[2023] Raptor Comparison and Quick Edits

Great work with these mockups!

For what it's worth, earlier today I queried the art leads about whether we might be able to horizontally stretch the Raptor NPC configs to bring back a little of the character's girth.

To transparently paraphrase our animation director's reply: "The issue with resizes is that the feet may slide when walking, as the animated stride length will be different relative to their leg length. It may not look too bad if a small resize value is used, but preferable to avoid if possible."

Unfortunately, while we do have the capability to do that, our art director also isn't comfortable with using resizeh to resolve this.

I was able to get a little time from an animator to adapt the Raptor's original idle pose to work with the new Raptor model. https://twitter.com/JagexStu/status/1681318551767093252 I'm hopeful it's a step in the right direction.

Fixing what's within my power to fix, I've also replaced occurrences of Raptor examines "Who could move in all that armour?" with the more commonly used "A mysterious warrior clad in thick plate armour."

Hmm, I did consider that - though as I said, our art director prefers we don't resize character models at all.

You start to run into issues where characters are too wide to fit through doorways and the like. (Admittedly Keldagrim already has that problem, but we needn't contribute to the problem.)

Trouble is that widening only the Raptors that stand still would introduce a strange inconsistency.

Whenever the character has to move or do something, they'd get slimmer, which affects more than just Dead and Buried and Song from the Depths.

Like the version of the Raptor that fights dragons, cannoneers, glacors, trolls, etc in Slayer areas would have to still be slim. Or any wandering signature hero events or guild appearances.

I think let's see how people feel when we release the animation change above and get to see it for themselves and have some time to get accustomed to it.

I do need to start preproduction for my next project at the end of this week, though. The release schedule is a jealous mistress.

Yes, I moved over to working on fixing that this morning. I'm close to a solution, hopefully hotfixable. The manner in which Twilight of the Gods can be completed before or after Legacy of Zamorak makes for quite a lot of corner cases.