[Discussion] Improving the battle animations

[Maruno]

I've been thinking about the animations shown in battle, and I think the way they work needs to be overhauled. The Animation Editor that comes with Essentials is the thing that creates these animations, so that'll need to be upgraded too.

I need your help with this. I need to know what you want animations to be able to do, and what you want the Animation Editor to be able to do. I'll be keeping a list of features in this post, which you should add to and discuss.

I'll also need a list of all the kinds of animation that need to be possible. Essentials currently has 3 kinds (which it calls "positions"): Target, Both Battlers and Screen. An incomplete list of the kinds of animation is also below. Ideally all the animations from the existing games should be looked at and categorised as one kind or another. When looking at an animation, consider whether it would appear any different if a different Pokémon (on the same or opposite side) was using it, and whether it appears different in single or double battles and/or depending on who's using it. What if the user and target are on the same side of the field? Remember to also consider "common" animations such as weather effects and being confused or gaining HP.

I want to get a full idea of what animations should be able to do, so that I can come up with improvements accordingly. Feel free to make any suggestions and dispute things, even for small things. Include examples if appropriate.


Suggested features

Animation contents:

• Background graphic, which can be set/changed/cleared during the animation.
• Show all battlers in all animations (2 in single battles, up to 4 in double battles), and allow them to be moved/manipulated.
• Foreground graphic, which can be set/changed/cleared during the animation. Can also be used for screen flashes (with definable colour/duration).
• Ability to play the user's cry and target's cry (for Growl and the like).

Showing animations:

• Multi-hit moves can have multiple animations, one per hit, which are played in order.
• Make all moves which hit multiple targets (e.g. Surf) show the animation only once, rather than for each target in turn.
  • Are there any multi-target moves which shouldn't behave like this?
  • How will parts of the animation related to hitting each target work (e.g. the splash around each hit target in Surf)? Overlay extra animations as required, or define certain cels to show only under certain circumstances?
• Certain animations (e.g. Curse, Fusion Flare, Techno Blast, Brick Break) can have multiple animations, one of which is played depending on certain conditions.
• Option to hide a battler in certain circumstances (e.g. in the middle of using Fly) or replace it with a different graphic (e.g. Substitute). What happens visually when a hidden/Substituted battler is attacked or a Substituted battler uses a move?

Animation Editor:

• The ability to change the display between single/double battle and to change the default user/target, to easily see how the animation will look in different situations.

Kinds of animation:

• No focal point - Already in Essentials as the "Screen" position. The animation will always look exactly the same regardless of anything.
• One focal point - Already in Essentials as the "Target" position. The animation is moved so that it appears over the target (which can be the move's user), but otherwise is not distorted in any way.
• Two focal points - Already in Essentials as the "Both battlers" position. The animation is stretched and even flipped horizontally/vertically so that, wherever the user and target are on-screen, the animation appears to come from the user and to the target. The locations of the user and target change between single/double battles and depending on which battlers they are in double battles.
• Two focal points by foe - What you get when you have a "Both battlers" animation named "OppMove:TACKLE". Works like the "Two focal points" kind above, but can be used to prevent an animation flipping horizontally/vertically which may make it look weird.
• One shifting focal point - Like "One focal point", but the battler to focus on can change partway through the animation (typically from the user to the target). The key difference between this and "Two focal points" is that here the animation should not be stretched/distorted depending on the relative positions of the user/target. Examples include Aqua Tail and Astonish.
  • There are some animations where the two parts would overlap, e.g. Snarl, Swift, Pain Split. How would these work? Perhaps be able to override the focal point for individual cels (to user/target/battler 1-4)?
• Focal side - Like "One focal point", but focusses on a side rather than a battler. I don't know if this is necessary.

 

[Maruno]

It's true that the Animation Editor is already quite useful. I just think that there's a lot more it could do. The list I've already come up with shows this, although some parts (which?) can be disposed. I don't make animations, though, so I don't know what animation-makers want.

