First of all, I'm still working on dm_uptopium. I haven't dropped it, and won't drop it. I'm having some trouble spiffying up the tower; two waterfalls down the side isn't enough, but its still very much alive and kickin'. OK.
There aren't many modellers among us, and even fewer animators I'm assuming, but I wanted to show these anyway. I'm getting critiques from CDG and the TS boards as well. Here we go.
These will be my third complete set of animations, and probably around my 5th or 6th attempt at animating. My earlier animations were for a chainsaw wrench replacement and a mossberg replacement for The Wastes, in case you were wondering. This set is for the TS katana.
Modelled and skinned by Kimono, look him up on FPSB or CDG if you don't know who that is.
Here's the idle in HLMV:
And here it is ingame(standing still and while running):
^I really like the effect I have going on here, because when you stand still you can't see the blade, but when you run you can see it very well.
And here's an early preview of slash animation 1 of 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKsNktzfegc
^The actual animation is 66 frames and plays at 60 FPS, the video is slow because I couldn't increase the framerate in MS3D.
The first slash will be essentially what you see above, the second slash will be an upward cut followed by a single spin of the blade back to idle, and the third slash will be a quick underarm stab. The draw will consist of the player puling the sword up from underneath the screen while spinning it twice into its idle position. And finally, the block will have the player quickly forcing the blade perpendicular to the ground(blade pointing upward) and the left hand set flat along the tip of the side of the blade(backhand facing the player).