1. #1

    Monk combat animations - reasons not to update models?

    So I've played a male pandaren and undead monk, and a female troll monk.

    The undead and troll animations looked like they were the same, but I'm not sure if they were identical to the pandaren's. So far, I've noticed that the roll animation for undead is absent.

    The reasoning behind these updated models was that they were going to be needed for the monk class. Maybe it's too early to tell, but the fact that other races already appear to have the new monk animations, I'm starting to feel concerned that Blizzard might just throw their hands up and be done with the project, and leave them as they are (with a few tweaks, of course).

    Does anyone feel this sense of dread that comes from 'dear god they already have monk animations, no need to update the models now.' ?

  2. #2
    Blizz already said they're already working for model updates so there will be new monk animations for new and old models too

  3. #3
    As Blizzard already stated they are working on new models. As for the monk animations they said that all animations except the ones for pandaren are placeholders and every race will get its own monk animations. Although new models aren't needed for new animations because you can easily edit the existing skeleton and do new animations that don't look silly (there are people who already did such a thing). The reason why we get new models is that people demand them and in comparison to the new models the old ones look out of place.

  4. #4
    IIRC Blizzard should be just about done with Dwarf and will be moving on to Orc and Human.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Dayon View Post
    The reasoning behind these updated models was that they were going to be needed for the monk class.
    Ummm... No. I would like to see your source for this, because Blizzard said nothing of the sort.

  6. #6
    The Insane Thage's Avatar
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    Monks will all share the same basic animations (that may seem different due to, say, a gnome's arms being shorter than a draenei's). Currently, some races' Rolls are in the game files but not available in the game due to being buggy, others just haven't been implemented yet. Beta's beta, and not even the pandaren social animations are all fully completed yet--females don't even have a full set of voiceovers, at the moment, they just borrow the female vrykul combat grunts.
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  7. #7
    The Lightbringer fengosa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by unholytestament View Post
    Ummm... No. I would like to see your source for this, because Blizzard said nothing of the sort.
    It was speculated that it would happen because of that, there wasn't any official source on the subject.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by fengosa View Post
    It was speculated that it would happen because of that, there wasn't any official source on the subject.
    i think he was referring to your belief that dwarves should be done soon, which we've seen zero evidence of.
    the fact that dwarves are coming first, followed by orcs n humans is fairly well known at this point, because blizzard said so in no uncertain terms. i'd have to go find it again however.

    anyway, the monk animations seem to be placeholder ones. most of the older races get some...well, funky artifacts while using monk animations.
    “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

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    They're greedy soulless monsters for not handing me everything for my 15 moneys a month!

  9. #9
    New models are in progress but it is a bigger commitment than people realise to update them.
    You have to design for monks a new skeleton for each race to allow them all to utilise the movements that the animations require, such as the rolling motion.
    Also the behaviour in movement, sizing, skinning of each piece of armor and weapon they can potentially equip, which is a vast number.
    Weapons are potentially easier, but armor which has to be sized and potentially modified in shape for each race ensures it is no trivial task.

    Blizzard stated that dwarves would likely be the first to be updated, so that is not wild speculation but based on a blue post by blizzard.
    If really necessary someone will no doubt go find it, but it was said.

  10. #10
    I'm not complaining that they're not done.

    But companies have to cut back all kinds of things when they make games like this. Since the gaming community can more readily be in contact with the development team, they act more like people. They can make mistakes like people. They can get in over their heads and make promises that they end up unable to deliver on.

    I see the animations that are in the game at the moment as a potential springboard for Blizzard to say 'you know what, nevermind, these animations are good enough and we can scrap the model update process'.

    I really hope that's not the case, though, but if that happened I can't say I'd be surprised.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Dayon View Post
    I'm not complaining that they're not done.

    But companies have to cut back all kinds of things when they make games like this. Since the gaming community can more readily be in contact with the development team, they act more like people. They can make mistakes like people. They can get in over their heads and make promises that they end up unable to deliver on.

    I see the animations that are in the game at the moment as a potential springboard for Blizzard to say 'you know what, nevermind, these animations are good enough and we can scrap the model update process'.

    I really hope that's not the case, though, but if that happened I can't say I'd be surprised.
    Adding the new animations to the old races is not hard for Blizzard. They just needed to add a few new skeletons in it to at least get near as good as the Pandaren are. But Blizzard doesn't want to update the models to just have the new monk animations. They already know players are getting bored of the 8 year old character models and feel weird being around all these brand new models in-game (Thrall, Garrosh, Jaina, etc.). So they want to upgrade the models to have the new animations, but also make them not looks so much different from the old ones but still looks brand new (Meaning maybe higher polygon count). So yes, Blizzard is still working on the models. Like they said, they take a long time to make and if they did push new models at launch, the Dwarfs would be the only ones with new models. So expect new models either the last patch of MoP or the expansion after.