What do you mean, you can "fake" depth? You can do depth - a cel can either go in front of the battlers or behind them. On the same layer, a higher-numbered cel goes in front of a lower-numbered cel. No fakery required.

I'm planning on the background image being a separate graphic in the Graphics/Animations folder, so they can be full-sized and all that and don't need cramming into an animation sheet.

Double battles may not be common, but that doesn't mean they should be ignored. They add a deal of complexity to the animation system (though multi-target moves and more user/target combinations), and should be catered for, even if it's not to the extent that what I originally wrote suggests.

 

[Maruno]

It is more of a personal thing, but when working with say, 5-6 flames for a 60 frame fire attack, things like tweening quickly become a task of locking in correct cell numbers for everything. I know many don't experience this because they usually do simple 10-15 frame animations by hand.(not that there is anything wrong with that, I just like to go above and beyond haha)

Ah, I see. I could add in the ability to renumber a cel, which would make it much easier for the right cels to have the same number for tweening purposes. (If the new number is already being used by another cel, the two are swapped.)

I guess my skepticism comes from just how far you want to go with it. Namely, if anything like 3 on 3 or higher battles were included in essentials it would probably derail all the work you'd be doing now, no? Essentials is leaning on an awkward edge between 4th and 5th gen, and I think something like this should be waited to be done until essentials its at its absolute "done" point.

I won't be adding triple battles, because the battle screen's cluttered enough even in double battles. I can't think of anything else that would hinder or make obsolete my current plans to improve the animations.

In any case, whether or not current efforts may be undone in the future is irrelevant. I just want to know what would make for the best animation system, so I've got something to work towards no matter what else I happen to do.

 

[Maruno]

Kinds of animation:

• No focal point - Already in Essentials as the "Screen" position. The animation will always look exactly the same regardless of anything.
• One focal point - Already in Essentials as the "Target" position. The animation is moved so that it appears over the target (which can be the move's user), but otherwise is not distorted in any way.
• Two focal points - Already in Essentials as the "Both battlers" position. The animation is stretched and even flipped horizontally/vertically so that, wherever the user and target are on-screen, the animation appears to come from the user and to the target. The locations of the user and target change between single/double battles and depending on which battlers they are in double battles.
• Two focal points by foe - What you get when you have a "Both battlers" animation named "OppMove:TACKLE". Works like the "Two focal points" kind above, but can be used to prevent an animation flipping horizontally/vertically which may make it look weird.
• One shifting focal point - Like "One focal point", but the battler to focus on can change partway through the animation (typically from the user to the target). The key difference between this and "Two focal points" is that here the animation should not be stretched/distorted depending on the relative positions of the user/target. Examples include Aqua Tail and Astonish.
  • There are some animations where the two parts would overlap, e.g. Snarl, Swift, Pain Split. How would these work? Perhaps be able to override the focal point for individual cels (to user/target/battler 1-4)?
• Focal side - Like "One focal point", but focusses on a side rather than a battler. I don't know if this is necessary.

I've chosen to ditch the idea of defining a particular type per animation. Instead, each cel in an animation will have its own focus (currently one of "user", "target", "user and target" and "screen", but I'm toying with adding in some more such as "target's feet"). This provides much more flexibility than what I proposed in the quote above, and a bit of simplicity for me as the relevant code is condensed into one animation player script. A consequence of this is that the user and target battler sprites are always in all animations, and can be moved around and recoloured and whatnot in all of them. Which is nice. Several birds with one stone.

I've been working on the background/foreground too, and I'm nearly done implementing them. They may be a bit fiddly to use, but they work. After I'm done with that I'll also add the option of playing the user's cry, which should be easy to implement since I've done very similar things already now.

Something I discovered is that you are able to give any cell in an animation the same graphic as either the user or target. This allows for after-image style effects, such as for Double Team and other animations which should show a Pokémon moving quickly (i.e. motion blur).

Is there anything else you guys want out of the battle animations and/or the Animation Editor?