Progress Update – One Idle to Rule Them All

Hey folks!
I’m kicking off the two-handed overhaul by sculpting the very first animation you’ll see in-game: the idle stance. Sounds easy, right? Well…

Why the Idle Matters

All three heavy weapons—claymore, war-axe, and war-hammer—share this single pose. Think of it like designing a one-size-fits-all helmet for a knight, a Viking, and a blacksmith: flashy enough for the swordsman, sturdy enough for the hammer-swinger, and not too weird for the axe-enjoyer. Every decision has to work for every weapon, so the brainstorming alone can melt your brain faster than a frost spell.

The Stance I Picked

I’ve settled on a Tail Stance: weapon held low and behind the character, but angled a bit to the side.

• Why not Longpoint?
  Pointing the blade forward (à la fencing) hides most of the weapon from an over-the-shoulder camera, and a war-hammer held like that just looks silly.

• Why angle it sideways?
  If the weapon sits dead-center behind the back, you can’t tell what your enemy is holding. A slight offset keeps silhouettes readable whether it’s a steel slab of a sword or a chunk of iron on a stick.

Vanilla Animations: Bad Poses, Good Motion

Here’s the pleasant surprise: Oblivion Remastered’s vanilla combat poses are… well, pretty limp. But the way those poses link together is actually solid. Think of a dance routine where the dancer starts and ends in awkward shapes, but the moves between them are silky smooth. That means:

• I can keep the original timing and weight (the smooth part).

• I just layer better poses on top—like swapping a dull mannequin into a snazzy outfit—without touching every key-frame.
  All it took was a single animation layer!↓

  

Borrowed (and Hard-Won) Skills

Back on the Raincode project I spent months surgically fixing motion-capture data under a manager who barked criticism like every review was a firing squad. His tirades chased off the full-timers, and temp-worker me got thrown onto cut-scenes, eating thunder every day. Silver lining: that crash course turned me into an animation medic—exactly the skills I need for this mod.

So yeah, worst gig, best training. Proof that no grind is ever truly wasted.

Thanks for reading, and for cheering me on while I juggle swords, axes, and hammers in the editor. Big things ahead once this universal idle locks in.

May Kynareth bless this single stance, that every future swing stays true to its promise.