Flying/Hovering Melee Attacks possible?

[Shmeegal]

Can this be done in  :ff: or :ffvstr: ?
If so, how? How I ask you?!  :banghead:

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Nope.

[Shmeegal]

Seriously?!

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo...(wheeze)...oooooooooooooooo!!

Ooh, candy bar...(munch, munch, munch)

[Blitzgott]

It's not the same thing, but you can give a character melee attacks that hit flying opponents. If you have a mesh of a superhero that has a melee animation of him flying up in the air in the opponents direction and attacking, you could simulate more or less what you're looking for. Unfortunately, I never saw a mesh with a melee animation quite like this. Usually, those animations in which the hero flies, he flies backwards and then charges on a character on the ground.

[BentonGrey]

It does actually happen randomly, but there is no way to MAKE it happen.

[Blitzgott]

It does actually happen randomly, but there is no way to MAKE it happen.

Were you answering me or Shmeegal?

If it was me, then no, you actually can make a melee attack that hits flying opponents. In fact, a built-in minion, Raptor, has an attack called "Pounce" that hits airbone opponents only.

You can make a melee attack that hits flying opponents if you create it via FFEdit and give it the power flag "airbone targets only".

[Previsionary]

I believe Benton was answering Shmeegal. The melee "airborne..." tag may be able to hit flying opponents, but even with that tag you are usually forced to land before attempting melee.

[detourne_me]

yes but to add more confusion to the mix,  sometimes a flying character can perform a melee attack on a non flying character... its happened to me quite a few times in my silver surfer versuys galactus battles.

[Alaric]

You could also make a short-ranged crushing damage area attack and give it a melee-style animation.

[Urthman]

You could also make a short-ranged crushing damage area attack and give it a melee-style animation.

And give the character the FOCUS attribute to make it so close you really have to be right next to the target.  Takes more micromanaging to hit a moving target, though.

You can also use a short-range invisible beam attack with a melee-ish animation (ranged_5 in a lot of keyframe sets looks sorta like a punch).  I make it low accuracy so the character has a chance of missing.

yes but to add more confusion to the mix,  sometimes a flying character can perform a melee attack on a non flying character... its happened to me quite a few times in my silver surfer versuys galactus battles.

Is it possible you got confused because the Surfer's running animation was him riding his board landspeeder style so it looked like he was flying but he was actually on the ground?

[Lunarman]

Isn't there something do with big characters and this? Like big characters are able to be attack by melee when the assailent is flying?

[Shmeegal]

Lunarman's got the idea! But the rest of you got guys made some cool points. I hadn't thought about using area attacks that look like melee attacks. I'm gonna try using a character with Superman keys, cause his got a wicked area attack that looks like a melee attack and works great while flying as well! That seems like the easiest plan right now.

Thanks for help guys :thumbup:

[Blitzgott]

i don't know why anyone hasn't done it before but...

it should be possible, with nice results, to create a new animation which begins and ends with the hover keyframe (so it seemlessly blends with flying animations) that shows a character hitting a target with a mele motion. then a power can be setup similar to pounce for airborne targets only.

the only limitation i can think of is that i believe powers with that tag are limited in attack range. but of course this is really not true flying melee. it's a fake out.

That's what I suggested. I tested it out just now to see if there were any limits in range and apparently there are not. I put the same range as Kill-a-rilla's whip snap (min. 10, max. 15) and it worked. I think it supports a much larger range. I'll test it later.

It would be cool if someone made a mesh a gave it a melee animation of the hero flying to hit his opponent in the air. Even if it's fake out, like you said, I think it would look pretty good.

[Blitzgott]

Hmm... I just discovered that flying melee is possible in this game. If you give a character an attack with the power flag "airbone targets only" and both your character and his opponent are in the air, your character will attack him while flying.

