Allied Races Animations

[Deleted]

Is there anything known about the animations? Right now the male zandalari trolls aber basically male nightelves, just as the male nightborne. Does this mean horde gets to have 2 reskins of male nightelves? Doesn't really sound too exciting.

[Deleted]

I mean, even if they don't have unique animations, we're still in a better situation than ally, look at what they got!

[Amnaught]

Zandalari share animations with Darkspear trolls.

They just lack the hunch, like upright orcs will.

[ls-]

Well, kinda... That's the reason why they can release so many at once. Creating animations is expensive and time consuming af, that's why skeletons are reused for as long as possible.

Zandalari in MoP had a mix of male nelf and male troll animations, for instance, they had troll casting animations, whereas pretty much everything else was from nelves. Looked weird actually, I hope they tuned them a bit.

[bmjclark]

I'm fairly sure I read a post that said Zandalari trolls will use a modified troll skeleton where they stand upright but still use similar animations to trolls, someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, horde definitely got the better deal with allied races anyways. Alliance got recolored dwarves and draenei with gold eyes.

[Steampunkette]

Alliance gets Void Elves, though, so it balances nicely?

Honestly, Horde gets more trolls and Tauren, alliance gets more Draenei and Dwarves. Both get more elf. It's a toss up to which side gets the better races, but the Alliance gets Light -and- Void races at the same time, which is kind of amazing since it's the basis of the recent story of Turalyon and Alleria.

Honestly it makes me a bit sad for what the Horde gets. 2 Broken Isles races and Zandalari, compared to 2 Argus races and the Dark Iron.

That said: More Later has me squeeeeealing in hope and delight!

[Deleted]

Everything about male nightelves is terrible, so i'm not that happy about getting two of those as the new playable races. I really hope they dont keep the skeleton for the trolls, otherwise i'll have to play female troll for another xpac.

[Hugnomo]

Can we just establish that sharing an animation rig is not the same as a reskin?
A reskin is when you have the exact same 3D model with a different texture. It has nothing to do with animation.
I get that you're trying to imply it's cheap, but reusing animation rigs is just cost efficient. Creating a new one is an incredible amount of work, and isn't completely necessary if you already have a library of different rigs that can do the job.

Even if Zandalari use the same rig as night elves (which I'm not sure they do, I heard a dev say it's actually a modified troll rig), it's still a vastly different model. It's not a reskin.

[Deleted]

Zandalari share animations with Darkspear trolls.

They just lack the hunch, like upright orcs will.

I think its more likely that Zandalari share animations with upright orcs.

[Deleted]

Well, i've always only cared about animations. They could look like 7-headed hydras and i wouldn't play them if they had nightelf animations, because they would feel like a reskin of a nightelf.

Idc about the terminology, just don't want them to feel and move like male nightelves.

[aenima3473]

They already announced during Blizzcon that all of the allied races have there own unique animations, dances and emotes

[Nyel]

Didn't they say every allied race is getting unique animations and that's a reason why they're so much work?

[Destinas]

Most races will have shared stances and animations with their "main" counterparts. The exceptions are Zandalari and Nightborne, but it's not that much.

Nightborne use pretty much the exact same animations as Night Elves. This can be seen from their reveal in the systems trailer, where they use a Night Elf combat animation:
-Picture from their reveal
Otherwise, they have a unique stance while standing. It matches the current Nightborne models - their feet are spread wider, with one foot more in front. Their arms are also held wider.
-Nightborne in Heritage Armor

Zandalari are more modified than Nightborne, but they won't be entirely new in terms of animations. They actually have the same standing animation as Nightborne (from what little we've seen). The same feet are in the same position, and their arms are held at the same distance, in the same position.

-Unique female Zandalari
-God King Rastakhan
-Zandalari in Heritage Armor
Compare the pictures of the Zandalari and the Nightborne in their Heritage Armor. They stand the exact same.

Zandalari may also have somewhat unique battle stances. I only found one picture, but I don't recognize these as Darkspear animations:
-Several Zandalari in battle poses

This could be because they are trying to make the playable Zandalari have animations similar to the the unique Isle of Thunder/Throne of Thunder Zandalari models, which were modified Night Elves. It seems they will have other animations that they share with Darkspear Trolls and other races entirely. The first picture I linked shows a Zandalari in the shaman casting stance, for instance.
Just so people can compare, here are a few other pictures of Zandalari and Blood Trolls that show them pretty clearly, as well. It seems female Blood Trolls use the Zandalari animations, while males are hunched, using the Darkspear animations.
http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screen...mal/672948.jpg
http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screen...mal/672970.jpg
http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screen...mal/672946.jpg
http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screen...mal/673794.jpg
http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screen...mal/673047.jpg
http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screen...mal/673044.jpg

[Amnaught]

Didn't they say every allied race is getting unique animations and that's a reason why they're so much work?

No.

They said every allied race is getting its own voice-overs.

[ls-]

Didn't they say every allied race is getting unique animations and that's a reason why they're so much work?

No, and that's the reason why there's 6 of them and not 2, but in that case they'd just be proper races

[Zuben]

I hope the Nightborne are heavily modified, as night elf male animations have always felt goofy to me, even with WoD's touch up.

[Skildar]

nightborne and zandalari are both based on the night elf skeleton.
I don't get how you can say that they are based off the troll one... use your eyes!

[Amunrasonther]

I don't see why giving them unique animations would be that difficult now that they have better models and technology.

[Khrux]

Animations are one of the longer processes in game developments, in some cases requiring motion capture too. Its far easier to use existing animations, rigged to a new/modified skeleton and then making smaller adjustments for flavour. So its most likely going to be modified NE animations/skeletons for both Nightborne and Zandalari to save time/costs/effort.

Bloodelves - VoidElves
Draenei - yellow Draenei
Moosetauren - Moosetauren
Dark dwarves - bright dwarves

The only "new" non-playables are Zandalari/Nightborne, so its a huge reduction in work to use existing assets and build from there instead of starting from the ground up with entirely unique animations.

[Deleted]

Not sure about animations, but each race is going to receive their own voice over!
I'm also counting not only about an unique tarting zone, but also on dedicated zones :-)