Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Projects/Skill animations

I'd like to address some issues I see that may easily hamper the process of getting this project moving if not discussed prior to game release.

• How should we collect animations for the following?:
  • Charge skills? (at full charge, or multiple animations for different charge levels, or something else entirely? Does it even make a difference in the animation of the skill proper?)
  • Channel skills? (fully through to the end of channeling, or simply for as long as it'll go with a swift click?)
  • Downed skills? (I think this'll be the toughest, finding a situation where you can down yourself without fear of having your animation gathering interrupted by whatever downed you.)
  • Skills which change effect based on orientation? (if it changes the animation)
• Which race should we use to collect animations, or need we even standardize for this? (For non-racial skills, I think it would be best to use humans, just because it's familiar)
• Where should we collect the animations?:
  • This one may have to wait until release to fully answer. We'll need to account for the possibility of other players being in the area and getting in the shot (which may not actually be a big issue) and for having some kind of "target" to use for the skills. I remember seeing a training area in the human demo, but there were NPCs practicing there. Maybe there's something similar but unoccupied in another place.
• I don't know if this'll even be an issue, but if underwater or in the air (something was mentioned a long time ago about skills acting differently when used in the air, maybe it's been scrapped though) will skills act the same, and if they do should we record them in different environments? (Has there been any underwater action in the demo that could tell us whether this will actually be an issue?)
• How should we account for traits if they change the animation of a skill?

If anyone has suggestions or further concerns please speak up. --Kyoshi (Talk) 02:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Charge - All levels, assuming they are all distinct. Channel - Either one loop or a few seconds, if the loop is very short or nothing particularly interesting happens for longer. Downed - We'll have to see if there's a duel option or training area where this could be done. Race - Any, assuming no race has clipping or other issues with a skill. Traits - The most vanilla version, I suppose. Maybe the trait's page could have the bells and whistles version. Manifold 03:19, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) well, I plan on contributing to the gw2 animations project. I'm going to outline some ideas below.

• Data Collection:
  • Charge Skills - one, or a combination of the following.
    • a gif of the skill used at minimum, or near minimum power.
    • a gif of the skill used at maximum, or near maximum power.
    • a gif of the skill's animation while charging.
    • a gif of the skill charging, from '0-full' then being used.
    • Issues:
      • Should we have 3 separate files? Should they be strewn together in a longer sequence (which would be brutal on slower / limited connections). Should we even record them separately?
  • Channel Skills - Possibly a mixture of the below?
    • A reasonable amount of time would be ideal, in my book.
    • Nothing too short, or too long.
    • Only using a long-term recording when the animation will change as it's used longer.
    • Issues:
      • Variation among animations could make standardization difficult.
  • Downed Skills - See Below
    • In the first demo featuring the shatterer, (screen recording at PAX or another convention, by Anet), at one point the dev used some chat command to kill himself. (which was audible, the 'announcer' told him to die to demonstrate the downed system). iirc it was a chat /command not a foe that killed him, that time.
    • Issues:
      • If it wasn't a command that killed him this will be nearly impossible.
  • Orientation - Either of the below
    • An aerial view of the animation, ~a 45* angle would be ideal.
    • a strait down view of the animation; as close to 90% as we could get.
    • a horizontal view of the animation, looking from either behind the player, or a side perspective.
    • Issues:
      • we don't have complete knowledge of camera mechanics, could make an option or two impossible.
  • Where - Details below
    • I'd suggest something similar to the (ideal) weapon screenshot methodology used on gww. A character at a location with a relatively solid background color, and as few distractions as possible (since at this point it looks like few, if any, skills required a 'target').
    • eg: the beach outside GToB used in weapon screenshot taking @ gww.
    • Issues:
      • no such beach may exist

just some of my thoughts, its 11PM, and I'm tired so i probably missed something, but these are what I've come up with so far. — Scythe 3:22, 29 Sep 2010 (UTC)

@Scythe: The chat command was probably a dev command, so I doubt we would have access to that. There will definitely be some suitable location for recording, even if it's less than ideal (i.e. no targets in the area; we can just fire against a wall or maybe even use a weak foe). Camera mechanics will be mostly inconsequential. Your concerns for a charge skill were my concerns, basically; however, if they are distinctly different animations, I suppose we should record them separately. We'll have to find some kind of format to place that on a skill's page or in the infobox, though.

@Manifold: I like the trait idea. We'll need to standardize the way we note it on the page, but I think that'll work.

