Noisycricket

Heres my brain storm while playing St. Lucia: -Great demo -Love the mice -great bow movement -Love the item choosing and using system! Things I hope to see: -A.I. climb ladders (possible to hit/kick them on the way up?) -kick? challenging fight system -chance for noticing doors open -optional bow-zoom -head movement for throwing, hand animation for throwing -slight head movement for arrow release -head movement for blackjack ( up and right slightly for raise, down and left to stop just before contact. -lower music volume and/or headphone sound mode. -lower step sounds/raise A.I. hearing ability -raise A.I. vision ability -moving sky (circular) and clouds (Stalker -Unbalanced items and chance for noise -un-reusable noisemaker arrows -more ambient noises -sounds travel farther and cut out smoother (as is they just cut out too suddenly) -More guard behavior (Guards carrying out duties from a readable note i.e. replacing candles, moving supplies/goods, guards reading, pacing back and forth, playing chess, throwing a ball against the wall, peeping into ladies room, writing a letter, going to backroom, lighting and smoking a pipe, sleeping, fixing something ) -multiple movement animation sets for different guard states (drunk, tired, anxious) -head comes up somewhat when moving fast in crouch -bye bye lantern (or at least holdable only with a free hand and invetory not usable)

If they don't offer a choice, it might help you to set your left Alt key as your creep, or your even your space key. That frees up your fingers to keep directing your movements. I personaly have two usable buttons next to the space-bar that i use for creep and crouch. I really wish they would come out with a gaming keyboard that gave the thumb multiple things it could do. It can press multiple buttons in 4 directions, but all its tasked for is......Space-bar! It could manipulate another mouse-pad movement or swivel a directional!

I just tried the St. Lucia demo. Very different from Thieves Den i see! I will delete some of my previous post pertaining specifically to Thieves Den so i dont confuse any future readers. I have a few comments on St.Lucia's movement, while realizing this is subjective. My personal opinion is that the roll for walking is a little too much, i'd say its 2x too much, but again, I can see someone else loving it. I'd like to implement a slight 5 centimeter side-to-side lateral sway (camera parallel to movement direction ) as well as a 1 or 2 pixel side-to-side angle shift and see how that looks for a start. I think Chronicles of Riddick (first version) has this side to side movement done well, but maybe slightly too exaggerated, can't remember. I'd like to spend a lot of time trying to get this right, but going off the top of my head, its seems the over-all look of the movement im going for would be much like the result of trying to steadily and quietly step over a series of obstacles on the ground that are all about 15cm (6"") high. If you try this, you'll note there is an acceleration of your head as you try to quickly shift your body weight onto your forward foot. For me there is also a heavy side to side movement as i shift my weight over each foot and my head's forward movement looks like a series of directional shifts about 4 or 5 degree off center of forward. Now that is exaggerated, but shows the effect im looking for i think in a round-about way. With the run movement, i think the head-bob should be more pronounced, or perhaps just different. Heres an video of the Battlefield 2142 movement. Its hard to the full effect because of the low resolution. As i mentioned, i'd love to see the effect of foot landing on head-movement. I also believe that once the foot lands, the movement isn't just interupted, but the whole movement changes from then on. If i could animate the camera movement in Maya/3DSM, then i would think it would be easier to get right. Any chance of that? The side-steping movement I would like to make it such that it begins with a deeper curve followed by a shallower curve. This would simulate the long first step of the leading foot, followed by the push-off-like step of the other foot, which pushes off the ground leaving you to balance on the leading foot.

Edit: I've only played the Thieves Den demo, so keep that in mind Well, this is something i think about a lot. I play a lot of games and notice that no game really gets it ALL right, but some games get one or two things pretty close to perfect. Battlefield 2142 has a great sprint/run head-bob where each boot step sound is perfectly in sync with an ever-so-slight stutter in the head-bob cycle simulating the body's jerk as the foot firmly hits the ground. Its also noteworthy that the gun your using in battlefield 2142 moves downward in sync as well. All this occasionaly leading to a pretty spectacular feeling of virtual reality for me. Other games do other movements better than BF2142. Theres a lot of things i'd like to do if i had all the time in the world, such as: Sync all sounds created by your body to a head-movement (besides the human movements also: pulling out weapons, switching weapons, getting hit with a sword/arrow/paw/etc). Create a separate animation for strafe-forward, strafe-sideways and strafe-backward. Increase running speed slightly, about %20. Make 3 to 5 different variations of each foot-step sound for different movement directions for each surface material. (at least a difference in backup variation) Lessen to about half, the head-bob roll. Raise the crouch height about %20 (or reduce speed more at its current height) The stutter i mentioned in the BF2142 example, but different for a sneaking character. The hard part about these movements is that they'll be a compromise. By that i mean if you make a movement look perfect for one situation, it might look odd in another. Its likely to be a compromise between various situations. So it will take some thought and likely some tweaking to get right. It should all be unobtrusive and comfortable to the eye, subtlety is key.

