Trebuchet teaser animation

[sharick]

I finally know how to implement animations to the game. It's not that difficult. The animation itself is difficult. Anyway I tried to do it for my trebuchet unit. I watched Kingdom of Heaven over and over again to get the attack sequence right but I'd like to have your opinion. I also need some suggestions for other events - fortify, heal etc...
Enjoy!

EDIT. New movie added.

PS. You need Xvid codec to watch it.

 

[woodelf]

Damn, can't watch it. And it's may favorite siege weapon!

Does a trebuchet fortify? Wouldn't that mean they'd tear it down? And the only healing might be putting out fires or something. If that baby is damaged I don't know what could fix it in the heat of battle.

 

[snafusmith]

The animation looks great. It's both fluid and realistic.

(100th Post, nice.....)

 

[naf4ever]

Wow that looks really good. Will this be the animation that you see on the main game screen when it attacks?

 

[J_Period]

sweet when do we get it?

 

[Wolfwood]

Very good, indeed!

That's a pretty light trebuchet, however... I'd like to see one of those big ones as an upgrade to this...

(Woodelf, get the VLC media player - it will play practically anything and you don't have to worry about codecs)

 

[Patricius]

wow! How...did..wait..didn't...(flustered and confused awe)...

Patricius

 

[Willem]

Hmm, you do realize that the expansion pack will be including a Trebuchet unit don't you?

 

[sharick]

@Willem - I didn't know that. I picked it because it's comperatively easy to animate.
Anyway good news folks! The animation is in game now. Check the new movie. Sorry about the quality. It had to fit in 500kb.

 

[woodelf]

So the trebuchet download in the Units section is now animated? Huzzah!

 

[snafusmith]

Wow, very nice. Gotta figure those pesky things out now for sure...

 

[sharick]

@woodelf - no, it's not complete yet. It was just a test to see if it works in game. Now I don't know if to continue working on it since it'll be included in expansion.

 

[woodelf]

When's the expansion? November?

 

[J_Period]

@woodelf - no, it's not complete yet. It was just a test to see if it works in game. Now I don't know if to continue working on it since it'll be included in expansion.

I think you ought to. I know I'd like it before the expansion comes out, and I'm sure others would

 

[woodelf]

I vote AYE!

Plus it'll be a good learning experience for your future animations

 

[Willem]

@woodelf - no, it's not complete yet. It was just a test to see if it works in game. Now I don't know if to continue working on it since it'll be included in expansion.

It's going to be several months before the XP is released, so if you have most of the work done already, you may as well finish it. Here's the concept art for Firaxis' version:

 

[sharick]

@Willem - nice concept art. Theirs trebuchet actually looks like mine except mine is cuter

So I decided to finish my unit. I got most of the event animations working in game, including sounds. I still have to find out how to add special effects like smoke or fire. But before that there's one thing that drives me mad.

I encountered a weird bug and I can't fix it. Help!
When I put the unit into game everything works fine but I can't see the action buttons on the bottom of the screen. I also can't see my unit in the bottom left interface window. The actions themselves work because I can call them by pressing appropriate keys. Another weird thing is that when I switch to different unit and then switch back to my trebuchet the buttons appear but they are inherited from previous unit. For example when I had a settler selected before I get a build city button.

Anybody had this before? Can this be in XML?