  12. #12
    Deleted
    those new models you talk about wont be done from scratch. the old ones will be updated with an improved skeleton and most likely some texture improvements.
    this will cause all movement done by the models to look more fluent etc.


    it is VERY unlikely (and illogial) they create completely new models.

  13. #13
    Tauren monk didn't have any new animations until this most recent build, but now they do and they're awesome!

  14. #14
    Someone had up .gifs of the monk animations early into beta. Forgot who posted them or where they were, though. But every race outside of Pandarens had identical monk animations at that time. No race had a roll animation outside of the Pandaren. Will that change? Who's to say. Beta's beta for a reason. It's possible as models get updated, monk animations will be varied as well, but to start everyone will have the same animations. Who knows currently except for Blizzard. But it's possible that this may be the first time class animations aren't varied between races which will likely lead to a massive uproar if it's not changed by release.

    For the time being, just assume everyone uses the same animations to just get the class working for every race. Then when we get a bit further into beta, the animations will change. Beta can often change drastically between builds so what's not completed one build may be completed the next.

  15. #15
    The Undying Slowpoke is a Gamer's Avatar
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    The press event did 2 things related to new models.


    1. Confirmed they won't be in 5.0


    2. Confirmed they will happen.



    Blizz said they would only have dwarves done for 5.0, and maybe orcs/humans done by the next MCP. So it looks like we may be seeing these in 6.0 instead.
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  16. #16
    You said it yourself. The animations all look the same. I think they just reused the animations and took the easy way out so they don't have to make fancy ones twice when they make the new models.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by unholytestament View Post
    Ummm... No. I would like to see your source for this, because Blizzard said nothing of the sort.
    It's because people from Blizzcon saw the promotional/propaganda video from Blizzcon saying "Pandaren/monks have 10x more complex animation than old models" and showed some of the old models distorting using monk skeletons - therefore all the people who DON'T HAVE A CLUE how videogame/CG animation works immediately translated that to "The old models can't work with monk skeletons and therefore we need a BRAND new models!"

    As I've said before since the Blizzcon video - all they need to do is to tweak animation skeleton points to make the old models work with the monk and that would be that. And as we see now, that was obviously the case.

    Sure, it's NOT going to stop them from making new models to be released later... but at the same time people REALLY have to stop seeing every Promotional/Propaganda video of their dev techs that Blizz tosses at them to be the sacred word of "yay" or "Nae" :P

    ---------- Post added 2012-04-29 at 08:45 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Bombkirby View Post
    You said it yourself. The animations all look the same. I think they just reused the animations and took the easy way out so they don't have to make fancy ones twice when they make the new models.
    Yup yup! All they did was probably make a standard "humanoid" version that works with each... and then will put the fine-tunement into the real models.

    ...theoretically, at least. :P

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by mvallas View Post
    It's because people from Blizzcon saw the promotional/propaganda video from Blizzcon saying "Pandaren/monks have 10x more complex animation than old models" and showed some of the old models distorting using monk skeletons - therefore all the people who DON'T HAVE A CLUE how videogame/CG animation works immediately translated that to "The old models can't work with monk skeletons and therefore we need a BRAND new models!"
    Yup. It's just the same old same old of people coming to their own conclusions and then claiming Blizzard said it.
    Yup yup! All they did was probably make a standard "humanoid" version that works with each... and then will put the fine-tunement into the real models.

    ...theoretically, at least. :P
    That seems to be the case so far.

  19. #19
    took me a bit to find this:
    http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...ria-Press-Tour

    Scroll down all the way to the bottom to the Interview with Tom Chilton.

    We are slowly in progress with revamping the races, but the reality is that at best we would get the Dwarves for Mists of Pandaria, and even that's on the bubble. It is something that we are planning to do, it is something that we want to get to and actually believe is valuable. As to when the the Blood Elves and the Draeneis would have that happen, they would probably be near the end of the list. We would probably get through all of the original races first before we go on to them since they are better than the original ones. Any of the ones we have done more recently tend to be a little bit higher fidelity.
    I also think that, in order to have the races "feel" the same once the new models are made, the animations will remain the same with some tweaks. So the monk animations they're making right now are the first version, and they'll be tweaked once the new models are done.
    Last edited by Menedude; 2012-04-29 at 09:25 PM.

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