Feature request: moving ears

If I had to choose between getting more hats for my bunnies and having ears that move, like real animal ears do, I'd rather have the moving ears. Especially ears that move to express emotion.

I'll bet some other long-eared races would, too.

However, I'm under no illusion that this would be easy to do.
The only precedent is that tails are animated, so maybe it's not too far fetched.

Either way, I'd be very pleasantly surprised if Dawntrail included this as a feature.

Considering that catgirls, a very, very popular race/gender combo, haven't been updated to match the expression of their male counterpart's ears in emotes... I wouldn't hold my breath. But of course I'd like to see it too.

Female cat ears still do the wiggle during some various drinking animations /joy is just a catboi specific animation (same as catboi /sit and catboi /aback) I don’t think they need to be updated on that front

I do agree that viera ears need to do more but I’ve given up hope they will ever fix the 10 million problems vieras have

I remember a translated interview talking about when viera were 1st being added; they originally were going to do 1 or 2 ear types to allow for more *options*? (idk if that was the correct translation) and viera were supposed to have the two different looking races apart from being bunnies- the Rava were meant to have the upright ears just like Fran. And the Veena were supposed to be shorter, with cuter features and lop ears but they decided against it, either bc of time restraint (they literally could have waited for endwalker to release a finished raced instead of a rushed one)
But frans ears don't move and I believe they used her model to port some viera stuff.

Unfortunately, ear movement will most likely never happen - it's probably something that should have been programmed into the viera before they were released. Or might have been possible had they had less ear customization and only 1 ear type (like the miqote) Had the viera actually looked like the ones from ff12 (they all had close together, forward sitting upright ears which I still wish we had had instead of what we got...)

For the time I played Viera the thing I found most odd was just how stiff the ears are when moving around. Like when fighting, running and dashing. They really should bounce a bit more. With the lop ear option being the bounciest.
Even if they don't make the ears more emotive while emoting, they should at some point update the ears movement physics at the very least. It would really make them feel more like a natural part of their body than just something stuck on.
I mean given the size of their ears they are about on par with a tail. So, I can just imagine how much less popular the Au ra would have been if their tails had been stiff as a board when just moving about.

I'm currently a lalafell for the cosplay, but my race normally is viera and I agree that it would be nice to have more movement physics to the ears.
It's a pipe dream but I think it would be fantastic if they did it alongside the work they are doing for the hats, but nothing has ever been said about it.
Granted, there is some movement depending on what you do, as often when I'm thinking I either tap my movement keys to move back and forth or run around in circles, but I would still like to see more.

Maybe in doing so they can edit the ear wiggle emote to use the viera's actual ears like it did in the material shown for new years rather than summoning loporrit ears.

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Originally Posted by TKMXIV

For the time I played Viera the thing I found most odd was just how stiff the ears are when moving around. Like when fighting, running and dashing. They really should bounce a bit more. With the lop ear option being the bounciest.
Even if they don't make the ears more emotive while emoting, they should at some point update the ears movement physics at the very least.

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If I had to choose between having the ears move during movement (i.e., having "rigged" ears that implemented ear physics) and having scripted ears that moved in response to emotes (including cut-scene emotes) I think I'd prefer the emotive ears.
But I'd be happy to get either, and especially happy to have both.

I would take someone with more experience in 3D animation than I have to estimate which would be easier for SE to do.

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Originally Posted by Bun_Vivant

If I had to choose between having the ears move during movement (i.e., having "rigged" ears that implemented ear physics) and having scripted ears that moved in response to emotes (including cut-scene emotes) I think I'd prefer the emotive ears.
But I'd be happy to get either, and especially happy to have both.

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I'm mostly tunneling on movement physics because I'm drawn to the lop ears option most. So, shifting my focus to emotive ears. Key emotes I think are perfect for viera to move their ears are /lookout, /attention, the salute options and /furious&fume.
Those emotes to me seem like the easiest to mimic a rabbit's style. With look out, attention and salutes having them twist forward facing like an alert rabbit while furious and fume have the ears lean back to mimic an angry rabbit.
I don't have any experience in 3d modeling, and my animating experience is so little it's easier to also write it off as zero. It's just I figure it would be easier to take the already existing ear physics and just improving on them first.

Also, my comment wasn't meant to force a choice to be made or anything. Sorry if I came across that way. I'm just not very good at explaining or wording things. Having both is the ideal outcome 100%.

I support more moving ears through emotes, poses or other means for viera, miqo'te and any other suitable race.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TKMXIV

Also, my comment wasn't meant to force a choice to be made or anything. Sorry if I came across that way.

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No worries, it didn't come across that way.

The biggest thing that keeps me from liking Viera is their stiff rigid Cardboard ears that don't react to any forces of movement, wind or anything else.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

The biggest thing that keeps me from liking Viera is their stiff rigid Cardboard ears that don't react to any forces of movement, wind or anything else.

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They definitely do. I played Viera for years, and the ears bounce and flop a bit when running or attacking, and in strong winds or on a flying mount they almost bend in half.

I don't know if this is still the case or if it applies to Viera ears as well, but I think certain movement physics are reduced above 60 fps so that might be what you're seeing, or not seeing in this case.

Yugiri’s hair is a perfect example of something that looks horrendous in the weird “above 60 FPS” physics the game uses

Apparently it's even better at 30 fps? But I don't know anyone who'd voluntarily lock the game at 30 fps just for better physics. :rolleyes:

Viera ears definitely still have bounce above 60 though, just more stiff in comparison maybe.

Yeah, this. Let us wiggle our ears like my bunnies do. ;(

As much as I would love more lively ears I think SE put themselves in a corner with Viera; it's very clear that they designed the ears to be able to accommodate hats and hairstyles (*looking pointedly at the awkward "lop" ears), but the ears are also to blame for the lack of initial hat/hair compatibility. I don't remember how Miqo'te ear animations look when they're wearing hats that aren't covering them up or putting them in pockets (if there are any), but I imagine that it would be a much worse situation with Viera. Granted they could just disable the animations or hide the ears in the hats (which I'm not a fan of racial features being hidden like that). In any case, I would be shocked if they ever got around to animating them.

I would love to see moving ears, and well as longer tails for miqo that have more animation to them, or the addition of being able to crop tails entirely
but that's a different topic entirely.
I agree with this.
any animal-ear'd race should absolutely have animated ears to some varying degree!! even as an idle animation to see them sorta flick or twitch bc of the wind or whatever.

Feel like peoples response to this topic whenever its brought up always varies because of the Fps limit setting not being same for everyone. Mine is set at unlimited but even then I see my max length viera female ears upper ends bouncing up and down when I run, and when it storms they bend somewhat and shake to whichever direction the winds may be hitting them from, so they aren't entirely stiff as some may claim.

However I do agree it'd be nice to see them brought along to emotes as well like cats have.