Avatar animations: what limit they impose on weapon availability to classes?

polymorphedsquirrel

I know I can't have a staff-wielding monk because they lack two-handed weapon animations. What other limitations there are? I would assume the same applies to thieves (at least with great swords), but there are mods that allow all classes use any weapon and I doubt they come with a bunch of their own animations, so there might be a trick to it.

For one, there are flaming swords which must use the standard sword animations. If I decide to make katanas two-handed, will I be able to simply say 'use a two-handed sword animation with this sword image', or must I redo also those animations with an appropriate-looking sword in its place?

TheArtisan

Playable character avatars are their own sprites with one and two handed weapon animations.

Weapons also have their own separate sprites, so a two-handed sword on a thief avatar (which is possible on a bard, by the way) is fine.

Monks actually do have two-handed animations... it’s just that their unique punch/kick animations take those slots, which is why they can’t use two-handed weapons at all.

I don’t know why but strangely one-handed weapons have animations for being held in two hands despite not having animations for swinging (and vice versa), so as soon as you swing it the weapon disappears until the animation is over.

polymorphedsquirrel

Oh, thanks for the fast reply.
I forgot about bards who I guess save me at least in that case. But are you saying that except for monks, all avatars have animations for all weapons - as long as they are used in the number of hands they were designed for? I didn't make myself very clear in the OP, but is the swinging animation a combination of weapon and avatar sprites, or everything is on the avatar image?

How flaming swords work then?

And to what extent the animation slots can be repurposed by mods? If there are unused slots for carrying weapons, could they be patched to represent something else? I don't have the skill to draw a new animation type by hand, even based on one from another avatar, but maybe I could just edit out the weapon to make katanas two-handed?

Also, when you say that monks have 2H animations, do you mean that they are actually drawn and only a frame limit somewhere else makes it impossible to use them at the same time as barehanded fighting, while they could be in theory used for a different class - or the same one with some scripting invoked on equipping/unequipping weapons?

TheArtisan

The avatars for characters and weapons are not a single sprite. Weapons are their own sprites that align themselves perfectly with the regular animations of the playable sprites so that they appear to be the same - flaming swords included. This becomes apparent if you, say, hack a two-handed weapon onto a monk avatar and they'll perform their regular kick animations with their weapon seemingly floating on its own doing the normal two-handed attack animation.

As far as I know the animation frames are hardcoded into specific animations so you can't really do much with them and even if you did you'd have to draw new animations from scratch. You can implement new weapon animations (I think there was a two-handed katana mod around here at some point) but again, the animations have to be drawn frame-by-frame.

polymorphedsquirrel

Ok,
So it's more or less what I expected. I probably could make a weapon animation based on a similar one. A pity there is little chance for two-handed weapons for monks, though. Thanks for the clarifications.

StummvonBordwehr

Just to add.

I played a monk in a BGT install once. Changed the avatar sprite to that of a fighter. It worked and the unarmed fighting did happen - but with the two handed fighting animation.

It sure looked daft, but I liked it better than the monk animation. Played from Candlekeep to the throne.