[TaskMasterX]

I found another solution. Here's what I did:
1. I took Tommyboy's Starfox_tvlite mesh and loaded the keyframes up in Nifskope.
2. I renamed the hover_ranged animation to hover_ranged_10 and then renamed the melee_3 animation to hover_ranged. The melee_3 animation is of Starfox jumping into the air and then flying right at the target fist first.
3. After renaming the animation I changed the 'contact' to 'leave_hand' and then saved the keyframes.
4. I loaded up the game and created a new Projectile Power with Short range and a blank FX and chose the ranged 1, hovering animation.
5. Loaded the RR and tested it out and I was able to hit both flying and non-flying targets-every time! Well, unless he missed because of the Medium Accuracy and the target dodged!

EDIT: I made a copy of minuteman's Patriot swing Melee FX and called it flying_melee and changed it from Melee to Ranged Projectile and now I have an FX for this. I tested this some more and the character can attack with this Power whether he is in the air or not and whether his target is in the air or not! This may be the thing we've been looking for!

[Blitzgott]

Oh, before people start flaming me saying that you cannot attack while flying and yadda yadda, the thing with the power flag "airbone targets only" is that, if you put a low minimum distance, the hero will land before attacking the airbone opponent. However, if you put a minimum distance long enough, the hero will attack while airbone. Currently, the closest distance I managed to pull off is minimum distance 8 using the melee animation number 6 of Renegade's Superman. I will see if it's possible to shrink it even further.

[Lunarman]

wow, that's amazing blizt!

Excellent work

[Blitzgott]

wow, that's amazing blizt!

Excellent work

Haha! Thanks for the praise, Lunarman. I appreciate it. =]

By the way, the lowest minimum distance possible before the hero start landing before attacking is 5, though I recommend using 6.

[electro]

This is another way i have been ussing for years - short ranged beam ussing invisible beam fx with ranged hovering animation 1 - here is a little video i made to demostrate :blink:

Video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t0ZfOXssmE

[BentonGrey]

Yep, I've been using the same work around Electro.

[TaskMasterX]

Okay after playing around some more, I found Gren's Sub-mariner KFs which virtually every animation has the mesh floating. Melee_8 is the animation that starts out floating and then jumps up and flies at the target. I copied that animation to a copy of Tommy Boy's Starfox_tvlite Kf's (which I think is a hexed copy of Gren's male_basic_eternals KFs) and set it as the hover_ranged animation, renaming the original ranged and hover_ranged to ranged_8 and hover_ranged_8. I found that the flying melee animation has to be named hover_ranged or else it won't work. These keyframes are compatible with any male_basic type mesh and there's male_cape and male_heavy versions of the Gren's eternals KF's which also have flying animations that can be renamed to work. I've also copied the flying animation from IPS's Rogue KF's to Gren's female_basic_speedster and have Aurora of Alpha Flight flying around smacking people. If anyone would like copies of these keyframes, PM me and I'll be happy to send them to you. I'm trying to get video taken of how it works in game but I'm at work and it's slow PC. I'll have to wait until I get home.

[Revenant]

wow, this is pretty exciting, all these solutions should prove very useful!

[detourne_me]

yeah i figured how that would solve it... do you set it up as a short range beam attack? or as a short range area?

[TaskMasterX]

I used it as a projectile since it can be dodged. I gave it medium accuracy and you can adjust the velocity so the projectile hits at the same time the character's mesh meets the target's mesh. I found Normal or Fast works well.

[Blitzgott]

Looks like you found a pretty interesting work around, TaskMasterX. If you don't mind, I'd like you to send me the keyframes you made, so that I can see how they work in-game first hand. I'll be sending you my e-mail via PM by the time you'll be reading this post. Thanks in advance.

Anyway, regarding your method, from what I could tell, it looks like the damage inflicted won't be melee damage; therefore, since a character's strength level won't affect the damage at all, you can expect seeing Wasp inflicting a very close amount of damage with her flying punch as Superman with his. I may have misunderstood, though.

Then again, your method has some clear advantages over mine, starting with the fact that an airbone character will be able to use his melee attack against airbone opponents as well as opponents in land. Also, your method is less expensive, since, with my method, the player will have to buy attacks specifically for land fighting and for airbone fighting, which can (and will, most definitely) use power slots that the player would want to use for something else, or simply make the character much more expensive, prestige point-wise, than he was supposed to be.

