Farrell Anims

[oDDity]

We all lean differenty I suppose, I did in the mirror first and my arm naturally swings there, but leaning at a corner my hands push again tthe wall, though that would look very strange if viewed in a mirror in-game.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

We all lean differenty I suppose, I did in the mirror first and my arm naturally swings there, but leaning at a corner my hands push again tthe wall, though that would look very strange if viewed in a mirror in-game.

 

Aren't we supporting having a weapon drawn while leaning too? We'll need to keep the thief's arms free while leaning in any case then.

 

And these certainly are some great animations odd.

[oDDity]

THis is a problem with nearly all anims, they all have to support every type of weapon and item the thief can hold - and what about things like books he picks up?

 

Lean 3

[New Horizon]

THis is a problem with nearly all anims, they all have to support every type of weapon and item the thief can hold - and what about things like books he picks up?

 

Lean 3

 

That's the money shot.

[Darkness_Falls]

Yep, Lean 3 rocks. It's the best.

[Springheel]

If the player is carrying a junk object, it should cast it's own shadow and show up in the mirror. Don't know about books though.

[Domarius]

Given the variety of objects, it would be unrealistic to show him actually holding it though, I reckon.

[Springheel]

Yeah, we have to consider how much time/effort we want put into this. Mirrors are going to be fairly rare, and if the AI can't detect the player shadow, does it matter if it's not entirely accurate?

[New Horizon]

Given the variety of objects, it would be unrealistic to show him actually holding it though, I reckon.

 

Yeah, they only used the attachment links to attach weapons in T3. It's acceptable.

[Ishtvan]

I agree lean 3 is excellent.

 

Do we want a third person drawing the bow animation, or would that be too difficult to make it worthwhile? If so, we might want to think about separate anim channels so he can lean with the feet/body but the arms could be holding the drawn bow, or be exactly as they are if not drawing the bow.

[Darkness_Falls]

Yeah, we have to consider how much time/effort we want put into this. Mirrors are going to be fairly rare, and if the AI can't detect the player shadow, does it matter if it's not entirely accurate?

I've been wondering. You know how in real life, windows act kind've like mirrors? -- when it's dark outside, yet light inside, you see your reflection in them, as well as other things inside. Do we want to try to achieve the same sort of effect in TDM? If so, it would make a lot of windows act like mirrors when the thief is inside a building, and the the player model is then more important. If you got really close to the window, only then would you be able to see outside very well. I think this would be cool. But would this be too big of hit to engine performance? Either weay, I foresee this effect happening in games some day soon, if it's not already out there in some. I've personally never seen it.

[Darkness_Falls]

We'll probably need the following anims, too... as T2 has them:

* lean while crouched

* lean while crouch-walking

* lean while walking

* lean while running

And lean for any other movement speed you can think of, including probably going in reverse.

[Ishtvan]

I thought we already decided that you don't need to lean while moving?

[sparhawk]

Leaning should be possible while moving. It would be highly annoying if that is not possible. The third animations really looks the best, even though I think that the outward foot is way to much moved outside during the animation. When I tried this myself, I usually didn't move the foot so much outward, instead it just went on it's toes.

[Springheel]

Leaning should be possible while moving. It would be highly annoying if that is not possible.

 

Why do you need to walk or run while leaning to the side?

[Darkness_Falls]

So you can walk down a hallway with your head tilted to the side trying to look around the corner as you approach that corner. Is it hard to implement? Just wondering b/c when you play T2, they offer so much flexibility in movement to allow for however you want to move, which makes it seem more flexibile and realistic. Would we really want to take another step backwards from T2?

[Springheel]

But our lean isn't just your head tilted to the side. Look at the animation and then try to imagine a player running or walking in that pose.

[sparhawk]

I don't really care how it looks in the animations. If somebody insists on playing in third person, then he can do his own animations if he doesn't like it. I play in first person, and there you wont see wether it looks shitty or not.

[Springheel]

Either the animations are important for shadow and mirror purposes (in which case they shouldn't look like crap) or they aren't (so we shouldn't waste time on them at all).

 

I wasn't even aware that you could move while holding down the lean key in previous games. It seems like a very unnatural and unnecessary thing to me. And as Ishtvan pointed out, we HAD talked about not allowing it, though perhaps that was before leaning became a button.

 

Regardless of the animation, our lean is a good 25-30 degrees--there's no way you'd be able to naturally walk or run like that.

[sparhawk]

Not running, but at least walking. This is not neccessarily about realism, but about gameplay.

[Darkness_Falls]

But our lean isn't just your head tilted to the side. Look at the animation and then try to imagine a player running or walking in that pose.

That's like comparing apples and oranges because it would need to be a completely different anim, unfortunately.

 

In looking at the Lean3 anim again, I'm wondering if he's maybe leaning too far? Before his lean, draw an imaginary line from the left side of head to his feet and imagine that being a wall corner there. Then look at how far he pokes his head out. If it's the perfect distance when we actually try it in-game, that's great; I'm happy. But by the looks of it, I'm just saying he might be leaning a little too far.

 

I don't really care how it looks in the animations. If somebody insists on playing in third person, then he can do his own animations if he doesn't like it. I play in first person, and there you wont see wether it looks shitty or not.

True. I've seen plenty of games cut corners when it comes to looking in mirrors, so we don't really need a 3rd person POV crouch/walk/run leaning animation. Having the 3rd person POV standing lean anim is good enough. But from the 1st person perspective I hope we do implement these lean capabilities.

[Ishtvan]

The whole point was to make him lean farther in the animation, then we program the camera to move in an arc that more or less follows the animation (but is not bound to it in a T3 sense). If you look in thirdperson now, the Doom3 marine is doing what you prefer, the "peek to the side," but for whatever reasons, ingame it's not far enough to see around corners very well.

[sparhawk]

The Doom 3 marine can lean? I never noticed that, and severly doubt it.

[New Horizon]

The Doom 3 marine can lean? I never noticed that, and severly doubt it.

 

Take a look at the model in 3rd person. The model leans.

[Ishtvan]

Yes, SZ figured out how to make the model lean at the waist using the SDK, since we didn't have an animation at the time. The point is that it looks just like the "quick peek" animation that some are arguing for, but it really doesn't go far enough out (unless you think the currently ingame leaning is perfect).