Decapitation death animation for soldiers?

[Destructavator]

I've been doing a lot of animation work today for the new soldier models, and I've realized that it would be really easy to add additional death animations (in addition to the standard three) where the soldier's head comes off - all I have to do is change the position of the head TAG in different frames in the body .MD2 tag file.

This might look cool for getting hit by special melee attacks and such, for specific animations, or if an alien has a special melee attack or weapon.

Opinions?

[Mattn]

would that really add something to the game? i mean besides the extra violence? more death animations would be cool - but maybe more like loosing the helmet, not the whole head. we should not get bloodier just because we can imo.

[Destructavator]

Hmmm....  Good point, I've seen many commercial games fall into a competition for trying to be the most graphic and gory, and I admit I wouldn't want UFO: AI to slide into that direction.

Well, we could at least make a note that if such an animation is ever needed for something special, it would be very easy to do on the animation side, and wouldn't require any special coding.

On a related note, in working with the TAGs it is also possible for other fancy stuff, such as having a soldier show off by twirling a pistol in their hand, spinning it right after they take down an alien with it (like in some cheesy action films).

[Mattn]

On a related note, in working with the TAGs it is also possible for other fancy stuff, such as having a soldier show off by twirling a pistol in their hand, spinning it right after they take down an alien with it (like in some cheesy action films).

you have all (or almost every ) the artistic freedom you can think of when it comes to fancy little effects while doing the solider animations.

[Hertzila]

On a related note, in working with the TAGs it is also possible for other fancy stuff, such as having a soldier show off by twirling a pistol in their hand, spinning it right after they take down an alien with it (like in some cheesy action films).

Maybe you could put stuff like that for idle animations? Twirling pistols, checking remaining ammo, if RF is active looking wary and prepared, doing stuff from here and the like. Of course things like blowing "smoke" out of the pistols end would be great for afterkill taunt.

BTW, is reload animation planned? Since every weapon has the mag in different place is making only one such animation possible? Or would it require a seperate one for everything?

[Destructavator]

Maybe you could put stuff like that for idle animations? Twirling pistols, checking remaining ammo, if RF is active looking wary and prepared, doing stuff from here and the like. Of course things like blowing "smoke" out of the pistols end would be great for afterkill taunt.

If the coders are willing to write support for it, I will happily make the animations for it - After I finish the basic animations that is (and add the already-planned newer ones, such as lying prone, climbing ladders, etc.)

[Mattn]

don't forget the flying animation. we need a new tag to place a jetpack on the back of the soldier and the soldier must change into a "flying" animation controlling that jetpack

[Destructavator]

Do we already have a model for the jet-pack?  If I have an idea of what it looks like and where the controls are it would make it easier to know exactly how to do the animations (where the hands and arms will be, how they will be positioned, etc.).