Animator(s) Needed for Two new taunts for Snake

Hi! Over at KC: MM, a few other guys and I have been discussing how Snake could use two new taunts. Having the box for all three is ridiculous if you ask us. Take a look at the discussion thread if you like:

http://forums.kc-mm.com/index.php?topic=10695.msg227520#msg227520

In general, we've decided to go with a Salute and Smoking for Snake's new side taunt and down taunt, respectively. We want to keep the box up taunt since it's the fastest form of that taunt. Now we just need an animator or two, and anyone else with the technical knowhow needed to make these two new taunts a reality.

To elaborate:



The salute is meant to be a quick, no-nonsense taunt that doesn't last long at all but gets the point across. Snake should salute (with his right hand) in whichever direction he's facing, not towards the screen. Then again, perhaps saluting toward the player would make more sense than saluting the opponent...

I do wonder if there is a better quick taunt for Snake than a salute? In the MGS series, Snake is always pretty somber when he salutes, not sarcastic... IIRC. I've only played MGS: tTS. Feel free to make suggestions for a better quick, "taunty" kind of taunt.

The only other feasible taunt ideas we've thought of so far are Snake's Cloaking Device and the "!" alert... But the Cloaking Device is more functional than taunty, and the "!" makes more sense on enemy soldiers, since it mostly appeared over them in the MGS games (again, IIRC).



Smoking, the new down taunt, may be frowned upon by some (I did at first), but smoking is an iconic part of Snake's character, and there seems to be more support for it than opposition. We think that the Smoking taunt should be similar to the box taunt, in that after Snake smokes for a second or two, he should toss the cigarette behind him (we're undecided in what way exactly; over the shoulder? Underhanded?). Then again, tossing it in front of him could work just as well (that would be more "bad@$$" I suppose - imagine flicking the cigarette at an opponent struggling to recover and getting a Cig KO). Being so much lighter, I think tossed cigs should travel farther horizontally than the box does, unless a shorter range works better for Cig KOs.

Anyhow, the cigarette should inflict minor fire damage and knockback to opponents on contact. As a nod to the way smoking works in MGS - and to how harmful they are to your health - we think that the Smoking taunt should also inflict 1% damage to Snake whenever it's used. Also, since SSBB Snake looks a lot like Big Boss (Snake's "clone-daddy"), it should be noted that Big Boss preferred cigars, not cigarettes.

Ah, and one more thing:



If this is even possible, we'd like it a lot if Snake could move around while hiding under his box, and be able to stay under there until the A button is pressed or he is attacked. We also think it would be stealthy if Snake could drop C4 (or even Grenades) silently while he's under the box. He's never been able to drop such things like that in the MGS games, but it sounds like a fun idea.

Now, any animators out there willing to help us make Snake's new taunts?

good idea wrong section inb4lock

What section should I put this in, then?

inb4lock.

Instead of posting useless "inb4 lock lololol", why don't one of you jokers tell me where you think this topic should go, huh? :/

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=269486 it's a sticky up there i thought you would've found it by now so i didn't bother posting ok sorry

well it looked like he was asking for people to make that so it seems like a request thing umm ok bionic your the boss i guess now I'm really sorry lol

Wow, Bent, you should feel honored, a request thread not shot down by Bionic, yup this project is going to be finished!

Great, I'm glad to see this thread is in the right place after all. Thanks Bionic.

The reason I posted it here in the first place was because I felt it was already a mini-project in progress (as opposed to a mere request), considering the ideas we have already. Now we just need a talented animator or two!

Let's see, might as well "iron out the kinks" while we're waiting for an animator. Here's what we have left to decide on:

1.) Which two of these four taunts should be Snake's new side taunt and down taunt?