[TaskMasterX]

All you need to do for damage is give Wasp a Very Low or Low Magnitude and give Supes an Extreme Magnitude Projectile. You can even increase the Level up to 5 to max out the damage for Supes and the other Strong Fliers. As soon as I get home and the kids are in bed I'll send you the keyframes.

[electro]

yes my solution is basically for newbies to FF - all this hex editing & tracking down keys is great for people like me, task & ips but a little over the top for non hardcore FF'ers - personally i agree with Ips & would like a better way to make flying melees aka task's style which i am very interested in - but, basically we all end in the same result damadge being taken from flyers with the illusion of a melee :blink:

[Blitzgott]

i'd like to see video of tmx and blitz's solutions if possible. i'm curious... it'll never be perfect. i guess i have to accept that but i've gotta try to get it as close as possible right. ;)

I'd love to make a video of my solution, but, unfortunately, I don't have the resources necessaries. If anyone would be kind enough to test my method and make a video out of it, I'd be very grateful.

Anyway, I just finished testing Taskmaster's solution and it works well, though it's a bit flawed (not the mine is perfect). For starters, if the opponent manages to dodge the projectile and there's, say, a building right behind him, the building will then take the damage and might even collapse, which may look a bit strange. Also, although it is indeed possible to use his method to attack opponents on the ground while flying, the animation will be the same as if it were attacking an airbone opponent, so the punch/kick that hit the opponent will be thrown from very far away, and probably won't even be aimed at him. There's also the thing about it not inflicting melee damage, as I already stated, but Taskmaster's work around (giving extreme or slightly lower magnitude to strong fliers and very low or slightly higher magnitude for weak ones) more or less fix it. What it doesn't fix, though, is that characters that have active or passive defenses that protect against melee attacks and not against projectiles will still take damage from the aerial melee attack from Taskmaster's work around.

As for my method, there are some problems too. For starters, since what we will be using is not really a feature from the game, and instead just something that Irrational overlooked, some weird stuff is bond to happen. First, sometimes an aerial melee attack will inflict damage on the opponent, but the melee animation won't play. It happens fairly rarely, so it's not that big a deal, but it can be annoying if the attack you used was a multi-hit attack, because it will hit only once if this bug happens. Another problem is that, if the melee attack that hit the opponent causes knockback, the player-controlled character will land because there's that thing about the AI following out of reach characters in order to hit them with melee again. If you just click somewhere else in the map, though, you'll cancel the AI's action of persuing the target, therefore stopping your character from landing. Another thing is that, with my method, flying characters cannot use melee on characters on the ground. I think that's all.

Edit: Another flaw of my method I found: if the airbone opponent your character attacks fly out of range, your character will land and persue him on foot. So, in order for the attack occour while your character is airbone, the opponent cannot move. =/

Edit 2: Well, I somewhat found a work around for the problem of the hero landing if the airbone opponent moves away from him. The thing is giving a minimum distance of 5 and a maximum distance of, dunno, 50 or even 255 (the max) to the airbone attacks. That way, even if the opponent moves away, the hero will still deliver the attack while airbone, and because he has to get the closest possible to the opponent, it doesn't give the opponent much time to distance himself too far, so it doesn't look too strange. Then again, if the attack you give is one that hits in an arc, then, well, be ready to witness a world of devastation in front (or around) your character.

[TaskMasterX]

Anyway, I just finished testing Taskmaster's solution and it works well, though it's a bit flawed (not the mine is perfect). For starters, if the opponent manages to dodge the projectile and there's, say, a building right behind him, the building will then take the damage and might even collapse, which may look a bit strange.

