Soldier animations

[Conrad mana]

Hello,


Since the new close combat (panthers in the fog) has a new 32-bit graphic environment I wondered if other elements could be added or changed such as the animated soldiers within close combat. These animations are low quality, could these be updated with high quality animations? (with quality I mean framerate and depth)

A while aggo I started experimenting and created a basic soldier with an armature for animation purposes. I'd like to see more detail a variaty within the current soldier animations in close combat, maybe even other elements such as vehicle interaction. Could this be possible since the close combat engine has been tweaked.

Kind regards,
Conrad

[SteveMcClaire]

It is possible, yes. But it is a very large job.  There are several thousand frames of soldier animations. Some enhancements were made to how the existing animation play, but a total redo wasn't in the cards for PitF.
 
 
 

[Conrad mana]

Thanks for the reply, so is there one set for the animations or do the allied and axis have their own?
Because the soldiers all seem to have the same shape but the colors are just modified.

And do you think a more detailed set would add more character to the existing game? If so I would like to start the challenge.

[SteveMcClaire]

You're correct about the shared animations. There is a set of animations for soldiers with different weapons (Rifle, LMG, Mortar, Bazooka/PzShreck, etc) but both sides share the same animations.  The coloring happens 'on the fly' in the game as the soldier sprites are drawn.  Specific pixel colors in the original image are replaced / blended with the US/German uniform color to get a different appearance when they're actually drawn.  So it's not as simple as just creating an animation in a 3D package and then capturing X frames per second to make new soldier animations for CC.

The thing about the soldier animations is that they're so small you can't do a whole lot with them.  It's a fair bit of work, and most of the detail you add would probably be lost due to the small number of pixels.  You could certainly reduce the blockiness / pixelation of the sprites a bit, but I am not sure you could do much more than that.

[Conrad mana]

Thanks again! That makes it clear that replacing isn't an option. My question came up when i've read about the new 32-bit tweak. If it would be possible to alter the engine than it certainly must be possible to introduce a new system for object interaction, at least I thought.

Probably for that kind of job it would be better to introduce a whole new engine (such as unity)
At the moment I'm experimenting with 3d elements although for now they are 2d converted for the current close combat version.

[CSO_Talorgan]

ORIGINAL: Conrad mana

Probably for that kind of job it would be better to introduce a whole new engine (such as unity)

... which is what is about to happen, I believe.

[Kanov]

It certainly looks a lot better but it would be I guess dozens of hours if not hundreds to do it. There is the question as to how the sprites are colored too, like if some one introduces new sprites from 3D models, what other modification is needed to make the game paint the new sprites with the uniforms colors? what I mean is, in the example above for instance, the torso, legs and head would be in different positions, how is the game going to paint them? how does it do it currently actually?