Maximan

Mordor and Gondor at their current state

Alright guys, some in-game footage of the almost done Mordor Fighters.

love the models, they look like ones from the old Return of the king game

This topic is gonna include: A video guide, and a step-by-step picture guide. And some tips. And the correct export settings.

Video Guide: 

A thing I forgot to address!: The export settings on the Shapes/Dummies, should be nothing. They shouldn't be exported.

Step-by-step: 

HI Solvers Setup:

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Now for this part, you wanna click on for an example, BAT_UARML, and then go into Animation>IK Solvers>HI Solvers and then click on the B_HANDL

Creating Shapes/Dummies(Best explained in the video!)

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Now for this part, you wanna create 9 circles/or dummies, 4 Small, 4 Medium, 3 Large. Then you wanna use the "Angle Snap Toggle" Tool and rotate the small circles 90 degress. Then align them without any orientation, to the FARML, FARMR, CALFL, CALFR. Then you wanna align the Medium sized circles with an orientation of X, Y, Z to: HANDL, HANDR, TOEL, TOER.

Now for the large circles, you wanna align 1 of them, with the ribs, and that one has to be aligned without orientation. Then you wanna align the other 2 with the ROOTDUMMY, and the HEAD, and with an orientation of X Y Z.

Much easier to understand in the video.

Export settings for Circles/Dummies, Geometry and Bones

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Now you wanna Link the HI solvers with the shapes, watch the video for this, to make sure you get it right.

Now you wanna add Orientation Constraints, from the bones shown to the circles shown

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This allows you to rotate the bones, with the circles/dummies

Done! If followed correctly, it should look like this:

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Hide the HI solvers when animating if you want, since they can be very annoying.

.W3D Animation Export settings

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Tips/How to animate:

1. Create your animation, smooth it out, watch it, see what you can improve, improve it until you can't find anything else to improve.

2. Get a good Basepose for attacking, that is viable for several things, and fits easily into the cheers/taunts/deaths/attacks you have in mind.

3. Try to do the animation in real life, this may sound a bit ridiculous, but you can get better results because of it. Even try to do it in slow motion. Just so you get an idea of how it would look in real life, and try to convert your knowledge over.

4. A style I like to animate with is this one(Frames that have all the colors are where I make the frames, the inbetween are smooths):

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5. Focus on your units, strength/weight and what he is wearing/holding, if you want the most realism possible.

I can make some animations for his hammer version, if you don't find a fitting skl, but it will have to be later, I am finishing off my mod, and then I gotta do other animations too

I can make it around the same time I do your GK

What I am working on:

New Rohan Archers

Mordor and Gondor done

did someone say "there are no animations"?

I mean you could toy around with the model design, just an idea: make them more muscular and more straighten back up, and less handicap baby look, and maybe mix around with the troll armor lauri sent. It could end up with a cool look imo. And on that you could perhaps modify the hammer also to fit the original anims. Just some ideas (for the hill trolls)

Sorry

I'd say no because the one in-game looks a lot cooler, i'd probably crack myself up seeing that one from the film as an enemy  

that's just my opinion

Gondor Archers, Only In-Game. I'll show them in W3D Viewer when I finish their taunts.

Guess what

So lately I've been working on the Mordor Fighters idle animations, these might be the final ones

W3D Viewer

In-game