magicsixball
Smash Rookie
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2016
- Messages
- 24
It's hard to title this one...
So this happened recently and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. S2J dashes off stage and holds backwards expecting the usual forward momentum, but it wasn't there. It's happened to me plenty of times, usually when going for drop zones, and can throw off your spacing if you aren't expecting it. This was an unfortunate example as S2J dies from a shine after the sequence above.
If you're familiar with pivot dropping (don't know if that's the actual name for it), or turning before falling from the edge, you've seen this kind of momentum cancelling before. However, what's interesting here is that falcon never turns around and continues to face forwards.
Edit: Thanks to Sycorax for debunking my original theory! Turns out it's the marginal shift of your base position from your dash that puts you offstage in 1 frame after turn.
So this happened recently and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. S2J dashes off stage and holds backwards expecting the usual forward momentum, but it wasn't there. It's happened to me plenty of times, usually when going for drop zones, and can throw off your spacing if you aren't expecting it. This was an unfortunate example as S2J dies from a shine after the sequence above.
If you're familiar with pivot dropping (don't know if that's the actual name for it), or turning before falling from the edge, you've seen this kind of momentum cancelling before. However, what's interesting here is that falcon never turns around and continues to face forwards.
Here's what I came up with: To understand what happened, we have to look at falcon's environmental collision box, or his ECB. When falcon dashes, his ECB widens, keeping him onstage longer. The frame after you input a turn, his ECB tightens, and if the new ECB is offstage, the game puts him offstage without ever giving him a chance to turn. This keeps him from turning around while still canceling his forward momentum.
Above is a screenshot of falcon 1 frame after inputting a turn from on stage. The old ECB shows his dash ECB, and the new ECB shows his turn ECB. Because his turn ECB puts him offstage, falcon never enters his turn animation. You can't really do this consistently, however, since some frames of his dash won't make his ECB wide enough to put his turn ECB offstage.
Above is a screenshot of falcon 1 frame after inputting a turn from on stage. The old ECB shows his dash ECB, and the new ECB shows his turn ECB. Because his turn ECB puts him offstage, falcon never enters his turn animation. You can't really do this consistently, however, since some frames of his dash won't make his ECB wide enough to put his turn ECB offstage.
If falcon enters his turn animation at all (AKA if his turn ECB does not put him offstage), he will be facing inwards when he falls and will grab ledge (if he doesn't do anything else). It doesn't matter if he turns for 1 frame, 2 frames, 3 frames, etc. If his dash momentum causes him to slide off after entering turn, he will be facing inwards.
Not all characters are able to do this, and if they can it won't happen very often. It may be a freak of nature that falcon is able to do it at all. From what I can tell, it depends on 3 things: how fast a character's dash speed is, how wide their dash ECB is, and how wide their turn ECB is. If it's ever happened to your character, let me know.
Edit: Thanks to Sycorax for debunking my original theory! Turns out it's the marginal shift of your base position from your dash that puts you offstage in 1 frame after turn.
The only part of the ECB that controls whether your on stage is the bottom of the diamond (which is linked to a character's base position. It cannot shift horizontally without causing character movement)
Awesome, didn't know that! Hmm, so you're saying there is no transition between action states that shifts your base position. That makes sense.
So it really is a pivot on the last frame you're on stage, but it's not common. In my tests, i think like 2/3 last-frame pivots had at least 1 frame of Turn on stage. So your last frame of dash must be really close to the edge for the momentum to put you offstage in 1 frame.
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