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Sotha's Animations


Sotha

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*Scratches head*

 

So you mean it would be cleaved into three animations "blind_start", "blind_cycle" and "blind_end" like this?

 

Animation name: contents

 

blind_start: idle_pose -> grab face -> crouch_down -> rub_face_pose_A

 

blind_cycle: rub_face_pose_A -> rub_face_pose_B -> rub_face_pose_A

 

blind_end: rub_face_pose_A -> raise up -> idle_pose

 

Correct?

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Weapon holding looks good now.

 

I would suggest having the AI do something different with his hand. Cupping it over his eyes is good for the iniital reaction, but then I would think he would rub his eye(s) with the back of his hand, either clenched or not, rather than holding his hand cupped in front of his eyes.

 

Something like this:

 

http://www.visualpho...yes_141950H.jpg

http://www.mnn.com/s...t_main_0118.jpg

 

Then he should look up and glance around as if checking to see if his vision is back before going back to his regular pose.

 

The amount of bending over might be a bit extreme too...I was trying to imagine my reaction to getting blinded, and I tend to want to bend back and turn my head away, and then bend my neck down. But I don't imagine an urge to bend my torso towards the ground.

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I don't know...I can't devote a whole lot of thought right now to anything that's not 2.0 related.

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No. The flashbomb behaviour/animation has been the same since 1.0. We're only supposed to be dealing with bugs due to 2.0 changes at this point.

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I would suggest having the AI do something different with his hand. Cupping it over his eyes is good for the iniital reaction, but then I would think he would rub his eye(s) with the back of his hand, either clenched or not, rather than holding his hand cupped in front of his eyes.

 

Something like this:

 

http://www.visualpho...yes_141950H.jpg

http://www.mnn.com/s...t_main_0118.jpg

 

I have been talking about "rubbing eyes" animation, but I think it is very difficult to achieve such level of precision. As you can see, the different AI types (wench, citywatch, builder) seem to have the hand at slightly different distance and position from their face. This makes it very hard to hit the exact eye with the hand unversally for all AI. I feel that the general "cover eyes" level of precision is pretty much maximum I can achieve so that it works for all AI. Even the old blinded-animation had only face covered.

 

I can do a quick try when I have time, but I'm not very optimistic about the eye rubbing at present.

 

Then he should look up and glance around as if checking to see if his vision is back before going back to his regular pose.

 

This could be doable.

 

The amount of bending over might be a bit extreme too...I was trying to imagine my reaction to getting blinded, and I tend to want to bend back and turn my head away, and then bend my neck down. But I don't imagine an urge to bend my torso towards the ground.

 

It is actually an intentional exaggeration to make it more interesting. Many of the anims we have are really plain and generic, and for a good reason. (It is good. No criticism here.) To break this tendency, and because being blinded is a dramatic experience, I wanted exaggerate a bit.

 

I wanted to make it more 'grimy.' The flash really hurts their eyes and they feel aggravating pain in their eyes, in addition to being blinded. The effect would be thus not only blindness, but also temporarily incapacitating pain.

 

Also about crouching. Imagine losing your sight when you are in a not-so-well balanced pose (like during exactly at the moment you are shifting your balance position when you are walking). When deprived of vision, you will very quickly start losing balance. You can test by closing your eyes and trying to stand on a single leg.

To help keep the balance, the legs are spread and body is crouched in order to gain as much stability as you can while somehow managing and coping the burning pain in the eyes.

 

So think about it. If you still feel it is bad in the animation, I suppose I could mitigate it a little, but why mitigate it when you -for once- have the situation where you really could do a dramatic animation instead of plain and generic one. Having a more profound effect would even make flashbomb useage more entertaining.

 

In a verbal analogue it is between "*plainly* ow. my eyes." and "GAAH! *panic* MY EYES! IT HURTS.. OMG I CAN'T SEE. THE PAIN... *sob* I'll rip your heart out, you bastard!"

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Yeah, I was right about the eye rubbing. See here:

6O2RexP.jpg

 

When the builder rubs his eyes, the wench holds her nose. Not good.

