Legionary animations

[aevionknight]

I was playing around with 3dsmax the other day, and I decided that I didn't like the stock gladius animations one bit. So I decided to have a go at it.

What do you guys think? It's hard to see from this angle, but my new animation has the legionary holding his scutum MUCH closer than before, plus the attack is quick, straightforward, and doesn't leave him exposed.

Comments/critiques welcome.

Vanilla RTW


Mine

[Dooz]

Looks really cool. However, something seems just a bit strange about his right hand. The angle of the wrist looks weird.

[aevionknight]

Definitely true: that's a limitation of the animation skeleton. The only way to fix that would be to extend his elbow and bring the gladius down to mid-thigh or so, which works while idle. The problem is it he then has to start even lower in a throat-level stab.

Better? I could do a little tweak on the entire animation to show what this would look like in context.

[Dooz]

Oo, I think that definately looks better. An updated animation would be great .

[QwertyMIDX]

Alin made similiar animations for EB, check out the way a Roman attacks.

[aevionknight]

I remember seeing those, but I wasn't happy with the shield carry. It was still too far away from the body (I believe he was going to work on this before he left).

Modified animation:


I actually don't mind the "blade lift" as much as I thought I would. I'll admit the low carry is easier on the eyes.

[Dooz]

Looks great. I believe this is possible and I'd like to see it implemented; more stabbing animations. If the animations could vary, one to the throat as you have here, and if you could make more, possibly striking lower at different angles and such. Maybe the gladius could be tilted so that the blades are facing up/down for one of the animations. Some variety would be nice overall. But again, this latest one is looking real good.

[Kull]

There is some kind of odd effect happening down around the knee/calf on his right leg.

[aevionknight]

It's just the weird shadows because it's a low poly model, thank God. I redid that leg SO MANY times to get the rotation right.

@ Wonderland
I'm working on a gut stab at the moment. This one's a little longer, and a lot more vicious-looking! The throat attack is meant to be extremely quick, this next one will be a disemboweling attack.

[Dooz]

Oh my..... I can't wait to see that .

[aevionknight]

And here it is! It's a little hard to tell, but he pushes the blade in (it takes some work), twists in, and then extracts it. Messy!

[Kull]

And here it is! It's a little hard to tell, but he pushes the blade in (it takes some work), twists in, and then extracts it. Messy!

Hehehe. It's a good thing our mothers aren't reading this!

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

He shouldn't raise his shield like that. There is sculptural as well as practical (re-enactment) evidence that the Scutum was held low to protect the legs, since the shoulders were already double armoured. In point of fact he should move his shield as little as possible.

[Baldwin of Jerusalem]

His trailing leg looks a little elongated to me.

[GMT]

He shouldn't raise his shield like that. There is sculptural as well as practical (re-enactment) evidence that the Scutum was held low to protect the legs, since the shoulders were already double armoured. In point of fact he should move his shield as little as possible.

It's kinda hard not to move his shield when he steps forward to stab, I think it looks great.

And he's not raising his shield by the way, he lowers his body because he spreads his legs when he steps forward to stab.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I can't help but look at that vanilla animation and imagine the guy yelling each time, as he's making the stab, "Face stab!!" "Oh yeah! Face stab!!"

[Dooz]

Ouch! Nice! Disembowling fun for the whole family.

[We all need someone]

Not supposed to move his shield?? Then what the hell is the boss for?

I think that claim is a little ridiculous. There are historical accounts of legionaries, when disarmed and losing their gladius, taking down like ten people by bashing them with that big ol' scutum and the heavy boss.

And slick animation. Especially the disembowel twist- yikes.

[aevionknight]

EDIT: Oops

[aevionknight]

I'm actually working on the shield at the moment. It's not cooperating very well - I want a nice low, frontal guard. I think he moves it too much to the side right now.

I also added a little downward slice on the extract - looks even meaner now.

EDIT: There we are. I finally got all the jagged edges smoothed out. What's the verdict?

[Dooz]

Wow. That's absolutely wonderful. I freakin' love it. Painful. Smooth. Nicely done.

[aevionknight]

Thanks!

If I create enough of these, I might have a replacement skeleton on my hands!

Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind seeing the current gladius animations dropped.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Not supposed to move his shield?? Then what the hell is the boss for?

I think that claim is a little ridiculous. There are historical accounts of legionaries, when disarmed and losing their gladius, taking down like ten people by bashing them with that big ol' scutum and the heavy boss.