I'm still concerned about how being underwater will affect a skill, but as best I'm aware the demos haven't included any underwater footage. --Kyoshi (Talk) 03:47, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

so, consensus on our similar thoughts. Killing oneself being a dev command is actually something that i didnt think about; could lead to potential difficulty. However, if the game has a friendly fire system, it could actually be rather easy to collect data for downed skills. Also, potential continuation of vamp weps could make it easier. On traits, possibly a separate table for trait variation? One problem I can forsee, though, is the massive amount of server space recording more than one animation per skill would take. — Scythe 20:57, 30 Sep 2010 (UTC)

No way would friendly fire be consistent, it would be too easy to grief that way. But dueling I could see happening; I'll add a suggestion on the GW1W feedback portal just in case.

"the massive amount of server space recording more than one animation per skill would take." Not our problem unless ANet comes to us complaining, as far as I know. And besides that, even if we have 15mB per file, and every skill is captured, with every variation (and even if every skill variation adds up to even close to the 1500+ skills we had in GW1) we will take up at most 8x the amount of space taken up on GW1W. If you'd like to ask someone to be sure then go ahead, but I don't think it'll be an issue.

"On traits, possibly a separate table for trait variation?" If we're still going to link to the skill animation from the skill infobox, this would make it too messy. I think we should just have the skill page link to traits that affect it (which is probably the plan anyway) and put the animation with that trait active on the trait's infobox, if we make one, or otherwise just linked. --Kyoshi (Talk) 02:43, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Am wondering

In light of the category tree reorganization, will this project focus on one race to record animations (with exceptions such as racial skills as stated above)? Or will this project, in time, record animations on the same skill for all 5 different races? If so, we already have a category tree branching in mind, if not it's cool too. It's not up to me what you guys wish to do with recording, hence I figured I'd ask. :) - Infinite - talk 14:11, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the animations will be much the same for each race, but we can't be sure yet and we might want to record for each anyway. Keep the branching or tables you have in mind saved in a sandbox if nothing else (since at worst it's not useful and at best it saves us time), but I don't have a strong opinion on this matter. (Unless you have some elaboration or an example, in which case I'll put my vote somewhere.) --ஸ Kyoshi 21:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The extra race-dependent categories are in my sandbox, stored in case they are required. They will not be in the nearby future version. Also opinions and the entire discussion can be found here. - Infinite - talk 21:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

We've been told skills will be identifiable by animation. I highly doubt they'd say that and then make each race's animation of a particular skill different. Eive 21:52, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Might be different movements, same visuals, but we can't tell until in the actual game, of course. - Infinite - talk 22:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, at least we know we only have to make one Tornado GIF. Eive 22:02, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

-chuckles- - Infinite - talk 22:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Identifying skills in guardian video

Here's my current list.

Shield of Absorption video

• Orb of Light? x3
• Shield of Absorption
• Orb of Light? x2

Faithful Strike video

• Leap of Faith
• Normal attack? x2
• Courage virtue activation
• Leap of Faith

Zealot's Defense video

• Zealot's Defense
• Flashing Blade?
• Zealot's Defense

Wall of Deflection video

• Unknown launching skill x2
• Wall of Deflection

Hammer of Wisdom video

• Hammer of Wisdom

Can someone please correct my mistakes, complete the list if you have more information and confirm/deny unsure skills? Chriskang 17:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Everything seems correct to me except the need for the "normal" greatsword skill and that launching hammer skill. --ஸ Kyoshi 18:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Reviving?

Is there any interest in reviving this project, now that the game has launched? I'm joining, for sure, but just want to see if there was any interest out there, or if the project itself was shut down (not entirely likely, because the links still exist on the {{skill infobox}}). —Jyavoc 07:32, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Well adding skill animations to the skills pages doesn't really add any info of use. It's not like you would base your decision of using a skill on it's animation and it would probably be way easier to just try it out ingame and see it's animation yourself. So imo it would be a waste of time and I guess I'm not the only one since this project seems pretty much abandoned :P Maybe it could be a project to work on for fun when everything else is done. — 08Ray 21:27, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd totally forsake all practical usage just a skillbar with 10 awesome animations. Chieftain Alex 22:27, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I can see how PvP players would find some utility here - study the skill animations so you can recognize what skills other players are using. Although, given the kind of people PvPers usually are, they probably already know all the animations by heart and don't need them on the wiki anyway. I'd say don't worry about this until a) you have lots of free time and want to do it, or b) people start asking for it in large numbers. —Dr Ishmael 22:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)