Rise of the Naga Empire Expansion Leak.... Reddit source

[zlygork]

If a simple solution works, then it can work. That doesn't mean just that you can draw a picture and it will immediately work for the game and apply to the mounts. Have you done any 3D work before? If you do, can you draw the placement of all the bones in the skeleton for the tail to be able to bend properly in that sidesaddle position? How many bones would you need? Do you know Blizzard's technical limits for amount of bones and polycount for each character? Do you know why they even have those limits in place?

You realize there are so many under the hood technical bits that you are completely glazing over that has an actual affect on game optimization that limits certain ideas like this. Adding more bones to the tail to get it to bend properly into this shape is possible, but adds a cost to every animation that the Naga has since there are hundreds of animations all keying extra bones that might not even be needed other than for this one pose and purpose. Maybe they could incorporate a blendshape or vertex animation, but that's beyond my knowledge of what kind of animation WoW supports. I can simply tell you, as someone who works in 3D and takes 2D concepts into 3D on a daily basis, that your drawing is only a drawing and proves little in what will work in WoW.

There's a lot of questions that pop in my head when I see that picture and think about how Blizzard will approach this. If I have these questions, surely the guys who work on these characters will too. Yes, the tech limits have improved over time and I'm sure there are workarounds to get something like this working, but at the same time this might not be the best or most practical solution that Blizzard would want to take. To get this looking good you need to add more bones in the tail or RnD up a posing solution that works, and make sure the geometry also supports the look. You could say 'Blood Elf mounting looks crap anyways!' but that doesn't mean Blizzard will take up that same 'Let's just make it look crap' attitude when addressing a new race for a new expansion.

First of all, I want to thank you. You are the first one that I see bringing reasonable seeming arguments regarding nagas' tail and not just mentioning how they make things impossible due to magical unspoken reasons and because of how texture wraps around them.
If I understand correctly your argument, you think that with the way that blizzard might be working their animations, the proposed riding animation would require the models' skeletons to have X extra bones for the tail to move properly, correct? I must admit I never cared too much for mount animations and therefore I might not even have noticed if this has changed with WOD, but wouldn't the mounting "animation" just be a static pose? If so, what would be so special about the Naga in particular that would require some ridiculous amount of bones? wouldn't it in a way be comparable to male Draenei tails wrapping around their body while mounting?

[Thimagryn]

If so, what would be so special about the Naga in particular that would require some ridiculous amount of bones? wouldn't it in a way be comparable to male Draenei tails wrapping around their body while mounting?

Tails and tentacles are generally a bitch in 3d, since they are meant to bend in any direction and the general concept is anything that bends needs the geometry to support it. Knees and elbows? Add a couple supporting spans around the joint and make sure it bends in one direction, and you're done. And even then, those joints can take some work to look good. WoW works with very low poly characters, so often we will get a lot of crashing and just make due and chock it up to 'style'. Big tails however can bend in any direction, but you can't just add extra geometry everywhere there's a joint because it's still a low poly model. The result is you'll get stretching polies and large flat edges that are made more apparant by the bending tails. This is generally why the animations for Naga tails or tentacles are kept subtle or in constant motion to alleviate the problem.

Sidesaddle is one of the few ways that takes all the problems I mentioned above and displays it front and center by stretching the geometry to its extreme, then posing it so that you always see how badly the geometry wasn't made to support that shape. It's like trying to tie a bendy straw into a knot or a braid. Just because you CAN do that doesn't mean the straw was made to be tied, or that you should use a straw if you need to tie a knot. This is why I think using magic to turn into an Elf to ride is a much more effective solution. You aren't shoehorning the Naga model into a pose that the game doesn't really allow for. If you want to tie a knot and you have more than just a straw, why not look at other options?

[Deleted]

I'm late to the party, but this has "fan made" written all over it...

[Lumineus]

A tail/tentacle is a really simple geometric structure, though. Essentially it's just an irregular cone mesh that's morphed equidistantly to whatever bones the splines are connected to. It takes way more polygons to create the look of one leg on a human. Especially on the new models with their individual toes. So they could just use five times as many polys as the cone actually needs, and then it's just a matter of how many bones they want to animate. The real problem is it's tough to animate those bones because it's something that can't really be motion-captured all that well, or you need to use tricks to do it, like putting the sensors on a Slinky.

If you look at stuff they've done recently, like Helya, you'll see that with her tentacles:
http://www.wowhead.com/npc=99801/destructor-tentacle
That the geometry isn't really the issue. The movement looks fine up until the point where they stop giving a fuck about posing the bones.

[Jaylock]

First of all, I want to thank you. You are the first one that I see bringing reasonable seeming arguments regarding nagas' tail and not just mentioning how they make things impossible due to magical unspoken reasons and because of how texture wraps around them.
If I understand correctly your argument, you think that with the way that blizzard might be working their animations, the proposed riding animation would require the models' skeletons to have X extra bones for the tail to move properly, correct? I must admit I never cared too much for mount animations and therefore I might not even have noticed if this has changed with WOD, but wouldn't the mounting "animation" just be a static pose? If so, what would be so special about the Naga in particular that would require some ridiculous amount of bones? wouldn't it in a way be comparable to male Draenei tails wrapping around their body while mounting?

The point is, is Blizzard can make it work if they really want to. They have updated models before and can do so with the Naga to make them a playable race. Even IF they somehow couldn't make the technical aspect of wrapping their tail around the mount to do a "side saddle" type ride, they could retcon some way to make it happen with legs and feet. But that is highly unlikely as they would probably undergo the technical difficulties to make the side saddle work.

Even Chris Metzen liked the idea of playable Naga, and if they could, they would implement them into the game. What better way to do that than with a thematically appropriate title like "Rise of the Naga Empire." Now, im not saying that this leak is accurate or the game is going to be "Rise of the Naga Empire" but to suggest they can never make Naga happen as a playable race is just absurd.

[Izzyfurious]

Could you expand on why? There's been a bunch of foreshadowing about a south seas/naga/old gods expansion from characters such as Azshara and Il'gynoth, and Jaina has definitely been building to something for a while. Sure, we've had void lord foreshadowing too, but that'll definitely be an exp later on so it makes sense.

But they basically just created the void lords to dethrone Sargeras as the big baddies, which isn't something they can do every expansion, and it'd be difficult to find an entity that trumps immeasurable unspeakable evil guys in the void, so most likely they'll stick to their big baddy status for a long while to come.

Void lord expo probably wont happen for a good 5-10 years I'd say.

Why do i have to expand on that when there has been enough explanations about this ever since 7.3 came on the PTR and the hints are there? It's been explained sooo many times, i don't have to add my 2 cents on it too.