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Troll animations


Parys

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I've split this into its own topic because there's some stuff to discuss.

On 5/16/2022 at 12:18 PM, Parys said:

There is another creature animation to correct; Inside the Planar Sphere, in the Ice Room is a snow troll which has been assigned standard troll animation. it would be great to change his apperance to snow troll.

OK, so this took me down a rabbit hole. Across BG, BG2, and IWD there are seven troll animations:

troll_animations.jpg

It's more like 6.5 since 'spectral' is just a recolored 'blue'. BG2EE only has the troll, blue, spectral, and small animations as ice, snow, and scrag are all from IWDEE.

IWD is pretty consistent with the animations: (Greater) Ice Trolls use the ice animation, (Greater) Snow Trolls use the snow animation, Scrags use the scrag animation, and all of the other trolls (all named Troll) use the Blue animation. A handful of imported BG2 troll assets have the base troll animation, but none of them are actually used in game.

BG has no trolls, but SoD adds a handful: a Freshwater Troll uses scrag, a Giant Troll uses snow, two Small Trolls use small, a Snow Troll uses snow, and a Spectral Troll and a Troll Shamaness use blue animations. The remainder (all named Troll) use the base troll animation.

It gets complicated in BG2, so it's time for the bullets. Some of these troll numbers may be slightly inflated, as a lot of the old BG2FP troll creature files (when we had to swap creatures for the 'death' sequence) are still in the game, e.g. there are two of Roger's Sea Troll, even though there's only one really in the game.

  • Two Blizzard Trolls use the blue animation.
  • Three Ice Trolls use the small animation.
  • Roger's two Sea Trolls uses the blue animation.
  • Four Snow Trolls use the base animation. One of these is the troll mentioned by Parys that kicked this whole thing off.
  • Two Spectral Trolls use the blue animation.
  • Three Spirit Trolls use the base animation, and another two use the blue animation.
  • Four creatures named Troll use the small animation. Two of these are unused; one of the remainder is one of Firkraag's lieutenants that's fighting with Gerg and the Captain, and the other is the spawn of the dividing troll in the de'Arnise Keep.
  • All other trolls--generic Trolls, Desert Trolls, Fire Trolls, Freshwater Trolls, Giant Trolls, Snow Trolls, and the handful of named trolls (Grae,  Nilthiri, TorGal, Troll Cook, and Troll Shaman) all use the base troll animation.

So, this leads us to recommendations. I was a little hesitant to drop in the IWD troll animations into BG2EE, until I saw that SoD had already done it, so we've established developer intent. IWD is already consistent, and BG has no trolls, so:

  • [sod] The lone Giant Troll file is actually used repeatedly throughout the Troll Cave and Troll Forest areas. I suggest changing it to the base troll animation (from snow).
  • [bg2] Change the two Freshwater Trolls to scrags (from troll) to match SoD's Freshwater Troll.
  • [bg2] Also change Roger's Sea Trolls to scrag (from blue)
  • [bg2] Change the three Ice Trolls and two Blizzard Trolls to use the ice animation (from small and blue, respectively).
  • [bg2] Change the four Snow Trolls to use the snow animation (from troll).
  • [bg2] Change the five Spirit Trolls (which are currently a mix of blue and base) to spectral.
  • [bg2] Change Firkraag's lieutenant to a base troll animation (from small).

This gets us consistency across SoD and BG2EE, and helps differentiate the various troll types:

  • Ice is now used by Ice and Blizzard Trolls
  • Snow is now used by Snow Trolls
  • Scrag is now used by aquatic trolls, Freshwater and Sea Trolls
  • Blue is used by Spectral Trolls and SoD's Troll Shamaness
  • Spectral is used by Spirit Trolls
  • Small is now only used for the dividing troll's spawned trolls in BG2, and the explicitly named Small Trolls in SoD
  • The base animation is used by everything else: named trolls, Desert, Fire, Giant, and generic Trolls

The proposal has gone a little further afield than originally planned, so I'd like feedback.

At a minimum, there's one clear BG2EE bug that needs to be fixed: the spirit trolls in BG2EE using a mix of the blue and base animations. If we can't reach consensus on the rest, that at least can be fixed.

