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The player has no animations or shadow


NeonGadget

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This might not be too important in terms of gameplay, and it probably has already been addressed, but the player has no shadow. More than that, he has no animations at all.

 

Whenever I step into light and don't see any shadow, it's a little interesting. Try it yourself.

 

Whenever you look into a mirror, the player's body is frozen. He hovers an inch off the ground and floats to wherever he wants to go.

 

I understand this is nitpicking and can easily be ignored, but it feels weird sometimes, floating around, having no shadow.

 

Also, it might just make the game more interesting, where the AI might go off their path and turn the corner to see if it is their friend, or a thief that is giving the shadow.

 

Happy New Year everybody!

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I think it's intended this way for reasons that TDM doesn't have third person perspective as Thief Deadly Shadows had. Therefore it's quite irrelevant. If anyone gets to making animations in third person for the PC (player character) then it's another story. But that means climbing, mantling animations et cetera, et cetera. Quite a wave of work. And there's seldom animators working for extensive periods of time on free projects AFAIK and they never were available anywhere when in demand.

Edited by Anderson
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"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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There is a way to turn the player shadow on from the console, though I forget what it is.

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Not really. Again, shadows rely on the player model, and even pro game studios can't make the player body animations look good with player input. AI reacing to player shadow would make things unnecessarily complicated, both for programmers to code, and for players to manage, apart from other aspects of gameplay. It only sounds good on paper.

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We considered a player shadow early on, but it would be nearly impossible for the player to control whether they were detected. Walk on the wrong side of the light and suddenly a guard down a hallway that you can't even see knows you are there.

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It's a video game.

Noone likes being punished and not knowing what for, and as Spring already mentioned, this would lead exactly to that kind of situations. Or, mappers would have to be extra careful not to place lights behind player in spots, where AI could have significant advantage, so that would be a design constraint.

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Ok, fair enough. Maybe it will become a thing one day, when most games are VR compatible. :) For me, it always has been more immersive, to see your body when you look down, or to see your shadow (Chronichles of Riddick and TDS did that quite well IMO). I get the point that A.I. reacting on shadows may make things too cmplicated though. But, hey, maybe not in the way that the A.I. immediately recognizes the shadow as an enemy (i always found it quite silly that A.I. also can differentiate between enemy and friendly foootsteps...). Rather as a spook moment, or something like "there's something wrong here", without getting alarmed right away.

Edited by chakkman
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For me, it always has been more immersive, to see your body when you look down, or to see your shadow

 

 

Yeah, there seems to be two schools of thought on that one. I know many people prefer seeing an animated body, but for me it actually draws me out of the experience. When I see someone else's hands or feet, moving in fairly repetitive and/or unnatural ways, it just reminds me that I'm controlling an avatar. I might as well use be using a third person view in that case. It also eliminates a lot of player control, like forcing footstep sounds when you turn to look behind you, or taking control when you climb ladders or open doors, one of the many things that bugged me about TDS and Thief4.

 

If you're interested in some of the historical discussions: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/6773-small-idea/

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Thanks for the link, it's an interesting discussion. Seems like it is as you stated, kind of 50-50 in regards to people who like this kind of body awareness, and people who don't. I must say that i especially liked that you were able to see the body, and that the actor also turned the body, when you turned your head far enough, in the Chronicles of Riddick games, probably also mainly due to the identification with the alter ego. It really added to that.

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Thanks for the link, it's an interesting discussion.

 

 

An interesting aside...I'm nearly certain that the hood idea in the OP was what Eidos originally planned the "shroud" to be in Thief4.

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due to the thief's training he doesn't cast a shadow.

 

due to Garrett's training from the Keeper's he shouldn't cast a shadow either.

 

the player turns invisible in pitch black darkness and wouldn't cast a shadow anyway, and can only be detected if you walk into him.

