[ANIMATION] Freezing Field - Improved & optimised

[Terresquall]

EDIT 160510: Corrected certain scaling errors in the model in relation to my map (no changes visually) and addressed a buff effect suggestion in this topic.

Introduction

Freezing Field uses 2 imported models for its animation--a ground animation that sends snowflakes upwards, depicting the AoE slow aspect; and shards of snowy blizzardy stuff flying down, depicting the damage.

It's all fine and dandy, but those two animations don't really fit together. The big white snowflakes stick out like a sore thumb compared to the blizzard shards. They're like two different animations for different spells, and the snowflakes don't depict the actual AoE of the spell properly too.

Moreover, the model's uses so many other particle effects that are coloured in such a way that make them not apparent (i.e. the glowing effect in the middle on the Crystal Maiden).

You'd expect a model imported specially for a skill to at least properly depict a skill's AoE.

The Improvements





The above pictures show the result of my edit of the imported effect. The changes aren't shown obviously on the pictures, but below are a list of improvements I've made to it:

• Snowflakes have a more similar colour to the blizzard shards, and are smaller so they don't stick out like a sore thumb.
• The effect blends in with the shards more, making the spell look like a harsh blizzard with all the snowflakes flying around. As opposed to the old one where the snowflakes just stand out and try to look pretty.
• The snowflakes are spread out wider and in a more circular fashion (as opposed to the squarish one now). They also fly around more naturally now and depict the AoE better.
• Optimised the effect to be slightly less taxing on computer resources, but at the same time, more apparent and powerful.
• The effect's size is reduced from 5kb to 2kb. Replacing the current model with this new one reduces the current map size.

Download the model here.

Cast Animation

Change the Crystal Maiden's animation speed to 62% as she channels the spell. This makes it so that over the 4-second channel, she completes her entire spell animation once (i.e. waving her staff from left to right) instead of waving her staff over and over again. It makes it easier to gauge when the spell is going to end and makes the Crystal Maiden look more focused performing it.

Buff Effect

Instead of basing the current slow effect off Ladder's Slow spell, base it off a targeted Frost Nova. The Frost Nova effect provides a temporary hardcoded bluish tint to the slowed unit in addition to the buff effect, and it provides the same hardcoded slow amount.

Side Note: This buff effect can be extended to Crystal Nova's slow too, for more synergy amongst Rylai's spell effects.

Test Map

As usual, you can find it here. Check it out, for the pictures don't do the new effect enough justice.

[Monsterlord]

Terrasquall topic, instant approval.

[5chneemensch]

Performance issues for older PC's?

[Terresquall]

Performance issues for older PC's?

Well, a big pretty AoE effect =/= more CPU power. It's more of how the effect is done that affects performance. You can actually have simple/ugly effects be really taxing on system resources if you do it wrongly and vice versa.

The new Freezing Field model actually improves the performance of the spell on older PCs. I've halved the number of particle effects the model uses and edited the rest of the effects slightly, so there are lesser components in this new effect.

[Quiesce]

Originally Posted by Monsterlord

Terrasquall topic, instant approval.

Amen brother

[Black.Lotus]

Imo the old animation was the best! Give it back!!

[Siraraz]

Imo the old animation was the best! Give it back!!

You mean Freezing Frost Nova Field? Oh totally. I agree! I love how the frost nova's could get attacked by tower's and the like! It was so great too!

[ParaDise.-]

Originally Posted by Monsterlord

Terrasquall topic, instant approval.

Agree

Originally Posted by xBlackRose

You mean Freezing Frost Nova Field? Oh totally. I agree! I love how the frost nova's could get attacked by tower's and the like! It was so great too!

Yeah it was great but this is not bad and with Terrasquall improvement is better than old one

[Schremba]

It looks pretty, but why don't use the ingame modle together with those flakes? Wouldn't that look good, too? And it even saves space. Well, I like your snow flakes, so I guess it's a T-up.

[uo111]

I don't like it.

The effect which should be barley visible is now glaringly obvious and quite ugly imo.

And the snow flakes move around erratically as if they are all having seizures, which is not what snow flakes look like when they fall.

The only thing I like about this one over the current, is the aoe correction, and the casting animation. Especially the casting animation.

[Fate Trap]

I dont really care about this stuff but it looks neat t-up

[[P]rokatdn]

Originally Posted by Schremba

It looks pretty, but why don't use the ingame modle together with those flakes? Wouldn't that look good, too? And it even saves space. Well, I like your snow flakes, so I guess it's a T-up.

In-game Blizzard(Missile) and snowflakes???

[dominator02]

Originally Posted by Black.Lotus

Imo the old animation was the best! Give it back!!

and it will be overused by Frost Nova again and a blizzard thing makes her more Jaina Archmage like.


OT:

[Terresquall]

I don't like it.

The effect which should be barley visible is now glaringly obvious and quite ugly imo.

And the snow flakes move around erratically as if they are all having seizures, which is not what snow flakes look like when they fall.

The only thing I like about this one over the current, is the aoe correction, and the casting animation. Especially the casting animation.

IMO the old effect was much more glaring, with its large white (as compared to the rest of the effects which were blue) snowflakes that rose from the ground and disappeared. Realise that Freezing Field's ice shard effects spawn its own snowflakes that fall to the ground to, and what I've done to the ground effect was to make them blend in better with the ice shards' snowflakes.

The erratic snowflake movement of the effect is actually well-justified by the power of Freezing Field. It's not supposed to be gentle, early winter snow. Freezing Field causes a blizzard, and in a blizzard the flakes don't exactly float down in an orderly fashion.

It looks pretty, but why don't use the ingame modle together with those flakes? Wouldn't that look good, too? And it even saves space. Well, I like your snow flakes, so I guess it's a T-up.

The in-game model is much bluer and doesn't fit in with the snowy colouring of the overall effect.

[SuperSheep]

Icefrog like lurks your suggestions so this will probably be implemented.

T-up.

[View~SoniC]

Originally Posted by Monsterlord

Terrasquall topic, instant approval.

This.

[Zangetsu2201]

One word: beautiful. It fits Rylai better than the current one and it is a very nice fix. T-up!

[Nox.knight]

T-up

[Razorya]

This is extremely nice looking and I would love to see that when I press Z in a hopelessly, wrong timed moment again. At least THAT would then be a relief :3

[Terresquall]

Imo the old animation was the best! Give it back!!

The old animation is actually impossible to implement without making the skill as laggy as it was before (the old Freezing Field summoned dummy units wherever an explosion would occur, as opposed to the new one that plays effects, and creating dummy units lag). The Frost Nova animation can only be played on a unit, not independently. Playing it independently will cause the model to not clean up properly, so you see alot of blue spikes on the ground for awhile after the spell finishes (assuming we use the old animation).