Champion animation updates?

John Berserk··7 votes·829 views

With every season of League comes an increase in Champion visual quality. Season 2 saw a better and more cohesive style Lulu Darius Draven Ahri Jayce Ziggs
Season 3 saw better designs and animations
Vi Thresh Zac Lissandra Lucian Jinx and Season 4 so far has brought us even more of those things, and even updated older champions to fit in better. Velkoz Braum Gnar Heimerdinger Twitch Karthus As I look at the recent Champions from this season and Season 3, and compare them to the Champions in early Season 2 and before, I see a bit of a gap, not so much in visual quality, but more in terms of animations. So I was wondering.. while full visual updates are probably not necessary, could animation updates become a possibility?

It's already been done for some Champion's walking animations, such as for Riven and Caitlyn but what about other things, such as auto attacks and spell animations?

One of my favorite animations in the game is the auto attack turning for Lucian. It's subtle, but it's fluid. He attacks, but if you move him in another direction, he'll turn and move in the other direction, but he'll still be pointing his gun at his previous target for a second as if to make sure he's not being chased, or as if he's taking note of their location before turning away from them. Subtle things like that do a TON for a Champ's character, and I think some things like that could be implemented for some almost-old champs, like those released in late Season 1 - Season 2.


Here's an example animation I was thinking would be cool to see added: Ahri's Orb of Deception is very iconic to Ahri's image, being present on her character nearly at all times. She's constantly seen in fan art as being very playful, particularly with the ball, playing around with it as if it were a toy. Well, when she throws it out, she pushes it out...but that's it. It just goes out, comes back, and gets sucked back into her body and disappears. Wouldn't it be kind of neat if she caught it? What if she was running one way, shot her Q in the opposite direction, and when it came back, without breaking her stride, she began an animation of her spinning around with a light step and hop and catching the ball playfully?


I realize the Champion Updates team (who I assume would be put in charge of implementing these updates should they be done) has a lot on their hands already with champions like Sion, Mordekaiser, Poppy, Evelynn, and others, but would updated animations be a small enough amount of work to fit in between huge, larger-scale updates?

4 Comments

Aina2 votes

These newer, tiny aesthetic details in animation are also some of my own favorite, too. I really liked your suggestion for a slight additional animation to Ahri's Q returning. As League of Legends continues to grow in amazing ways , I believe Riot will continue to flesh out old characters so they can be re-introduced anew. I am just a game design student, but from lessons and experience, these types of small, unique flares in a video game's characters are essential. But like you said, Riot Games' art/graphic team probably already has a lot of projects for the upcoming skins/champs, and reworks can't come fast enough.

Rew7111 votes

The reason is, they worry more on other things and don't put the time into updating those like Poppy, Gragas, Kennen, Nunu (his splash is ok but his game model doesn't match), Shen, Singed, Sion (who is in the works but has been on hold for so long), Taric, Tristana, Udyr, Veigar, Warwick (who has a new splash art but his rework is still taking a little long), Zilean, Chogath, and Blitzcrank who (meaning the previous 4) have new splash arts but still nothing has changed yet. Some of these need it more than others. And all the same these are the majority of the best characters who we find easy and lovable and would like to see them receive the same treatment as Heimerdinger, Karthus, and Twitch who all got updated splashes, game models, and small reworks.

Also they need to do something about Blitzcrank and his support role. He is ment for top lane but has shown to be a easy support role. They need to do something about his grab that other supports have problems competing with. Thresh does have a grab but its slow and doesn't have the power also doesn't bring the opponent all the way back to the turrent. Its a real horrible harassment.

John Berserk1 votes

As far as I know, Sion is not "on hold" and hasn't ever really been, he's getting a FULL REWORK, as in, they're basically taking out old Sion from the game, making a WHOLE new champion similar in theme to him, and putting him in. It takes a long time to make a new Champion.

Some of the others, particularly Poppy and Warwick are pretty high priority as well in terms of gameplay and art, and I believe they actually have at least the beginnings of a new kit ready for Warwick, and probably for Poppy as well.

Most everyone else is in alright shape for now, though they obviously need some art update, they're just not as high priority as others, who ARE being worked on.

I realize they have their hands full with these major reworks already, but they HAVE before found the time to make some small updates in the form of texture updates and running animations, and that is the purpose of this thread, to ask if more animation updates would be small enough to fit in between the larger projects.

Tuss1 votes

While such updates would be neat, I would think if they would change the animations of a champion that they would just wait until it's their turn for a visual update. However, an animation update would be valid for champions who have received a texture update, as they're much less likely to receive a full visual update, such as Rammus or Sona (though no idea what animations could be added to them). This applies especially to those champs who also got new voice work as well, namely Ashe and Anivia and perhaps others that don't come to mind.

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