I was really disappointed to learn that in the current version, melee weapons cannot be animated. I think it would really spice the game up if support was added for animated melee weapons, shields, and armor that play simple, passive, looping animations - imagine a sword of light that pulses slightly, or a shield with rotating lights, or armor that looks like it's made of flowing lava. This would allow your art team to go wild with exotic designs and allow the modding community to greatly expand their horizons when it comes to custom equipment. Tools and furniture already support this type of animation, so the logistical framework for making this possible is already there. Here's an example of what I had in mind in the form of a simple, four-frame, looping animated weapon. If you play a lot of Guild Wars 2, you might recognize it.
How this would work: For weapons: Code: ... "image" : "weaponSpriteSheet.png:<frame>", "frames" : 4, "animationCycle" : 0.2, ... This would divide the image into four frames and constantly cycle through them at the rate specified while the weapon is equipped.
Certainly would make the weapons more appealing if they gave some (if not most) of them an animation of sorts. Perhaps the Water Sword could have a 'droplet' animation, where 'free-flying' droplets of water would fall from the blade. With the free-flying animation, the droplets could fall in relation to the direction your character is moving; so if you're jumping off a cliff, some droplets that spawn would launch upward as you jumped before falling, following a similar path your character is until they hit a solid object. So yea, I could see this being a part of the game-play. Simple aesthetics like these can sometimes define a game. =)
This sounds more like a particle emission than the frame animation I was referring to, but would definitely be really awesome to see. Imagine a weapon with both. What I'm thinking is a weapon that cycles through different subimages while wielded. Kind of like this:
Ahh, that would make a lot more sense and would be easier to do. I'm curious to know, how are you creating these looped animations anyway?
Not yet though, the game is already laggy as it is. Once optimization is finished. (Guns expelling smoke after shooting) But yes, this is a good idea.
+1 to animations for weapons and armors ! Armors should leave behind different kind of animations, like the meteorite armor in Terraria, just for example, that leave behind fire sparkles !
Might be possible with a particle effect. I'm talking about some real moving-parts stuff, where the sprite actually changes.
