Smashcraft Animation

---
name: smashcraft-animation
description: >-
  Author and improve Smashcraft fighter animation (readable silhouettes,
  drills, locomotion, rolls, get-up attacks, grabs and throws, nine-way damage
  reactions) for quality and action coverage.
grounded: 2026-10-09
written: 2026-10-13
metadata:
  kind: domain
---

# Smashcraft animation

Use `warcraft-modding` for the Wisp workflow and `smashcraft-character-creation`
for combat. Read smashcraft:AGENTS.md and
smashcraft:docs/fighter-animation-work.md first. An animation repair never
retunes combat timing or collision.

The deliverable is a fighter whose action reads at the gameplay side-view zoom,
in both facings. A mapped clip, a rotating effect or a nonzero vertex delta does
not prove that it reads. Use original authored motion and licensed inputs.
Never import Nintendo animation, decomp names, addresses or code, or anything read from Melee's files;
Melee timing comes only from public frame data and watching the game (`game-ip`). Keep private art, reference
stills and recordings under `~/.local/share/smashcraft-animation-reference/` or
in the private build-input store, outside Git.

## Author the action

Block three silhouettes: preparation, contact and recovery. Read each one with
particles hidden. Separate the active hand, foot or weapon from the torso, and
move the shoulders, pelvis and weight with it. Keep the weapon attached and the
fighter's proportions recognizable. A heavy swing plants a support foot and
follows through; an agile action coils and springs. Fit the phases to the
existing simulation frames. Keep a fast move fast, and add no anticipation
frames for looks.

Judge the action at the smallest gameplay view, in both facings, and judge its
key intermediate poses. Exaggerate it enough to survive the camera, occlusion
and its short duration. Inspect the rendered mesh, not bone angles: a large
rotation can still read as a static silhouette. Sources are in
`references/library.md`.

## Action families

- **Locomotion:** plant each support foot, transfer weight, alternate the
  stride and match its cadence to simulated travel. Turns and brakes make the
  intended direction clear. Jump squat compresses before it extends. Airborne
  and landing poses tell rising, falling and impact apart. A floating fighter
  moves its body, cloth or weapon instead of its feet.
- **Drills and spins:** turn the visible body through the attack, led by a foot
  or blade, with the pelvis and shoulders turning together. Show preparation,
  sustained rotation and a deliberate exit. A downward drill has a clear
  vertical axis and a narrow leading silhouette; a horizontal spinning cut has
  a broad arc. Symmetric weapons and straight bodies hide rotation, so vary the
  shoulder, knee and silhouette phases. An effect orbiting a still body
  fails.
- **Rolls, dodges, techs and get-ups:** show direction through the body's own
  motion, not through stage travel. Start low, tuck or rotate, then recover
  support. Keep feet and body on the floor, never below it. A get-up attack
  strikes every direction its hit regions cover, then stands. Make spot dodge,
  air dodge, missed tech, successful tech and ledge action distinct. Reuse the
  existing recovery clips before authoring new ones.
- **Grabs and throws:** author holder and victim together. Reach into the
  grip, hold stably, and show a localized pummel and a distinct release in each
  of the four directions. The victim follows through in its own pose. Keep the
  two silhouettes separate, and check pairs of unlike height and a mirror pair
  in both facings. A throw that is the unchanged hold plus a launch fails.
- **Attacks and specials:** the active limb or weapon follows the strike
  direction at the contact frames. Each aerial and each ground or air special
  needs deliberate startup, action, and recovery or landing. Charge and release
  are different poses. Keep each fighter's own body mechanics.

## Damage and shield feedback

Give each fighter high, mid and low contact-height reactions at small, medium
and large intensity: nine distinct poses. Classify a hit from the accepted
contact and its authored intensity, not from a bone query. A high hit recoils
the head and chest; a mid hit contracts or twists the torso; a low hit takes
away lower-body support. Scale the whole silhouette and the limb response with
intensity, and keep each height recognizable. Never replace the nine poses with
nine scalar root tilts.

During hitstop, blend from the actual current pose into a readable pain
silhouette, never through idle. Choose timing that suits the move: Tom
delegated it in #181, and his earlier 1–2 frames are guidance, not a gate.
Sakurai's article uses four transition frames; that is not a claimed Melee
constant. Hold the pose through the stop, then continue hitstun or tumble as
the simulation says. Presentation never advances the attack, hitstun, input or
collision clocks.

Hitstop shake is presentation only: horizontal on the ground, vertical in the
air, decaying, and compensated for camera distance. Collision stays put. Shield
contact has its own impact and defender reaction; it is not a damaging hit.
Hitlag, released hitstun and released shieldstun are distinct intervals. Body
hue during them is unresolved, so capture consecutive contact, stop and release
frames before claiming a match.

## Make the change and ship

1. Author in private output with the family's generator (`references/tools.md`).
   Materialize model-input symlinks before changing them, and keep the old
   indices.
2. Before landing an authored attack, run `bun wisp anim score --fighter F
   --assets PRIVATE_ASSETS` from smashcraft:ts/ for Classic, then again with
   `--graphics definitive`. Each changed move needs a passing row on all five
   lines, including five scores of at least 4/5 from a fresh independent judge.
   The author never judges their own work; prepare and record the judge with
   `anim judge prepare` and `anim judge record`, per
   smashcraft:docs/animation-scorecard.md. Keep a change only if its score rises
   and no line falls (#355). Add a missing move to the sampler before claiming
   that move passes. `bun wisp view motion --assets PRIVATE_ASSETS` flags dead
   poses in movement and recovery. Check the action once in the game, in both
   facings.
3. Publish art with `bun wisp inputs add FAMILY DIR`, regenerate the asset
   metadata with the existing tool, then `safe-push --to main`. Never edit
   generated modules or live input families in place. Balance changes and
   releases follow `references/review-and-release.md`.