherwise awesome hobby..

 

[Deolrin]

All of those animations look great.
The first one is still not really as "fluid" as the other two, and I don't really like it as much, but it still looks great in its own right. The third one, however, is absolutely amazing. It's almost too epic to be a basic attack animation, and I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better as an "Attack Slam" or so, but if you make an even more epic animation for that purpose(for example, have him jump, or 'prepare' and then deliver a really powerful, two-handed strike) that would be even better!

As for the technical issues... Eh, I really don't know. I never worked with 3DS Max for those purposes. I suggest you try and talk a little to BlinkBoy, or maybe some other people who animate using 3DS Max regarding the best animation techniques, so as to not screw it all up?
Maybe it's all just in the interpolations, or the parent<-->child relationships got screwed up, or maybe all of your bones are helpers or something? I really don't know. It would be better if you shared the .MDX here so we could take a look.

 

[Hardtime]

This is awesome man Hahaha Im too lazy to review the animations, and Im not even sure if my opinion still matters since you're pretty done with this guy anyway but great job haha looks beautiful. I feel like something's missing... Cant put my finger on it though..

 

[Rui]

If you find a solution, let us know, it may be useful to other people who use 3DSMax.

 

[Kyrbi0]

I'm lovin' it. Maybe I'm just lacking in some discerning right now, but I don't see anything wrong with the animations. Don't get too bogged down; keep it up!

Good luck with exporting woes. :<

 

[Hardtime]

Well... this seems dwad already too bad.. this project had so much potential

 

[Kyrbi0]

Well... this seems dwad already too bad.. this project had so much potential

^Um?... This isn't a "Project", and it has posts from the creator that aren't even a week old, yet?

 

[Hardtime]

It technically is. Plus I ran out of terms to use xD oh really? Sorry didn't see Tauer's post haha

 

[Kyrbi0]

It technically is.

Um... How exactly do you define a "project"?

 

[Tauer]

Sorry guys. No, it's not dead, but I have been very busy lately planning a wedding :/
I still haven't figured out what's wrong with the animations though, I will do my best to look at it whenever I have the time.

The problem is that I used a BIPED in 3DS Max to animate (I swear, this is the last time I experiment with animating, next time I WILL use a normal bone rig and no IK Solvers)
BlinkBoy states right here that BIPEDs are supported by NeoDex.. I don't understand why it's this screwed up. What's especially weird is that it looks okay in the model viewer but screwed up ingame. Never had this problem before..

EDIT:
Huh, it seems like it's fixed. Deolrin's suggestion (thanks!) that it might have to do with parent-child relations gave me an idea. Apparently the bones were set to “Don't inherit scaling values" in Magos Model editor, for some reason. Unticking these boxes seems to have done the trick. The animations still don't look as good as in 3DS Max though, but at least it works. It will require some tweaking but that's doable.
Now to finish the rest of the animations and he'll be ready for release

EDIT 2:
Ok, I wanted to animate something fun, so I went for the "backstabbing" animation. I've set the animation name to "Cinematic - 1" since it's mainly for cinematic purposes. Is this correct? Or should it be "Stand Cinematic - 1"?

This is the "hit" animation, I plan to make a second one that loops.

 

[NhazUl]

Better give it a number (Stand Second, refer to Artas with Frostmourne), because Stand Cinematic sometimes plays randomly in-game (like the blademaster sitting down). Awesome idea and execution, though.

 

[Heinvers]

It looks awesome. I thought you'd be back working on this.

 

[Chen]

Poor Blackhand...I love it!

 

[Tauer]

Better give it a number (Stand Second, refer to Artas with Frostmourne), because Stand Cinematic sometimes plays randomly in-game (like the blademaster sitting down). Awesome idea and execution, though.

Noted! Thanks for telling me

It looks awesome. I thought you'd be back working on this.

Thanks Yeah, I've just been too busy lately..

Poor Blackhand...I love it!

Hehe, don't you mean Doomhammer?
But yeah, it was actually a bit sad to make, Doomhammer is one of my favorite characters and I had to watch him die over and over again hehe. Plus I just read Lord of The Clans again..
And thanks!

New gifs:

 

[Heinvers]

Good
--------------
First gif:
1. I think that spear is raised too much after it's impaling him, maybe you could delay that raising a bit (right now it looks like it's cutting through butter, no offense)
2. Maybe you could make him drop the hammer at that moment.
--------------
Second gif:
1. He could try to lean on his hammer, seeing as he's barely standing.
--------------
I like where it's going so far, waiting for the seniors too.

 

[Chen]

Ooh, Doomhammer, master, what have I done?

Nice gifs, I really wait for it's release.

 

[Tauer]

Good
2. Maybe you could make him drop the hammer at that moment.

Unfortunately, I can't do that, the hammer is linked to his hand and can't be moved.

Second gif:
1. He could try to lean on his hammer, seeing as he's barely standing.

Good idea.

Ooh, Doomhammer, master, what have I done?

Nice gifs, I really wait for it's release.

Thanks, I wanted to finish him today, but I gotta sleep soon. He will definately be finished this weekend.

 

[Hardtime]

Give it blood dripping out of the stabbed area and maybe keep his head up so he can eye his oponent or face the person in front of him one last time. Maybe lower the spear a bit? Striking near the heart means sudden death and it acually looks weird for him to be still alive.