Ingame Characters

[New Horizon]

Would it be possible to get the House guard and the City Watch guard ingame and on CVS by next week? Doesn't matter if all they do is stand around, I just need to have a guard character for some promotional material I'm working on. It would be absolutely sweet if they had a simple knockout animation but I'm not going to ask for that...simply getting them ingame where a mapper could position them looking at a wall or something would be fantastic. Thanks.

[oDDity]

Yes, I'll rig the guards and plop them in.

[New Horizon]

Yes, I'll rig the guards and plop them in.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Excellent. Thank you.

[oDDity]

WHat do you mean by a knockout animation. Do you mean the failed knockout one or one where they actually end up on the ground. The ragdolls haven't been implemented yet.

[New Horizon]

WHat do you mean by a knockout animation. Do you mean the failed knockout one or one where they actually end up on  the ground. The ragdolls haven't been implemented yet.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yeah, I was talking about where they actually fall to the ground. I wasn't sure exactly how that would be handled. I'm assuming they will have an animation, much like the old games...and T3 when it worked, to get them into position before the ragdoll kicks in? No real need for this right now though...just need to have the guard ingame for visuals.

[sparhawk]

For a demomovie the ragdoll is not really needed. It would be enough to have the death animation being played. Should suffice for a movie.

[Springheel]

We don't have any death animations yet. A fade to black at that point would probably work for the trailer.

[oDDity]

Also it would have to be coded into the AI as well, if you wanted it to coincide with whacking it with the BJ.

SO you just need an idle animaton for it to play while you sneak up on iot, or do you want it to be walking along.

Also, do you want it to have a sword, they aren't implemented, but I could put one as part of the mesh.

I could even dio an anim of him drawing the sword.

Will this be a movie or a still shot?

If it's a movie you're goign to need SFX tied into actions as well, and I think a lot of the SFX like sword drawing are just placeholder ATM.

[BlackThief]

If it's a movie you're goign to need SFX tied into actions as well, and  I think a lot of the SFX like sword drawing are just placeholder ATM.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

we don't have much sound effects that are needed for thief gameplay working ATM, so I'd suggest to have some background music in the movie.

[pakmannen]

Oh, I could probably add SFX on top of the movie when it's finished. (Fake it) Since I've got a lot of "work-in-progress" stuff which I haven't uploaded. When the movie is finished, just upload it and I could go through it and add soundeffects (and ambients for that matter)

[New Horizon]

Also it would have to be coded into the AI as well, if you wanted it to coincide with whacking it with the BJ.

SO you just need an idle animaton for it to play while you sneak up on iot, or do you want it to be walking along.

Also, do you want it to have a sword, they aren't implemented, but I could put one as part of the mesh.

I could even dio an anim of him drawing the sword.

Will this be a movie or a still shot?

If it's a movie you're goign to need SFX tied into actions as well, and  I think a lot of the SFX like sword drawing are just placeholder ATM.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yup, it will be a movie for sure. Been getting some footage with Dram's mansion but I'm going to wait until both he and BT have finished tweaking their maps. I think there will be a lot of great footage to get from both of them.

 

oDD, since we're not in any rush to put this together, would it be a lot of extra work to put a player arm ingame with a sword? I think that would be a nice surprise as well.

 

As for animations, a walking an idle animation would be cool. Lets just take our time and put together something really fun. When Spar comes back, we'll sync up with CVS and see what we have.

[oDDity]

How are you making the moive? Camtasia or some type of screen recoder? It always looks very jerky using programs like that.

I have the sword drawing animation in the game already.

[New Horizon]

How are you making the moive? Camtasia or some type of screen recoder? It always looks very jerky using programs like that.

I have the sword drawing animation in the game already.

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I used fraps to capture the movie last time, didn't have any issues with jerkiness. Oh, I didn't know the sword was ingame already. It's in CVS? I haven't seen any files pertaining to it in there.

[oDDity]

It's not in as a proper weapon, it's just part of the mesh so I could do the sword drawing anim. Here it is in the game - 600kb

Though it looks a bit fast and jerky here due to screen capture and compression.

 

http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/Files/sword.avi

[New Horizon]

It's not in as a proper weapon, it's just part of the mesh so I could do the sword drawing anim. Here it is in the game - 600kb

Though it looks a bit fast and jerky here due to screen capture and compression.

 

http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/Files/sword.avi

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Wow, that's excellent. I should have been more clear though when I asked though. I was referring to the sword animation and mesh for the player arms. It would be cool to have that in there if it isn't too much work.

[kfmccall]

COOL, well that animation is very realistic looking to me, though a tad jerky as you mentioned above. Awesome job Oddity.

[Domarius]

Hey about knocking someone out - all the Doom 3 AI seem to do when they die is go straight to rag doll.