- Smoking: This taunt is probably the strongest contender here, since smoking is an essential part of Snake's character, and since it would also be a functional, cocky kind of taunt. I can't wait to get Cig KO's. XD

- Salute: This taunt is a simple, quick one, and would contrast nicely against the box and smoking. However, it might not make sense in the context of Brawl... Would Snake really salute the cast of SSBB lightly? I've only played MGS: tTS, but from what screenshots I've seen, Snake's salutes have always been somber and serious - not sarcastic or taunt-like at all. So I'm thinking a side-facing salute taunt may feel out of place... Perhaps it would fit better if Snake saluted toward the screen? But that would be breaking the fourth wall. Give me some feedback on this one.

- Cloaking Device: Including this along with the smoking taunt would leave Snake with not even one fast taunt, only slower, functional taunts. That fits Snake's equipment-heavy playstyle... But, this taunt has the potential to be overpowered. If implemented, it would need to have several limits, such as: ceasing to function upon Snake taking damage, and/or after a certain amount of time has passed. Cloaking would need to be carefully tweaked for balance.

- "!" Alert: While iconic in the Metal Gear Solid series, the "!" mostly appears over enemies IIRC, not Snake, so this taunt may not be the best fit... Certainly worthy of mention, though.

2.) Find out what's possible and what's not:

- Snake moving around in his box and staying under there indefinitely
- Snake being able to silently drop C4 and/or grenades while in his box
- Snake being able to cloak via taunting

3.) Decide on the details of certain taunts:

- After smoking, should Snake toss (or flick) the cigarette behind him or in front of him? What kind of range and trajectory should the cigarette have? Damage? Direction of knockback?
- Should Snake have cigarettes or cigars? I think cigarettes are more appropriate, since this is Solid Snake we're talking about... Even if he does have Big Boss's face in Brawl.
- Which direction should Snake face if he salutes? To the side or toward the screen?
- What limits should we impose on the cloaking device to keep it from being broken?
- What body movement would accompany the "!" alert? Hunched shoulders?

To me, it's looking like Smoking is definitely in, but the second open taunt slot could go to either the Salute or the Cloaking Device. Which one do you all want to see more? Bionic seems to have cast the first vote for the Cloaking Device.

Breaking the fourth wall is MGS's specialality. Do the saluting one.
Have him face the screen.

The ! and Cigar/Cigarette aren't possible without article hax.

The cloaking device however, can be done.

Eternal Yoshi said:

Breaking the fourth wall is MGS's specialality. Do the saluting one.
Have him face the screen.

The ! and Cigar/Cigarette aren't possible without article hax.

The cloaking device however, can be done.

Click to expand...

Okay, so without article hax, our options are narrowed to the Salute and Cloaking Device? I'm thinking Salute as side taunt, and Cloaking Device as down taunt, then. Now we just need to decide on the details of the Cloaking Device.

What about modifying Snake's up taunt so he can move around under the box and perhaps be able to drop C4 or Grenades silently while under there? Is that possible?

Finally, can you briefly explain "article hax" to me? Is that something beyond our reach at the moment, or is it just really complicated? We had high hopes for the Smoking taunt.

Sorry for the delay.

Article hax(hacks) hasn't been looked into yet. As of now, it may be difficult to insert the articles correctly without sacrificing other articles. Tabuu does open up possibilities at how they work in FitSnake.pac and soon we may be able to make new ones using it, but as of now, the Cigar will have to wait.

If you want to move and plant things in the box, it may have to be done in the AppealWait subaction.
I know this is possible, but......
I'll look into the box stuff.

Okay, I see. Maybe the Smoking taunt can be done at a later time, once article hacks have been figured out better... Thanks for looking into the box stuff for us, Eternal Yoshi!

So now, we've settled on:

Up taunt: Box (Eternal Yoshi is looking into the move/drop C4/drop grenade/no forced exit possibilities)
Side taunt: Salute (Snake salutes with his right hand towards the screen)
Down taunt: Cloaking Device (Snake becomes invisible until he is hit, or after 8-10 seconds (?) pass)

Regarding the Cloaking Device, and making Snake invisible - can that only work the way Sheik turns invisible in Brawl-, or can we have the cloak effect be more like it was in Melee? That is, imperfect invisibility. Even brief perfect invisibility may be broken on Snake. A slight flickering effect would probably work better, but is that possible?

