Company of Heroes 3 - Animation Roles

Today we're bringing you a sneak peak of what our Animation team is working on! I'm sharing this writeup from Chris, our Animation Lead on CoH 3. Be sure to leave any questions you might have for them! - JohnT_RE

Hello everyone, I'm Chris and I'm the Animation Lead on CoH 3. The gameplay animation team's focus is on all things to do with movement - from characters to vehicles to buildings. Our goal is for animation in CoH 3 to look and feel authentic, while maintaining readability for players.

A big focus for us has been giving units life and individuality. One way we are doing that is with distinctive identities or "animation roles" within infantry squads.

Using the rifleman squad as an example, soldiers within the same squad will play their own unique animations. Each soldier has their own distinctive way of holding the weapon - one may hold the rifle higher, or one-handed, and they have poses and animations that vary from their other squad mates. This gives them each their own "personality", and makes each squad feel more natural.

Early Pre-Alpha capture of unique infantry animations per squad.

Early Pre-Alpha capture of unique infantry animations per squad.

We're now creating more animations specifically for use during combat. These animations will show infantry reacting to battle around them and visually break up the firing sequence to help make our infantry feel even more organic and lifelike.

Thanks for your feedback, we are working hard on finalizing our animation content and really hope you enjoy the new additions!

- Chris

Love it! Looks absolutely awesome. 

I have been waiting for this game for so long - happy to wait as long as it needs guys! Enjoying these development posts a lot. Great work everyone!

Looks great! One thing I'm wondering is how will animations blend and transition in COH3 compared to COH2? COH2 had a lot of weird situations where units would start firing for example before they finished their previous animations.

Wow. Really putting in extra effort on all the little details. Really looking forward to this game

Lovely! 

i think it should be like coh 2 where the problem has been solved so hopefully the units could not be distinguished it looks too small on the map

I also liked how you could hear out that they are walking on a street and then on sand a nice little detail

great work

The animations are nice so far, but the squad formation I think should be reversed, 3 men in front so the 1 guy in front isn't 1 shoted. Ofc, that's balance issue, not animation issue.

Please be aware that as far as I know, based on actual war footage and what not and from the Internet and from other video games the Germans usually carry their rifle with one hand, I hope you took this into account:   https://www.reddit.com/r/redorchestra/comments/3knpe5/is_there_any_historical_basis_for_the_way_german/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

it looks sick its amazing loving it it will be great even to make some action short movie 

fantastic, the individuality would be great if it lined up with combat experience or unit discipline. Volks and Rifleman vs Obersoldaten and Rangers

Iron Harvest caught me interest for using WW1-WW2 age but having Mecha instead of Tanks. But sadly their infantry animations are like robot. Whole squad move exactly the same. While their Mecha movements dont have enough force in canon & heaviness in them.

CoH definitely brough my standard in RTS infantry animation really high. Plus tank actual feel the heaviness.

Wow!I love it~~~it is a good start. 

So we have all these great characters(soliders).They need to look better than real. 

ADVICE:The military on both sides are involved in intense activity. (e.g  soliders can escape the bombing.)But now,soliders animation stiffness~

This is done to the gamer is responsible for the interpretation of COH brand.

amazing!
but i want to make sure that：will the team have two different postures? in enemy areas and confirm safety areas

super :) bylo by fajn k německým jednotkám přiřadit německého ovčáka, pes pobíhající okolo jednotek by dodal realitu, jednotky by dále mohly mít možnost provádění hlídek a taky jednotky by mohly mít funkci aby se připnuly k tanku a následovaly ho při jeho pohybu a tím zvýšily jeho ochranu tak jako to vidíme ve filmech

RAZORLIGHT wrote:

Detailed animations have always been a major selling point of the company of heroes series, glad to see you will even make even more!

I hope we will see the return of individual squad ai (like we had in CoH1) return, so that people who want! don't have to babysit every squad and they seek cover themselves.

Looking great!

Thank you for posting!