 

Unless you know some good tricks, we have to satisfy ourselves with the "cover face" solution.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I wanted to make it more 'grimy.' The flash really hurts their eyes and they feel aggravating pain in their eyes,

 

I can understand your reasoning, but the vocals for being flashed don't really support that idea. None of them really include any sense that the AI is in pain, just surprised and disoriented.

 

When the builder rubs his eyes, the wench holds her nose. Not good.

 

Hmm, I suppose that would also be a problem with certain helmets. There are a lot of things to consider.

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I have a few reservations about this proposal, but not enough time to think them all through at the moment, so I'd like to suggest we just table it until 2.0 is out. I'd feel badly for Sotha to put tons of work into something and then we wind up thinking of an entirely different option.

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  • 1 month later...

I wanted to do something completely different tonight:

 

Revive the fallen!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fegt5v6lpSo&feature=youtu.be

 

How it works:

1) I made a custom wounded-get-up animation

2) The inventor has a KO_script. When he goes out, the girl walks to him.

3) When the girl reaches him, a conversation plays a kneel animation on her (if I play anims via script, the anims can be interrupted by idle_animations an I don't know how to avoid it)

4) The old inventor is removed and new one is spawned.

5) The new inventor immediately plays the get-up animation, again through the conversation system. (Avoids the idle-anim interruption again)

6) The new guy gets the targets of the old one after he gets up.

 

 

This should in principle enable scripted revivification from KOs. Maybe it could be transformed into a general feature, but the following issues need to be solved:

1) How to play anims via script without idle anims breaking them?

2) What if the KO'd AI is moved under a table or something? The other, conscious, AI could be exploited for this. She walks in a safe AAS area, so the new AI should be spawned in a spot she stood safely. That way the revived AI should always hit a valid AAS area.

3) How to spawn AI of variable classnames? There is no script command to get class name for an existing entity. That way the script could ask, what was the KO'd AI's class, and a new AI of same class would be spawned.

  • Like 4

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Pretty cool start.

 

Maybe it could be transformed into a general feature

 

This might be cool for special situations, but there are a lot of reasons why I'd be against making it a regular feature, aesthetic issues aside. The two biggest are:

 

1. What do armed AI do when they respawn? If their weapon was drawn when KO'd, it could be anywhere. What happens if the player dumped them in a locked room or down a shaft where they can't return to their pathnodes? Do they just stand there?

2. Respawning AI encourages players to kill AI instead of KO them, so they'll stay down.

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1) If an armed guard is respawned, the new guy comes with a new weapon. The revivifaction is achiveved by the other AI. If the other AI cannot reach the downed AI, no revivification happens, I suppose it is easy to check if the AI can ever reach the downed comrade.

 

Also, if the new AI is spawned in a position the reviving AI stood at some point, the respawned AI should hit valid AAS area safely.

 

It might be simple to def_attach a dagger for the respawned AI and play an anim, where he pulls the dagger from a boot or something.

 

2) Perhaps... But presently KOd AI are indistinguishable from dead AI. Both serve the same identical purpose of AI removal. Having a slight chance of revivification makes KOing a lesser effective AI removal method, which it actually should be, right? Plus, the AI need to find the downed one to revive, so if the KOing player is careful, nothing is changed.

 

I'm also wondering, if scripting like this could be used in general 'garbage collection'. See, presently, it is a bit silly how the dead and the KO'd are left to the point they fell, to be stomped by other AI. One idea was to maybe make the AI carry downed AI to a certain location, where the would be stored if dead or revived if KO'd.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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1. What do armed AI do when they respawn? If their weapon was drawn when KO'd, it could be anywhere. What happens if the player dumped them in a locked room or down a shaft where they can't return to their pathnodes? Do they just stand there?

Weapon stands!?

2. Respawning AI encourages players to kill AI instead of KO them, so they'll stay down.

This is true, but there is not much of a difference currently either. The only reason to prefer a knockout over a kill is that may be an objective telling me not to kill.

 

However, mappers who use this feature could make the ai (or the game) respond different to dead bodies then to knocked out ones. For example additional ai could be spawned in the level if dead bodies are found. In addition, if I kill an ai, they'll bleed, causing them to leave traces of blood. So even if I hide the body, ai may become alerted due to the blood.

