Update:Blog - Rework: Dragon Scimitar
This blog was written by Mod Paul B and dates to 1 December 2010.
We have recently changed the way idle animations in RuneScape are rendered to be more flexible, meaning that we are now less restricted in how we approach them. In the past, we were unable to produce these animation outside of a certain three dimensional volume.
The images above show a direct comparison between how the game engine used to render the idle animations of player characters to how it renders them now. On the left, you can see how the game engine used to have a restricted volume in which characters and their equipment would render; on the right is how it would render now, thanks to a recent update to RuneScape's game engine.
This restriction had meant that, to make sure weapons rendered properly from all angles, the wield position of some weapons ended up looking slightly forced. As was evident with the last update to the dragon scimitar, some of you didn't like this, and we didn't like having to do it either. I'm sure you'll all agree that the idle animation and wield position of the newly redesigned dragon scimitar looks much more natural now!
I'm sure some of you will be thinking that, "Weapons always used to render outside of the restricted volume during combat, so why this issue with idle animations?" Well, this is because different animation types in RuneScape are handled in slightly differently ways, so the problems with rendering idle animations didn't apply to combat animations.
Now that all animation can be handled in this more flexible way, we are looking to update more in the future, with the new dragon scimitar just being the first weapon to benefit! We would like to know your thoughts on what we have done with the dragon scimitar, so that we can plan what changes we are going to make to the other weapons in RuneScape. We want the weapons in RuneScape to look as good as they can and to be as close to how your guys want them to look as possible, so please let us know.