And slick animation. Especially the disembowel twist- yikes.

Yeah? Who would this be, if its Livy or Tacitus you can ignore it. Point me to the source, in the mean time, let me extrapolate.

The Scutum is quite heavy, and also very awkward, lifting it with that horizontal grip isn't easy. Thats not to say it was totally immobile but bashing people in the face itsn't that practical.

Aditionally the current stab aevionknight is using is actually a fencing lunge, you can get up a lot of power by moving the right leg infront of the left, that way only your arm is exposed, your shield remains covering your body and you use a minimum of energy.

Lunging repeatedly would very quickly tire you out, not to mention it leaves you quite exposed, possibly off balance, as you'd quite easily lose your footing in the mud, and means you break formation.

Roman legionaries had to stand shoulder to shoulder, moving that much would put you at risk.

[aevionknight]

Aditionally the current stab aevionknight is using is actually a fencing lunge, you can get up a lot of power by moving the right leg infront of the left, that way only your arm is exposed, your shield remains covering your body and you use a minimum of energy.

Lunging repeatedly would very quickly tire you out, not to mention it leaves you quite exposed, possibly off balance, as you'd quite easily lose your footing in the mud, and means you break formation.

Interesting.

I'm not sure about moving the right leg forward, at least for the reasons you describe. You're going to run into the same kinds of torso rotations as with moving the left leg, and you'll have the same problems covering your body with the scutum (maybe even more so because you have to guard the right leg with the left arm). I think this would leave you teetering in a very weak position, and break formation just as much as with a lunge.

I'm certainly open to the possibility that these animations are not correct - they aren't researched at all, apart from me messing around in my room, trying to come up with something plausible. I'm not discounting your suggestion yet, either, I'm just not totally convinced.

Can you show me a picture that roughly illustrates what you're talking about (doesn't have to be Roman, anything will do), or describe it more thorougly? Perhaps I got the wrong impression from your description.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I'll get to work on that, but here's what I've found just messing around with a blade, I don't have the right kind of shield so I can't test that.

Trying to lunge foward on the left leg with the sword in the right, you hardly get any power, not to mention it's really off balance. Basically the power has to come from the same side of your body, which is why when blocking with the shield your left leg is foward. Actually, trying this I found that the most natural move is actually the face stab, because you left leg tends to lift as you stretch and it pushes your body back. So I guess CA used motion capture. Your way I can't actually seem to do, your body goes to far foward and, as I said, no power.

What I would suggest is when you attack taking a step foward, not a lunge, with your right leg and thrusting at the same time. I know this is valid for cuts, I'm actually not as familiar with thusts.

The other option is not to move the feet but just have the power come from the right shoulder. Either way the right arm is exposed rather badly but by moving the right leg you can keep the shield fairly imobile and the body never moves past the shield, though it still rotates.

[aevionknight]

I see what you mean now. What about this, the left foot remains planted, the right heel comes off the ground and the right leg rotates slightly to give the right arm more reach out over the shield? That seems to work.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

http://www.romans-in-britain.org.uk/...dier_sword.htm

I stand quite corrected. You have the leg movement right, except that the legs are used to drive the scutum into the enemy's face, note the drive from the the right leg and the "punch" with the shield. The sword movement actually comes all from the shoulder, so I was on the right track, I just didn't consider using the shield that way.

Its a sort of one-two punch. :D.

[aevionknight]

Oooh, exciting. Thanks for the link! That'll be most useful. I see the stab becoming even more brutal. : )

It might mean the death of my disembowel stab, though. Oh well.

[BigTex]

I have always understood that they would thrust from under the shield. Using the shield to punch up and forward to deflect the weapon and putting the boss into or near the enemy's face then stabbing under, into the groin-abdominal region. That area's pretty soft, so even with a weak thrust with chain mail covering that area a gladius could cause some significant damage. Your not only getting arm movement there but also a thrust from both legs. I'm reminded of the Roman military maxim of "Two inches in the right place". The idea that you would tire from that kind of lunge is a bit out there since the legionary's would retire to the back after 30 seconds to a minute. Also I doubt you could argue there was one universal movement the legionary made, as each situation would call for a different stab, a different movement with the shield. Even going back to WWII, infantry were taught a variety of stabbing techniques with the bayonet and a couple of parrying movements.

[aevionknight]

True, but I can't exactly reproduce every single possible attack.