Refering to camera head bob, is it based on an algorithm or an animation and is it editable? Btw, has the Doom 3 source code been released yet? I heard it was going to be. Nice videos btw, really sweet looking. Edit: Opps, i meant FPP in the title...

Added some more.

Added 4 more, hope they inspire.

I updated the link and added some new buildings, hope they help. http://picasaweb.google.com/Libertine44/Desktop

Thought some of you might get some inspiration from these pics. The photos are about 2200x1700. http://picasaweb.google.com/Libertine44/Desktop

Is there any free animation software that can be used or would i need full versions of Maya and/or Motion Builder.

agreed

By animation i just meant the shifting of the screen. Ahh, so im guessing its involving some math? Ugh, well i do some C++, i think its worth getting right. I meant changing it for my own game btw. By mantle, do you mean when the screen when sideways when the PC jumped onto the hedge at 5:28 in the Blackheart video?

whoops

When im sitting that close, 20-40% of the monitor servies only as periferal vision. My primary vision's fov is unchanged. Im usually trying to focus on keeping my vision forward anyway so that the distortion you would normaly notice with that fov is unnoticed. So with this method, there is no eyestrain with a backlit LCD monitor, for me and i would guess the average human.

Yeah, im assuming it would take some major pains and ingenuity to make it add to the experience. How would this work btw? Would it be an animated 3d model beside the viewport? Also, What do you guys need animation wise? I've done animating in 3dsMax. How is the first person view animation done? I'd love to experiment with that sometime as well. I really liked the choice of having the view go sideways when jumping up on the hedge in the video. If i had time i would like to just add some take off and landing inertia motions to it, while keeping an appreciation for the inconsistent nature of the variables of jumping.

Wow, at least i stimulated some humor for you guys working on this project Mustache recognition, i love it, lol on those photos! Honestly, i'd like to see what the upper part of a nose with 1% opacity and blurred would look like at the bottom 5% of the screen. How about squinting when running through dense bushes and tripping checks for certain areas 1:2,000 or 1: 500 when there is a foot collision Don't get me wrong, i could imagine spending years on this alone and not being satisfied. I didn't mean for this to delay TDM 1.0. Ok, so for anyone inclined.... read below. Well, to be honest the more i think about this, the more i realise the problem of taking up valuable screen real estate, and yes, the only way this mod should exist, is in a form that adds to the game, not takes away from or acts as an annoying distraction. My personal perspective is a little different, as i play on a 30" monitor and set my FOV at 120 - 130 if I can and have my eyes roughly 6 - 8 inches from the screen. So as i had previously been thinking about it, the hood, when it showed, would be fully in my peripheral. Yet i still think the idea could add to imerssiveness of the game no matter the monitor. The problem of course is implementing it and how much time would it take. Since most users have a 19" 4:3 monitor (i'm guessing) less would be more. IN DETAIL So heres how i still think it could add to the game. Without body recognition, theres only two spots. The top of the hood, when landing from a jump, and the sides of the hood only when making a super quick side to side movement. So for the top of the hood, assuming the player accelerates downward as hes falling, as the player lands, the hood model would fold down onto the screen a few centimeters at a certain rate, then flexes back out of view resuming its normal position. For the sides, one side of the hood would flex into view only on a very jerky pan. 1. The animation would have to be high quality and recording at a high fps. 2. The motion of the hood should directly correspond and compliment the screen's motion. 3. Would probably need a high framerate to look good. A low framerate could make this look especially horrible. I don't think this could even be done nicely in a jerky engine like Thief :DS. 4. Having it show gradients of light, instead of being all black. 5. Screens are square, hoods are round, so the sides of the hood might come into view in the aforementioned scenarios. notes: After 31 years, i just ( coincidental? ) bought my first hooded sweatshirt the other day, not even thinking about TDM. It was just sitting there right next to me. So as i was typing this i look over at, laughed, and I tried it on to see what it was like and i noticed a few things. I wore it like low over my head, like i was trying to be inconspicuous, not tight against my head. 1. After jumping up and landing ( yeah, i know), i noticed the way the hood was made, the top didn't come down evenly, parts of it drooped down, then went back up. 2. The sides were pretty steady and completely the opposite side would show from what i thought originally. In a knee-jerk head snap to the right for example, only the left side of the hood would come into play as its momentum brought it into view. This particular sweatshirt is finely woven and slightly stiffer then i imagine average cotton sports sweatshirt.

Ok, i edited my post to answer some questions i had already pondered. I have to get up in a few hours, but i hope to respond tomorrow.

Heya, just had a small thought i wanted to share How about having the front of the...players...hood come over on the edges of the screen when quickly turning the view around? Not a lot, just enough to get the idea and only when turning hard, where the friction between the head and hood is overcome by the speed of movement. Perhaps proportional to the speed of movement and only above a certain speed. Perhaps the top of the hood when he lands from a high jump or when looking straight up. Perhaps have the bottom show when hes looking down. The code for this could be based upon a short algorithm locating the edges of the screen based upon individual screen width, ie, 0 - 2560 and setting those positions as the starting location for the hood model.