Animation References 

This week the focus was on creating more animations in order to flesh out another proposed type of combat for Deus Vault.  By the end of this week we were hoping to test out both types of player combat in order to decide on which is the most fun and effective for players. This alternate type of combat we are contemplating for the game relies on the player's mouse movements in order to determine what kind of an attack will be executed. If the player attacks while moving the camera to the left slightly, then a right to left attack will be initiated. The caveat to this is that we want more control over which directions the player can attack in, and by extension more animations. An example of the directional animations we are thinking about can be seen in Vermintide II. The attacks seem to criss-cross the screen and allow the player to hit different areas of enemies. It's also interesting to point out the black "swipe" that remains on the screen shortly after an attack, I feel that this is something that must be implemented into Deus Vault as it provides a huge amount of player feedback when combined with sound.

(Image taken from Vermintide II) one handed attack animations, note the speed and black trail

On to actually creating these new animations for the week. On top of the new animations that were required, we also discovered an issue involving the camera and allowing players to rotate their torso on the X-Axis. Since we wanted players to be able to aim their strikes by moving the mouse on both the X and Y Axes we needed to use one of the spine bones to pivot the player torso. This created problems with the animations, as that bone was needed to for complete turning. The solution I came up with was to remove all the keyframes from that bone and add them toa bone higher up in the hierarchy.  So I went back and redid a few of the previous animations as well. The new animations were slightly more difficult to create than the previous ones, as they required a lot more rotation on the hand IK's that were discussed in an earlier Devlog, which can sometimes look quite strange and cause the armature to behave unpredictably. I try to base as many of these animations on actual longsword stances, as I myself practice the Lichtenauer school of longsword, although it is difficult to maintain accuracy while working within the constraints of creating an easily read, enjoyable experience. 

Rough pose guide: http://www.thearma.org/essays/StancesIntro.htm#.W3DscegzbIU

With new animations comes new controllers and this week was no exception. I updated the original Animation controller with te fixed animations and also created two more controllers for the new combat system. Weather we use the complicated one is still to be decided, but I thought it would be beneficial to have it just in case.

 This week was much better in terms of personal organisation and work ethic. It was beneficial to meet with the group and properly discuss which tasks needed completion, as well as being given the rundown on how the new features and animations were going to be implemented

List of completed tasks for this week:

• New Mecanim Controllers
• "Angled animations"
• Fixed older animations so they work with the camera script

-Tom Forwood