And one more thing: You know how Captain Falcon's "Show me your moves" taunt is slightly different depending on whether Falcon is facing left or right? Is that "two-in-one" effect exclusive to him, or can other characters use it as well? It's not necessary for Snake, but it's something I'd like to know.

i don't really like the invincibility idea taunts are only helpful in rare occasions suck as snake's box or luigi's kick but a cloaking device would make snake an even more powerful character then he already is

That's what I thought at first too, but our only other two ideas - Smoking and "!" - have hit a dead end since article hacks haven't been figured out enough yet.

So, let's work with what we've got. We can use the Cloaking Device, but keep it from being overpowered by:

A.) Requiring a longer start-up time, and have it last longer (>8 seconds?)
B.) Requiring a shorter start-up time, and have it last shorter (<8 seconds?)

Even then, how much the Cloaking Device needs to be nerfed depends on whether it grants perfect invisibility (Brawl- Sheik) or imperfect invisibility (Melee Cloaking Device). Hopefully, imperfect invisibility will be possible, which would greatly reduce the potential for broken-ness; Imperfect invisibility might only make Snake look something like this, flickering in and out of view:

...Oops, the picture I was going to post was removed. Instead, just consider Melee invisibility as "imperfect invisibility". Here's a video example in case you could use a refresher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb0YZyKmjLY

We could make it more like that, except with more flickering, so it would still be pretty easy to see where Snake is and what he's doing.

Snake's octocamo from MGS4 also had a similar effect that would work. Take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBT7g4O1zJQ

While it is a really cool idea, Snake is already a very powerful (not broken, just very good at many things) character and invisibility, even temporary imperfect invisibility, only gives Snake an even bigger advantage over his opponents and pushes him closer to a Meta Knight-like level of broken. However, despite that, I still think it should be implemented if it can be balanced.

Ideally, I'd like to see these two taunts gain widespread use, and even be allowed in mods like Brawl+, so of course it's got to be balanced if it's implemented.

Then again, even if cloaking can't be perfectly balanced, I still want to see it made into a taunt along with the salute. You won't have to use it if you don't want to, after all.

...It's really up to the animator(s) we get to give the cloaking device a balanced effect. Anyone with animating experience know what we have to work with here?

I dont really see a point in putting in so much effort for a taunt. Especially because snake's already a solid character, he doesnt need anymore buffs, which is it what it seems like you're doing for this cloaking thing.

Buffs are not our intention - out intention is to give Snake two new taunts, and the salute and cloaking device are the only two options that will work at this point.

Why is a cig not an option atm?

AFAIK, making the invisibility/cloaking device like it is in melee is not posible. Invisibility in brawl makes characters fully invisible.

while i'm basically no use, i'm still bumping this with 'support'.

it's something of a perk for the mod crowd around here, one that doesn't disrupt anything but instead simply adds to a character. personally i'd love to see this be a part of p:M once it's completed, especially since snake's shaping up to be an early favorite of many. would really like to see the cig be a taunt, but the dmg stuff may be more elaborate than necessary. leave the details after the preliminary animations are complete, followed by a few stages of smoothing the edges.

animators, your work would live on very appreciated in the eyes of many, many players. i know i'd show everyone i could, hah.

invincibility will only be good if he turns invincible and back from the beginning of the taunt to the end

Why not just use heavy armor instead of invincibility?
You could set the tolerance to make moves that do under 10% not flinch him.

again that's buffing snake idk i mean maybe make a balanced version and a normal version but id like one for brawl+ i know it would desync but i want his other taunts to be just taunts or if a cigar was added it would do little damage if hit

Snake has a lot of strange, hard-coded stuff going on in his taunts which probably makes replacement prohibitive. Shanus knows more about it than I, so I would talk to him before you guys get to excited about all of this.

Yep it does make it prohibitive.
I'm going to look in Tabuu.....