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Yes, with the caveat that it seems like it would make more sense to me to have the blizzard troll use the snow troll animation instead of the ice troll animation, but if another game has them use the ice troll animation, then that's the way to go. Either way would be an improvement.

Edited by Bartimaeus
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I’m in favor.

Let’s keep an eye on each animation’s dedicated sound set, wherever present. The base games are pretty messed when it comes to creature sound sets, as @skellytz’s evidence suggests, so if we’re assigning new sprites might as well go all in and make sure the sound sets are correct and match the sprites’ animations frame by frame like they’re supposed to.

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Guest Inconsequential

The proposed changes sound largely sensible, but I note that the different troll types have different sizes for their coloured circle bases. Could this potentially impact some tactical encounters (particularly when the trolls are found in enclosed spaces, moving from small circle to big circle could impact mobility?)

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6 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yes, with the caveat that it seems like it would make more sense to me to have the blizzard troll use the snow troll animation instead of the ice troll animation, but if another game has them use the ice troll animation, then that's the way to go. Either way would be an improvement.

Sure, I don't really have a strong preference for Blizzard Trolls other than using snow or ice.

2 hours ago, Guest Inconsequential said:

The proposed changes sound largely sensible, but I note that the different troll types have different sizes for their coloured circle bases.

All use 3 as personal space, though the circle size varies.

However, I did notice that this will affect speed: base and small troll animations use speed 10 (matching the party) whereas spectral and scrag use 8 and snow, ice, and blue use 4. This makes me want to throw the whole thing out as its no longer just a cosmetic change. (And yes, while we can force the trolls to keep their prior speed, it would mean their animations would look janky.)

The lone SoD change makes the troll area a lot more dangerous as you can no longer retreat (they now move 250% of their previous speed). The Freshwater and Sea Troll changes slows them slightly (80%), Ice and Snow Trolls get slowed significantly (40%), and Spirit Trolls speed up (200%) if they were using the blue animation or slow down (80%) if they were using the base animation.

Edited by CamDawg
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Let it never be said that I am not, in fact, an idiot. Literally every troll in BG/BG2 wears trollboo.itm, an undroppable item that sets their base speed to 11 regardless of their animation.

Every troll in SoD already has base speed 11 except two dead trolls and the troll file used for the Shapechange spell, so speed change is not an issue in SoD at all.

The BG2 trolls that don't currently wear these boots:

  • In the Copper Coronet, the Troll that fights the gladiator in the cutscene
  • Blizzard Troll uses animation speed of 4 (other Blizzard Troll is a dead copy from BG2FP and unused)
  • Two Ice Trolls use their animation speed of 10 (other Ice Troll is a dead copy from BG2FP and unused)
  • Two Snow Trolls use their animation speed of two, though one is unused (the other two Snow Trolls are dead copies from BG2FP and unused)
  • TorGal uses her natural animation speed of 10
  • Two Troll files used for Polymorph/Shapechange use their normal animation speed of 10

So revisiting the proposals:

On 5/24/2022 at 6:17 PM, CamDawg said:
  • [sod] The lone Giant Troll file is actually used repeatedly throughout the Troll Cave and Troll Forest areas. I suggest changing it to the base troll animation (from snow).
  • [bg2] Change the two Freshwater Trolls to scrags (from troll) to match SoD's Freshwater Troll.
  • [bg2] Also change Roger's Sea Trolls to scrag (from blue)
  • [bg2] Change the three Ice Trolls and two Blizzard Trolls to use the ice animation (from small and blue, respectively).
  • [bg2] Change the four Snow Trolls to use the snow animation (from troll).
  • [bg2] Change the five Spirit Trolls (which are currently a mix of blue and base) to spectral.
  • [bg2] Change Firkraag's lieutenant to a base troll animation (from small).

The only thing here that actually changes speed is the Snow Troll, going from 10 > 4. Given that there's a sum total of one snow troll in all of BG2EE--the very one mentioned by Parys in the OP--this is a change I'd be fine with.

I'd also throw in one more change: adding trollboo to TorGal so that they move the same speed as their minions.

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