WeaponBirth: Ferrum Anima

I've been going over the movement in battles, and figuring out how the frames will be formatted.



Players and Enemy Sprites

So far I've got something like this:

Standard:
<S1><S2><S3> Standing animation (some sort of battle stance)
1 2 3 2
<W1><W2><W3> Walking animation (press any of the four directions to walk)
1 2 3 2
<R1><R2><R3> Running animation (double press any of the four directions and hold to run)
1 2 3 2
<D1><D2><D3> Damaged animation (if you got hit hard enough, you get staggered and this animation plays)
1 2 3 2 hold on 2 for a bit
<K1><K2><K3> Downed animation (either you were knocked down or you lost all HP)
1 2 3 hold on 3 unless getting back up
<V1><V2><V3> Victory animation (after you win)
1 2 3 hold on 3

Everyone also has these attack animations:
<Rt1><Rt2><Rt3> Right attack
<Lf1><Lf2><Lf3> Left attack

Which are typically used for striking with weapons and are reversed if you face the left (so that the right attack remains correct and you don't have the switching-sword-hands look. All of them play instead of your normal animations once and then resume back to your normal animations. If you have to charge an attack, it holds on frame 1 until the attack is ready.

Now there are a number of additional attack animations specific to each player (or enemy) which could be used for any abstract action that's special. They will have names so they can be referenced when you make skills in the compendium.

Weapons

Weapons are displayed either over or under sprites (which are set per animation). Unlike RM2K3, there has to be at least all of the required battle animations frames above to match. In fact, weapons and battle sprites are the same kind of resource. The difference is only defined in the compendium. If you really wanted, you could still make a weapon the battle sprite of a player and the effect would be the weapon floating around all by itself.

The sheets will have 64x64 pixel frames, but only the center 32x32 will see the most action. The extra room lets me draw the sprites a bit outside of their normal boxes to show lots of action.

There will be additional options because I want Tetsumori's magnet to float behind her back loosely until she actually attacks with it.


So many options! But first I will implement the 64x64 sheets with no options. The rest is easy once this has been done. You know, it's going to take me longer to actually draw Tetsumori fighting just right than it is to program it.