Page 1 of 3
1
2
3
LastLast
  1. #1
    Pandaren Monk Eis's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Somewhere
    Posts
    1,981

    So the new Legion horses use the same awful animation as the Warforged Nightmare..

    I just made a big ol' post on the official WoW forums about this, but I'll copy it here: (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20743154215)
    So, MMO-champ posted their video for the new horse mounts coming in Legion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17quANa3xDs
    You can slow it down and take a look at the animations, or you can just look at the one that the current Warforged Nightmare uses in-game. They're the same.

    These animations are pretty bad. Honestly. You don't even have to know what a horse actually runs like to tell that there's something very strange about how they run. It's very bouncy, and awkward.

    Well, let's break down why it's so bad. Here's some stills of a real horse running: http://i.imgur.com/6F1julY.jpg
    First thing I'll point out is look at the horse's back. It is almost perfectly level the entire time. There isn't a lot of up and down movement in the horse's main section at all. Second thing, look at how far apart its feet go. A horse in full run takes really long strides. Some of the strides even take up the whole frame end to end.

    And here's some stills of the animation cycle for the Warforged Nightmare: http://i.imgur.com/1ZhirRy.jpg
    It's actually very easy to see the comparison to my first point earlier due to the big golden circles on the Nightmare's joints. On a real horse, these would stay level through the whole cycle. They're all over the place. The back end raises significantly.
    And on my second point, the Nightmare doesn't ever extend fully like a real horse. There should be at least one frame where back and front feet are at their furthest out at the same time, but the closest we get here is frame 6, and the back feet are bent really awkwardly.

    This, unfortunately, isn't much of a new problem though. Blizzard seems to not be able to figure out horses, even though they had them right in Vanilla.

    Five years ago (yes, five years ago) I made a video and a post complaining about the animation changes that happened in 3.0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvJvZp4Lygg
    And the post references the video I made two years before that: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2325034399
    This was the result of their being two different animations pre-3.0, one for horses with "skirts" (epic undead mounts, paladin horses) and one for all the other non-skirted horses (human horses, DK horses). The two animations can be seen in my crappy video above. As of now, there are no more horses on the original pre-3.0 non-skirted animation. We are left with the bouncy, jarring animation on every horse. I still will never understand why a perfectly good animation was removed completely unnecessarily. It already existed, why change it?

    Honestly, I had given up on the regular horse mounts ever being fixed. It's long in the past now, and I doubt anyone at Blizzard cares enough to justify or explain why a clear downgrade was made. I'm more concerned that we are getting new horse mounts that are an even further step in the wrong direction as far as animations go. Why can such a huge, successful company not figure out something as simple as animating a horse? They're not some huge complicated creature. It's a horse. A simple ol' horse.

    I will say that thankfully the horses using Invincible's skeleton are done decently well to the point of not being obnoxious, so at least I'll always be safe on my favorite pony. Hopefully.
    I just don't understand why they are using this horrible animation. It's really killed all of my hype for the new horses despite their awesome models. Does it bother anyone else? Do you guys care about animations, or just models?

  2. #2
    Field Marshal Goatlust's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    Australia.
    Posts
    66
    Quote Originally Posted by Eis View Post
    Do you guys care about animations, or just models?
    I was interested in purchasing the Warforged Nightmare during the sale around christmas but was completely turned off by the god awful animations. I'd be pretty disappointed to see new horse mounts get this terrible animation.

  3. #3
    In general terms I don't care about reusing a horse skeleton for a horse model, but if as you are saying the base horse animation doesn't actually look like a horse then that's probably something of a problem.

  4. #4
    Pandaren Monk Eis's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Somewhere
    Posts
    1,981
    Quote Originally Posted by Goatlust View Post
    I was interested in purchasing the Warforged Nightmare during the sale around christmas but was completely turned off by the god awful animations. I'd be pretty disappointed to see new horse mounts get this terrible animation.
    That is 100% my feeling too. The change in animations in 3.0 were bad, but absolutely nothing compared to how bad the Nightmare's animation is. I really don't want to see them keep using it. Worst case just use the old animation that all the other ground horses currently have. It's not great, but it's a huge improvement.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Imnick View Post
    In general terms I don't care about reusing a horse skeleton for a horse model, but if as you are saying the base horse animation doesn't actually look like a horse then that's probably something of a problem.
    Oh for sure, reusing skeletons is not a problem at all, as long as the skeleton and animation set are good. It absolutely is a problem of them copying the worst set of animations and reusing it. I'm certain that if they put these horses on either the other ground horse animation or Invincible's skeleton it'd be significantly better. They don't need to reinvent the wheel here, just use the assets they've already got.

  5. #5
    It's the stag animations, same as the Druid travel form. Given that the new mounts really look more like goats than horses I would say it fits perfectly. They're certainly not conventional horses.

    And I like it. The vanilla horse animations are shit.
    Last edited by Netherspark; 2016-04-14 at 01:00 AM.