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I was a fan of body awareness back when TDS was released. Still, I don't think there's any game that can do this really well due to one thing that will screw it all up, and that is player input. Whether it's analog controller movement, which can slow down any animation to a ridiculous rate, or just spamming WASD keys for short movement, it will always look ridiculous. The only game I remember as really good with body awareness was Mirror's Edge, but that's mostly because you don't have much time for shenanigans during gameplay ;)

Edited by Judith
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I was a fan of body awareness back when TDS was released. Still, I don't think there's any game that can do this really well due to one thing that will screw it all up, and that is player input. Whether it's analog controller movement, which can slow down any animation to a ridiculous rate, or just spamming WASD keys for short movement, it will always look ridiculous. The only game I remember as really good with body awareness was Mirror's Edge, but that's mostly because you don't have much time for shenanigans during gameplay ;)

 

ArmA games. Especially ArmA 3. But it costs a lot of money. Lots of animation. So there you go - the answer on a plate.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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Walk on the wrong side of the light and suddenly a guard down a hallway that you can't even see knows you are there.

That is exacly, why i would like gameplay-relevant player shadows. I sometimes observe in my own gameplay, that i unconsciously avoid passing a light on the wrong side to avoid casting suspicious shadows already. Looks like my brain is trained to expect me casting shadows already. Like with traps i would like to see suspicious shadow casting mechanics in TDM (but i don't expect it to actually happen), because it would probably add to immersion.

 

In current missions there are sometimes lights you have to pass and where you would not be able to avoid casting a suspicious shadow that would be seen by AI. You would have to hide after passing such lights - or time the passing of the light using audio cues (so the guard does not see the shadow).

So from a gameplay-perspective it would be nice to have AI reacting to such shadows. That could be configurable like other difficulty- and performance-related stuff.

 

Resource costs might be turned down drastically by limiting the shadows to be a somewhat "symbolic" representation of the crouching or standing player (might look off while doing some things but i don't think it would be too distracting). No animations needed when doing that way.

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due to the thief's training he doesn't cast a shadow.

 

due to Garrett's training from the Keeper's he shouldn't cast a shadow either.

 

the player turns invisible in pitch black darkness and wouldn't cast a shadow anyway, and can only be detected if you walk into him.

 

It's all magic. :)

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So from a gameplay-perspective it would be nice to have AI reacting to such shadows. That could be configurable like other difficulty- and performance-related stuff.

To compensate for the added difficulty I recommend to have all light sources be extinguishable if your are close so that you at least have no worries once you reached a light...

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To compensate for the added difficulty I recommend to have all light sources be extinguishable

 

So, another design constraint, yay :D

 

Oooh, and doesn't it bother you, that you can stand in the shadows and if there's like a fireplace or something bright behind you, the AI can't see you? I mean it's unrealistic too, right?

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That is exacly, why i would like gameplay-relevant player shadows. I sometimes observe in my own gameplay, that i unconsciously avoid passing a light on the wrong side to avoid casting suspicious shadows already. Looks like my brain is trained to expect me casting shadows already. Like with traps i would like to see suspicious shadow casting mechanics in TDM (but i don't expect it to actually happen), because it would probably add to immersion.

 

I'm not sure most players would find it "immersive" to be caught because of situations that they can't control. The game is a fairly simplistic simulation. Unlike real life, you don't have peripheral vision and you can't do simple things like move left while looking right over your shoulder (or at least not easily). Asking the player to be aware of what's around them 360 when they're unable to control their body realistically would just be punitive, IMO. I'd love to try it as some kind of ultra-hardcore mode if someone felt passionate about adding it, but I doubt it would be my preferred method of play.

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I'm not sure most players would find it "immersive" to be caught because of situations that they can't control. The game is a fairly simplistic simulation. Unlike real life, you don't have peripheral vision and you can't do simple things like move left while looking right over your shoulder (or at least not easily). Asking the player to be aware of what's around them 360 when they're unable to control their body realistically would just be punitive, IMO. I'd love to try it as some kind of ultra-hardcore mode if someone felt passionate about adding it, but I doubt it would be my preferred method of play.

 

 

Red Orchestra 2 solved the peripheral vision problem with dots/glittering points on the edges of the screen if something of attention is within that field. Many shooters do that actually and it's reasonable enough. Enable-able as a setting. So that they could toggle it off if they want to make the UI as minimalistic as possible.

 

But only if the thing with player shadows gets implemented anyway. I don't expect it until better 3'rd person animations which won't make the shadow look from uncanny valley.

Edited by Anderson

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

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