Cigarette and Salute are the best options!

Salute should be easy to do. Just port the animation over from Samus' salute taunt(Utaunt, I think?), and play it in reverse.

"i don't really like the invincibility idea taunts are only helpful in rare occasions suck as snake's box or luigi's kick but a cloaking device would make snake an even more powerful character then he already is"

"invincibility will only be good if he turns invincible and back from the beginning of the taunt to the end"

"Why not just use heavy armor instead of invincibility?
You could set the tolerance to make moves that do under 10% not flinch him."

Who said anything about invincibility? We're talking about invisibility here - this proposed taunt would not grant Snake ANY kind of resistance to damage or knockback (much less invincibility), only a temporary visual effect.

I was hoping we could do imperfect invisibility (like in Melee), but if M0nkUn1t is right, and only perfect invisibility is available...Well, I still want to see it happen. As long as it only lasts until Snake is hit, or until a certain number of seconds pass, I don't think it will be broken. Perhaps the animator could add in a flicker effect or something so Snake would be more visible.

"Why is a cig not an option atm?"

Eternal Yoshi says the Smoking and "!" taunts would require article hacks, which have not been figured out enough yet.

"Snake has a lot of strange, hard-coded stuff going on in his taunts which probably makes replacement prohibitive. Shanus knows more about it than I, so I would talk to him before you guys get to excited about all of this."

I sent a message to shanus. Hopefully he won't have bad news for us!

"Cigarette and Salute are the best options!"

I agree, but Smoking is not an option for now. :/

"Salute should be easy to do. Just port the animation over from Samus' salute taunt(Utaunt, I think?), and play it in reverse."

I think Snake's salute is a bit different from Samus's... But speaking of porting animations, that might make the Cloaking Device animation easier - we could just use parts of Snake's entrance animation.

Does anyone know of any talented animators experienced with taunt/move replacement I could message directly? It might speed up things a bit.

A cigarette would be too small to see unless you're zoomed in. It's really about the silhouette, which would be just fine with or without a cigarette. Add a red glow and some smoke (read: dust) GFX and it would look pretty good, imo.

So you're suggesting that the Smoking taunt be animated without an actual cigarette? Snake would only do the motions, and smoke would appear... But no actual cigarette sprite or hitbox. Hmm.

Well, that would be the most simplified form of the Smoking taunt I've heard so far! We wouldn't need article hacks for that, I'm guessing... But it would feel empty without a cigarette sprite, at least. Could it be animated so that the cigarette briefly appears in Snake's hand (as part of his hand, technically), but disappears when he does the discarding motion? That might work...

But we'd have to go without the cigarette hitbox, which means we might as well make it so that Smoking does not damage Snake 1%. So much for getting "Cig KO's"... :/

I'm just saying that at normal camera distances and the Wii's low resolution, a cigarette would be a couple pixels, tops. The silhouette, glow, and smoke would really be all you'd notice anyways.

True, I guess I'm just picky for the details... And, I think it might look a bit odd if Snake is just smoking thin air.. The first thing people are going to do with these new taunts is pause and zoom in on them - I'd rather them say, "Oh, that's cool, Snake can smoke now" rather than, "lolwut Snake is smoking thin air!" >_>

Anyhow, isn't what I suggested in my last post possible? "Could it be animated so that the cigarette briefly appears in Snake's hand (as part of his hand, technically), but disappears when he does the discarding motion?" Sort of like how Ganondorf pulls his sword out of thin air and then puts it back when he's done staring at it.

Hey I finally found this thread!

Anyways, keep up the good work.

If it'd be possible to make it look like smoking and having smoke around, then it won't matter the size of the cigarette!

^ Unless you zoom in. If we're going to do this, I think we should do it as best as we can.

Would it really be that hard to just vertex a cigarette onto Snake's hand for the duration of the taunt?

Vertexing snake's hand to have a cigarette in his hand would have that show at all times. He only has one polygon for his hands so the cig would show at all times. Just letting you know.