  6. #6
    Pandaren Monk Eis's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Somewhere
    Posts
    1,981
    Quote Originally Posted by Netherspark View Post
    It's the stag animations, same as the Druid travel form. Given that the new mounts really look more like goats than horses I would say it fits perfectly. They're certainly not conventional horses.

    And I like it. The vanilla horse animations are shit.
    Are you really telling me that the Warforged Nightmare's animation is better than the animation on the left in this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvJvZp4Lygg

  7. #7
    Pandaren Monk Eis's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Somewhere
    Posts
    1,981
    Quote Originally Posted by kappler View Post
    animiations are better
    Nice edit, but I'm pretty sure the mods can still see the original.

  8. #8
    Void Lord Aeluron Lightsong's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    In some Sanctuaryesque place or a Haven
    Posts
    44,683
    I dunno... I saw it and it looks different but I can't truthfully say it looks worse. I don't have a problem with it.
    #TeamLegion #UnderEarthofAzerothexpansion plz #Arathor4Alliance #TeamNoBlueHorde

    Warrior-Magi

  9. #9
    Bloodsail Admiral Pigglix's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    Somewhere Far Far Away
    Posts
    1,026
    i like .

    /10chars

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Eis View Post
    Are you really telling me that the Warforged Nightmare's animation is better than the animation on the left in this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvJvZp4Lygg
    Well, the animation on the left is currently used for mounts like Hearthsteed, Invincible and that RAF Fiery horse mount

    The one on the right is the current animation on all vanilla mounts. The Warforged Nightmare is something else completely.

    BTW, that animation on the left was applied to all horse mounts during Wrath beta, but they pulled it at the last second, and reverted them back to vanilla animations. Sadly I still have footage from Wrath where the DK mount galloped like that.

    &Edit: YIKES. The new mount really does used the Nightmare animations. TERRIBLE. Why can't they give it the Hearthsteed animation instead? Sigh. . .
    Last edited by SuRXIII; 2016-04-14 at 02:01 AM.

  11. #11
    I don't know what their animators are doing when it comes to animals tbh. The horses are just inexcusable, the new druid models don't look remotely like bears (or cats), nor do many of the feline mounts. I know they have money to hire good artists, is it a stylistic choice to look awful?
    No surrender! 70 Vanguard - The Star Forge

  12. #12
    Void Lord Aeluron Lightsong's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    In some Sanctuaryesque place or a Haven
    Posts
    44,683
    Quote Originally Posted by Vajarra View Post
    I don't know what their animators are doing when it comes to animals tbh. The horses are just inexcusable, the new druid models don't look remotely like bears (or cats), nor do many of the feline mounts. I know they have money to hire good artists, is it a stylistic choice to look awful?
    Opinions, everyone has them. That's how they work.
    #TeamLegion #UnderEarthofAzerothexpansion plz #Arathor4Alliance #TeamNoBlueHorde

    Warrior-Magi

  13. #13
    To me because the mount is horse like it should have the horse's run animation. But at least it has a real run animation unlike the poor boar mounts.

  14. #14
    Deleted
    I think it looks fine

  15. #15
    Pandaren Monk Eis's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Somewhere
    Posts
    1,981
    Quote Originally Posted by SuRXIII View Post
    Well, the animation on the left is currently used for mounts like Hearthsteed, Invincible and that RAF Fiery horse mount

    The one on the right is the current animation on all vanilla mounts. The Warforged Nightmare is something else completely.

    BTW, that animation on the left was applied to all horse mounts during Wrath beta, but they pulled it at the last second, and reverted them back to vanilla animations. Sadly I still have footage from Wrath where the DK mount galloped like that.

    &Edit: YIKES. The new mount really does used the Nightmare animations. TERRIBLE. Why can't they give it the Hearthsteed animation instead? Sigh. . .
    That video's left animation is what all un-skirted vanilla horses used. The right animation was for skirted vanilla horses (UD and paladin). All horses were moved to the one on the right in the 3.0 patch. And yeah, the DK horses used that animation for all of Wrath and were then broken in Cata. =/

  16. #16
    Deleted
    All new mount animations have been abysmal since WoD. Same goes for some of the new character models, I don't know what happened.

  17. #17
    Haha, I never noticed it before I've seen those pictures. Nightmare looks like he is bunny hopping forward.

    Tho the same goes for almost all WoD mounts. Boar running animation is the exact opposite of a real boar running, Wolves jump around like idiots, Talbuks always ran weird. Suprisingly the only animation that seems to make sense is the Gronn one, gives you the proper "big fat beast" feel.

  18. #18
    Mechagnome McCrazy's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Location
    Switzerland
    Posts
    543
    I don't like the 'jumpy' moves the horses (and/or) other mounts make. It looks stupid, like some merry-go-round-horse. So glad, I can fly or ride a chopper.

  19. #19
    Legendary!
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Norway
    Posts
    6,378
    Main problem I think is not the mount itself, but the way the character just sits there completely stiff. I challenge you to look at yourself running with the Grove Warden from the side.

  20. #20
    The Lightbringer Cæli's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Belgium
    Posts
    3,659
    How does it matter ?
    Not liking an animation is another subject.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •