Yeah, it is interesting because it really does depend on how mobs and fog of war work. If we took Civ as an example, there are three states for fog of war: Visible, Explored and Unexplored. Visible is within/near to your territory or where your units can see and shows you everything; Explored where you have been but isn’t currently visible and you can only see the landscape features; Unexplored, where you haven’t been and can see nothing. If SH were to use a system somewhat similar to this then I don’t believe there would be a need for mob animations, as if they were in your territory or around your units as the (hostile) mobs would likely attack, no? (this is where my lack of understanding about the mob system does leave things somewhat unclear). The other two zones wouldn’t be able to show mobs. So either the mobs would be attacking you (therefore no idling) or you can’t see them.
Now it is perfectly plausible that SH might decide that Explored would show mobs. In this case it would make perfect sense to give them idle animations.
Or of course they may use a totally different fog of war system. I don’t know. I very much like the Civ one and it’d be awesome if they put a similar one in, but it is a topic I might try and craft a question out of for the next livestream…
So, I’ve been thinking about it since Winter is an inevitable part of life here in upstate NY and I had a random thought for Stonehearth that made me smile so I wanted to throw it out there.
Currently, the standard villager idle animation is to just rock back and forth. Is there a chance (even if a small one) that when winter in implemented in game that a villager will fall backwards and make a snow angel? Would that be difficult to do even if it was a mod? I may have to look into it. I’d also mod in building snow forts and the like.
I have an animation in json for this, but only for the female. Never released it, though. I wasn’t very convinced with the result, and for testing it I swapped the sway animation with it (maybe with an override would work…).
Even if it is a test animation at the moment, it is still exciting that it could be implemented. I would be grateful if that animation made it in. To me, it’s the little details that make the villagers seem more life like.
If it makes it, I can get a round of hot cocoa for the team to celebrate the occasion.