 

Another possibility would be to make killing more loudly, so it becomes more dangerous for the player if he can't be sure whether or not other ai are around.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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1) If an armed guard is respawned, the new guy comes with a new weapon.

 

So even though the player took the guard's sword and hid it, he teleports in a new one when he wakes up? That's not going to feel very satisfying.

 

 

Weapon stands!?

 

How many missions have convenient weapons stands waiting for AI who are revived?

 

 

The revivifaction is achiveved by the other AI. If the other AI cannot reach the downed AI, no revivification happens, I suppose it is easy to check if the AI can ever reach the downed comrade.

 

The problem isn't just whether an AI can get to the body, it's whether the revived AI can get back to his patrol route. Suppose you're in a house, you KO a guard and then dump him out a window where he's found by someone and revived. What happens if he can't get back in the house because you can only get in through a window? Does he just stand there in the street? That's not very immersive, nor is it fun if he happens to be facing the only exit from the house.

 

That's my overall problem with this as a general addition to the mod. It doesn't really add any new gameplay, it's just a bit more realistic and has a 'cool' factor the first time you see it. But if it leads to teleporting weapons and guards just standing there, that cancels out both the realism and 'coolness', leaving a lot of work for no net gain.

 

Both serve the same identical purpose of AI removal. Having a slight chance of revivification makes KOing a lesser effective AI removal method, which it actually should be, right? Plus, the AI need to find the downed one to revive, so if the KOing player is careful, nothing is changed.

 

It's generally much easier to shoot an arrow into a guard's head from the shadows than to KO them, so we've worked hard to find ways to encourage blackjacking over killing (bloodstains, death yells, etc). However, it doesn't make sense to work harder to KO someone if the result is less safe than just killing them. It shifts the balance towards a more permanent solution of killing the guard (and you can do it _after_ KOing them, so there's no death scream). That's just going to lead to more "no kill" restrictions, which encourages more quickloading when you're caught.

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How many missions have convenient weapons stands waiting for AI who are revived?

My interpretation was that this may be a feature used in some missions, not a default feature of TDM.

 

As all mission thus far were created without that feature, it would be a far to drastical change to include into the core mod. But in a single mission that is designed with that feature in mind, it may be appealing. Who knows.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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If this is not headed for the core mod, and instead is seen to be mission-specific, it could become a problem for people who play a mission that implements it, then go on to play other missions that don't. ("Hey! Why didn't that maid revive the Lord, like she did in the last mission?")

 

This suggests that reviving AI becomes a talent of a particular character. (Briefing: "Brother Augustus is especially talented in reviving poor unfortunates he comes across.") That sets an expectation that revival occurs in that mission, but should not to be expected in others.

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Or the mission author just states that in the readme. That's the purpose for it I guess. I mean Fieldmedics last mission used the difficulty settings also in a different way, and noone was complaining because this could let somebody to the idea that this is the default behaviour.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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My interpretation was that this may be a feature used in some missions, not a default feature of TDM

 

I was expressing my reasons why I don't think it should be a core feature. If someone wants to use it in their mission, great (though I agree it should be indicated somehow).

.

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Thanks for the interesting discussion I appreciate it. I have to admit, I expected a bit more enthusiastic responses.

 

Anyhow, here is how I personally see it:

1) revival could be a nice core mod feature, but now I see that it is true that it would be a lot of work do beutifully and would yield a feature not often seen: i) player hides the bodies -> no revival. ii) player isn't probably present, when an AI finds a fallen friend -> no visible revival.

2) At least the scripting method I present allows mapper to do it (in a hacky way) if they want. (It isn't very laborous, as it took me only one evening to implement (simple anim + simple script))

3) I don't think the mapper needs to tell mission special features in advance. I did a lot of crazy things in LQD, and nobody complained. In fact, it would have been a spoiler to tell about them in advance.

4) There is more to this system than only revival. I see it sort of an ultra-RIT. If mappers can do a revival feature with scripting, there are a lot of other stuff that could be done with the same principle (custom anim + simple script): climbing AI, stunts, poisons, that sort of stuff. I'll maybe experiment some more later.

5) The anim you see was actually intended for some other purpose, but I thought I could use it to show off a revival system as a side product.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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