Simple adjustment/request

[Warlord Zsinj]

I'd like for units to be able to play certain animations when they are thrown in the air. I think this should default to the "movement" animation, so that units will move when in the air, but you should be able to make your own animations too.

The reason being that when units are thrown into the air (likely to become increasingly common with lighter infantry units such as in SWTA, and the new mass tags), they look quite silly. This could be very easily remedied through the use of the walking animation (perhaps played at double speed), which would make the units flail while in the air.

Its a minor alteration, and I think it would add quite a lot of character, as well as customizeability.

In order to reinforce my point, I present to you, exhibit A:

(Image by SecurE)
As you can see, our stormtrooper appears to be attempting to pull a complex olympic diving move by remaining absolutely rigid as he is flung into the air.

[zwzsg]

I disagree about "doubling the speed of the walking script", but otherwise, yes, it would be nice to have kbots flails their legs in the air, and to be able to define our own flailing animation, and to default to walking script so we don't have to remake all units script.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Excuse the bump, but can I just say that now that we have made infantry get knocked around a bit by artilley, it has become really essential that this little thing be put in. Zaphod, is there any chance that you could put it in for the next release?

Infantry look really silly when they are flying through the air in complete rigidity.

The ability to put death animations would be pretty nice too, if unrelated to the original request.

Gnome, could you make a quick video explaining how silly stormtroopers look when they are thrown into the air by an artillery unit?

[SwiftSpear]

I think the real question is... Why can storm troopers get shot by arillery, get thrown 50 feet into the air, land, and still live?

[Gnomre]

They can't. We just rigged it so they ALMOST die from the artillery blast, and then get finished off when they whap the ground

[zwzsg]

Have I already said that calling SetSFXoccupy with a currently unused value (let's say, 9) seem to me a very good way to notify the script the unit has departed from the ground and initiated being flung in mid-air? (For those who don't know, in TA, SetSFXoccupy is called with a value of 0 when the unit get into in a transport, is called with a value of 4 when the unit gets on land, and with a value of 2 and/or 3 when the unit gets in the sea or the shore depending on its upright=1ness.)

[Sean Mirrsen]

In addition to that, I think units that have Upright=1, should fly through the air without randomly rotating. If you absolutely need it, you can rotate them yourself, but for the most part, the way infantry flies in DoW, just flailing their limbs in every possible direction while remaining relatively stable in flight, looks very good to me. With complex enough scripting in the MotionControl script, you could accurately tell whether the unit is flying (using the setsfxoccupy thing), taking off, landing, aiming in midair (I saw a peewee actually shooting at the enemy crowd as he was flying through the air), or doing any other things.

On second thought, I think normal vehicles should too remain stable in flight, and only rotate as the script orders, although it'd need a new tag to disable random rotation for units that have such scripts, as most units don't have them, and probably wont until complete overhaul.