 

And my blackjack just KILLS them really hard at the moment. Has anyone actually tried whacking the guards yet?

[oDDity]

I haven't looked in to getting an AF setting on the guard yet. I used the doom naming convention for this guard's skeltion though, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Has death been coded in yet for our AI?

I can put the player sword anims in, they're very easy to do, much easier than the guard anims, but they will need coding as well, it's not just a matter of doing the animations.

I could take this opportunity to put the new arms in as well, but that might mean redoing the existing bow and BJ anims. I hope not.

[New Horizon]

I could take this opportunity to put the new arms in as well, but that might mean redoing the existing bow and BJ anims. I hope not.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hopefully you won't have to do those animations over again but it would be great to get the new arms in there. For sure.

[oDDity]

Sword animaitons - how many, and which ones.

A block

A slash from top left to bottom right

A slash from right to left

A jab

An overhead slash like in Thief

Any more?

[New Horizon]

Sword animaitons - how many, and which ones.

A block

A slash from top  left to bottom right

A slash from right to left

A jab

An overhead slash like in Thief

Any more?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Only thing I can think to add would be to mirror the second and third slashes but you likely already thought of that. Depnding on which side of the enemy you are more focussed on, that is the side you will attack, just like the originals. I'll have to ask Dom about coding it for us when he's gotten along with the rope arrow.

 

A slash from top right to bottom left

A slash from left to right

[Ishtvan]

By jab you mean a thrust attack right, if their weapon has a point?

 

We might need more than one block animation if we want to make it believable. We haven't talked much about combat, but I was thinking they'd have some idea of how the player is attacking and put up an appropriate block to look believable, so...

 

block high (against a head cut or an overhead slash)

block left side

block right side

(optional) turn the sword point down and block left, block right to defend slashes at their legs or hips

 

Maybe these could be re-used for the player arm blocking animations too.

 

http://www.totheescrime.org/ifc/BEAUMONT/Sabre/

 

Here are some pictures from Sabre fencing. I'm not saying these techniques are the most appropriate for our weapons, but I couldn't find any pictures of broadsword fencing parries. (3 & 4 are parry right/left, 1 & 2 are parrying low right and left, 5 is parrying high. The others are pretty much useless IMO)

 

 

Are we keeping the upper body anims separate from the feet for now? Because we might want to mix and match combat footwork animation with various arm attacks, like sidestepping while slashing, lunging/hopping forward while thrusting, etc.

 

Btw, I take believable combat far too seriously, so feel free to ignore most of what I may say.

[New Horizon]

By jab you mean a thrust attack right, if their weapon has a point?

 

We might need more than one block animation if we want to make it believable.  We haven't talked much about combat, but I was thinking they'd have some idea of how the player is attacking and put up an appropriate block to look believable, so...

 

block high (against a head cut or an overhead slash)

block left side

block right side

(optional) turn the sword point down and block left, block right to defend slashes at their legs or hips

 

Maybe these could be re-used for the player arm blocking animations too.

 

http://www.totheescrime.org/ifc/BEAUMONT/Sabre/

 

Here are some pictures from Sabre fencing.  I'm not saying these techniques are the most appropriate for our weapons, but I couldn't find any pictures of broadsword fencing parries.   (3 & 4 are parry right/left, 1 & 2 are parrying low right and left, 5 is parrying high.  The others are pretty much useless IMO)

Are we keeping the upper body anims separate from the feet for now?  Because we might want to mix and match combat footwork animation with various arm attacks, like sidestepping while slashing, lunging/hopping forward while thrusting, etc.

 

Btw, I take believable combat far too seriously, so feel free to ignore most of what I may say.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

At the moment we're only discussing the player arm animations, this is in preparation for the promotional trailer that is in the early stages. It will definately be useful for the AI when the time comes.

[oDDity]

THis isn't a fighting game though, you're not supposed to be fighting - in fact, it's the exact oppositie of what you're supposed to be doing. I cant see the point in making the fencing combat too intricate and fun, thereby rewarding players for messing up and getting caught, or god forbid, actually encouraging them to fight guards because the fencing gameplay is so kewl.

Yes, we could make a mini sword fighting game out of it, using the numberpad keys like in Pirates! with different blocks and aatcks each with its own counter move, which is quite fun on the hardest setting, but I just don't think adding fun swordplay is what we should be doing in a stealth game - in the stealth game.

I think we should keep it basic, and unenjoyable.

[New Horizon]

Edit...

 

I think we should keep it basic, and enjoyable.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ahhhh, much better.

 

In all seriousness, I do agree with you up to a point. I certainly don't want to see it get any more intricate than it was in T1 and 2 but I would like to take what was done in those games and refine it. It should be a defensive tactic, rather than offensive.