Add Armor to New Combat Animations

[jrconway3]

This one is undoubtedly going to be a pain, but I'm opening this issue here for LuciferRules:
#202

I need to outline exactly what armor pieces are missing. I believe all helmets are now done at this time, and I added the gloves + metal gloves already. Greaves would be ideal to get done as well and shouldn't be TOO hard (I already have some boots with metal recolors mapped to all frames).

The only other assets missing I think are the visors; I have the visors ready to go, and they're really easy to drop in to the remaining frames. I just didn't do it yet.

Of course, getting proper armor pieces will be ideal, but also quite difficult. I need to do some research to figure out exactly what's present and still needs to be done.

[jrconway3]

Armor Sets:

1. Plate
2. Leather
3. Legion
4. Chainmail

So the core armor sets are body only, not arms. Typically speaking, I tend to have far, far more trouble dealing with the arms than any other part because the arms are so varied from position to position. This might be relatively easy to implement I think, but no guarantees there.

Exception is Chainmail: this doesn't FULLY cover the arms and legs, but it does partially cover them. This will be the biggest pain of these. I'd probably want to do the Plate/Leather/Legion together, and the Chainmail much later.

Shoulders:

1. Bauldrons
2. Legion
3. Plate
4. Leather
5. Epaulets
6. Mantal

Other than Mantal, I think all of these are relatively easy. They're just sitting on the shoulders, so they shouldn't be too hard to implement I think.

That said, the Mantal may be a bigger issue. They're much larger, so they'll probably need to move around a lot more.

Wrists:

1. Bracers
2. Cuffs
3. Lace Cuffs

Last one isn't really armor, but whatever, I'm including it anyway. If I do these in one sitting I might as well do them all at once.

So, these don't look TOO bad... the arms do move around a lot, but the new frames should be relatively easy to actually create. I can probably do all three of these fairly quickly.

Arms Armour:
This is the hardest one, that said, it appears there's only ONE asset. I'll probably want to focus on doing this on its own, this looks like it could be a huge pain.

Legs Armour:
Forgot this one, but this one is probably just as hard as the Arms. Okay, not nearly as hard; the legs don't move around AS much. But they still move around a lot, especially in the combat animations.

Feet:
As for feet; there are no true "greaves" thankfully. You basically just have to combine Leg Armour with metal-colored boots. That said, there are plenty of assets that can be used here:

1. Boots
2. Boots 2
3. Fold Boots
4. Rim Boots
5. Armoured Shoes (okay, they're labeled as boots, so there are armoured boots)
6. Shoes
7. Shoes 2

Visors:

1. Grated visor
2. Narrow grated visor
3. Horned visor
4. Pigface visor
5. Pigface visor raised
6. Round visor
7. Round visor raised
8. Slit visor
9. Narrow slit visor

So there's a lot of them, but these should be about as easy as the helmets. Main deal is to make sure they are positioned correctly and then cutout the hands wherever needed. Its unlikely they need any new frames at all, so that won't be a problem. Its just a matter of copy-pasting across every frame and adjusting the position. The visors I just didn't get around to doing earlier, but they should be fairly easy.

Overall, I think this one looks a lot easier than I expected... but that's ONLY because they're compartmentalized. Each piece of the armor is a different asset, rather that being part of the same thing. At the same time, though, I also need to figure out how to handle the texture for each piece. When I have to make new frames I have to be able to learn to follow the texture of each existing asset, especially if we get an angle that is more difficult to deal with. So I have to be careful about that.

I think I'd want to do them in the following order:

1. Visors
2. Body Armor
3. Shoulders
4. Feet
5. Wrists
6. Arms
7. Legs
8. Chainmail

I'm heavily considering trying to rush through and get all remaining "easy" head assets done ASAP (hats, head coverings, etc, not hair), including visors, but I'm not fully certain yet.

Still, I do want to prioritize my own hairstyles first.

[jrconway3]

Now that I got a good chunk of hat assets done, I'm going to work on finishing those visors next. I'll also see how difficult it is to map the body armor (and JUST the body armor) to all frames.

[jrconway3]

Bascinet is off on a few of the jump frames. Great. Now I need to check all the helmets and see if anything else is off... no, I'm not going to do that lol. I'm just going to fix Bascinet, and if anyone else notices any that are slightly off we can resolve them one at a time.

[jrconway3]

Fixed the Bascinet issue and all Visors are up on the next PR now.

I'll look at the body armor next.

[jrconway3]

Update on armor:

Platemail was pretty easy for the first half or so. However, once I reached the run animations that's when it got way more complicated. I haven't even started combat yet, I even skipped the combat idle because I'm working on Male first.

For Female, I may need to make a separate "teen" variant of Female as well. That's why I skipped combat idle, because I'll use the "Teen" variant there.

My biggest issue are the side poses, notably in run and the third frame of sit. In addition, trying to keep it "blocky" is really confusing. The armor isn't supposed to be that flexible.

[jrconway3]

All Plate armor is done for Male except for Combat now, which is identical to "Teen" anyway.

[jrconway3]

Getting real close to the first set. I'll just drop this one on its own rather than waiting to get all three body armor sets done. Female/Teen have everything now complete except for Jump, Run, and Combat.

I haven't touched Run at all. Frame 1 is done for both Combat and Jump. And I've done all "North" combat animations.

I might be able to complete this tonight, but no guarantees yet.

[jrconway3]

Just looking at Leather and Legion... I feel like these should be way easier to finish. The Plate had this more detailed shimmer at the center which made it more complicated to do alternate views, but Legion is pretty simplistic in its style... Still, I'm going to hold off a bit longer before starting this.

[jrconway3]

Legion is way easier to finish I think. But Leather, I see, actually moves the bottom as the legs move around. And that's just on walk. Run, Jump, and Combat are going to have it move around way more, so this is not going to be easy at all.

Leather just about has Teen versions for the base ULPC assets, though, and Legion is already finished on teen for the base assets. So there's some progress. I don't think I'll finish them right away, though. I want to drop a hair update next.

[jrconway3]

Note to self:
Create reduced color Chainmail Armour and Hood. I'd like the ability to create recolors of these, but it is very complicated with the current color scheme.

I noticed checking through the history that Bluecarrot12 already did reduced color variations of the plate armour and other assets. Chainmail looks very complicated to reduce color but I think we can do it. That said, I should probably focus on mapping it to all frames first before recoloring... however, that will be a massive PITA to do so with this massive palette. So it might not be all that viable to do so.

I did attempt to create a reduced Chain Hood already. I'll play around with recolors and see how it looks. My only concern is it looks like there may be too much white around.

I have huge concerns with doing the full Chainmail with its current color schemes, I feel like its going to be an absolute PITA to actually finish that design. Even with reduced color schemes, redesigning new frames is going to be insane to try and keep the same rough texture and style. The plate armour and Legion armour is far, far smoother. And if I don't reduce the colors first I have no idea how I'm going to actually finish it.

[jrconway3]

Legion Armour is done now. I also tried my hand at a reduced Chanimail Hood. The Chain body is going to be a PITA I can tell...

Leather is going to be a lot harder I think. Also, I missed Armour Skirts in the OP. I didn't realize those were a thing. There's armour pieces scattered about everywhere it seems.

[jrconway3]

Maybe instead of going for Leather I should start looking at shoulders/wrists/etc.