If the building is to far behind the target, then make sure you projectile is set to short range. Short range shouldn't exceed the distance the mesh flies forward past the target. You could set the FX to an actual projectile you can see for testing. Then you could see the path and distance the projectile takes to see if it follows close to the mesh's fists. You could also imagine that the target dodged and the attacker, unable to maneuver in time, flies straight into the building. The only thing is no damage is taken from the collision. <_<

Also, although it is indeed possible to use his method to attack opponents on the ground while flying, the animation will be the same as if it were attacking an airbone opponent, so the punch/kick that hit the opponent will be thrown from very far away, and probably won't even be aimed at him.

If you use a regular punch animation then, yes you will probably see the attack happen at a distance. It's best to use flying animations. If the target is on the ground and the attacker in the air, the attacker still flies at the target but the connection happens above the target, vice versa if the attacker is on the ground and target in the air. To make it look right, the character should take to the air before attacking the flying target and land if the target is on the ground. To get the AI to do this, you'll need to make two tactics that look like this:

Code Select Expand

"TRanged('flying melee',time=1.68,mindist=0,subtype='flying',situation='flying')",
"TRanged('flying melee',time=1.68,mindist=0,subtype='not flying',situation='not flying')",

What it doesn't fix, though, is that characters that have active or passive defenses that protect against melee attacks and not against projectiles will still take damage from the aerial melee attack from Taskmaster's work around.

Good point. This is probably the biggest flaw in my solution.

First, sometimes an aerial melee attack will inflict damage on the opponent, but the melee animation won't play. It happens fairly rarely, so it's not that big a deal, but it can be annoying if the attack you used was a multi-hit attack, because it will hit only once if this bug happens.

I think I've seen this before with other regular melee attacks, so I don't think it has anything to do with this.

Forgive me, because I think I'm about to ask a stupid question. But, when I tried testing your idea, Blitz, I couldn't see the melee power I made in FFEdit with the Melee:Airborne Targets Only Flag selected in the game. I tried creating a new power but it wasn't in the melee list in the game. How do you get it to show up? I do not have the "Not for Use as Custom" flag selected for that power in FFEdit. Now, I can get the AI to use the power by adding it to the tactic but I can't even get it added to a custom hero when editting them in-game.

Edit 2: Well, I somewhat found a work around for the problem of the hero landing if the airbone opponent moves away from him. The thing is giving a minimum distance of 5 and a maximum distance of, dunno, 50 or even 255 (the max) to the airbone attacks. That way, even if the opponent moves away, the hero will still deliver the attack while airbone, and because he has to get the closest possible to the opponent, it doesn't give the opponent much time to distance himself too far, so it doesn't look too strange. Then again, if the attack you give is one that hits in an arc, then, well, be ready to witness a world of devastation in front (or around) your character.

The melee arc range is now fixed, thanks to Stumpy, and is available with FFX3.2.

I finally got video up. Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-_llIHRTAk
First it shows what it looks like when the target dodges and the last part shows what it looks like when the target is moving. Sorry for the quality. This is my 1st time doing this.

[Blitzgott]

Forgive me, because I think I'm about to ask a stupid question. But, when I tried testing your idea, Blitz, I couldn't see the melee power I made in FFEdit with the Melee:Airborne Targets Only Flag selected in the game. I tried creating a new power but it wasn't in the melee list in the game. How do you get it to show up? I do not have the "Not for Use as Custom" flag selected for that power in FFEdit. Now, I can get the AI to use the power by adding it to the tactic but I can't even get it added to a custom hero when editting them in-game.

No, YOU forgive me. I should have mentioned it long ago.

The thing with attacks with the "airbone characters only" power flag is that they can only be given to built-in characters. You'll have to create a character via the FFEdit, create the powers, the template, and then it should work.

Edit: Oh, and another thing about my method. When I mentioned that my method does not work against moving opponents (the hero would land before attacking), it is not quite like that.

See, if you are, for example, trying to attack a flying opponent from behind when he is moving, then your hero will land. However, if your opponent is flying in your direction or you are trying to attack him laterally, it should work like it is supposed to. I still recommend giving a high maximum distance to the flying melee attacks, though. Myself, I'm using a minimum distance of 5 and a maximum distance of 25, but it should be OK to lower the maximum distance a bit.