Questions About Animation Timing

Hello VCMI Community,

Thank You to the team here at VCMI for all of your dedication and hard work. It’s nice to see that after so many years, Hero is still getting fan improvements to the game. Thank you, VCMI team, you guys are great!

Recently I’ve been thinking about some enquiries about the project - I couldn’t find answers on the Wikki or VCMI forums after extensive searching, so I thought I would ask here and see if anyone is able to answer any of them, if you guys don’t mind!

In the original game, the timing of the animations seems to sync with the action on screen. For example, when a hero in the battlefield casts a spell, he raises his hand, the missile travels out of his hand and hits the target. In VCMI, the missile is cast before he raises his hand and just as the spell has hit the target, then the hero raises his hand up as if to cast the spell. I should mention I’m certainly not criticizing, as it would be very hard to replicate the original game 100 %. You guys already do a really great job! I was just wondering if stuff like this is even possible to remedy? If not, I don’t expect it would be very high up on the list of priorities, as this would be purely cosmetic.

I think that even though this is a cosmetic issue, when the animations don’t sync in time to the actions, it tends to take you out of the original game experience (which I know you guys are working towards creating, in a moddable engine.)

I was just wondering if anyone has been working on this, or if there are plans to work on it. I couldn’t find anything on the bug tracker either, in relation to this issue.

My other question is, do you have a timeline projection on the version where there will be no missing features, (with only bug fixes from then, on)? I know that this question is probably difficult to answer, but even if you guys can give a ballpark guess, even if quite vague, lol, that would be cool. If not, that’s ok.

This is a fascinating game to me and the work that you guys have done on all of this is just amazing! Thanks again to all of you for your contributions to this engine!

Cheers!

P.S. I had to create a new account, this is ‘Hobbes’ but even though I have tried to re-set my password twice, no email has arrived even though it states it has been sent. (I’ve checked junk folders in case.) If a moderator can get in touch with me about that, that would be great! Thank you!! :slight_smile:

in original heroes3 there is a column in cranim.txt that sets frame on which projectile is shot.