Missing/todo Player Anim: Run Sideways

[Springheel]

(Honestly, what was the logic behind that decision on id's part? It just seems weird.)

 

Maybe they figured the D3 marine would have a weapon out 95% of the time, and since that weapon animation would override the torso channel, there was no point? I don't know, it sounds kind of strange to me too.

[Ishtvan]

Yeah, I don't know how well it would blend together two animations like walking with the arms and yawning. Would the arm that's not yawning continue swinging along during the walk? I thought that a given channel could only be playing one animation at once, but I'm not sure. You could always test that out by telling it to play two on the same channel at the same time in the script.

[Springheel]

I don't know how well it would blend together two animations like walking with the arms and yawning. Would the arm that's not yawning continue swinging along during the walk? I thought that a given channel could only be playing one animation at once, but I'm not sure.

 

No, you misunderstood me, I think. I don't think you can play two animations on the same channel, nor would we really want to. But idle animations should over-ride the torso channel when they play. So a cough animation, where the character raises his hand to his mouth, can play regardless of whether the AI is playing an idle, idle sitting, idle drunk, walking, etc animation.

 

So, walking animation playing on all channels, then cough overrides torso channel, then torso resumes playing walk animation. That's how it should work. I'm not sure why the same thing can't happen for the player.

[Crispy]

So, walking animation playing on all channels, then cough overrides torso channel, then torso resumes playing walk animation. That's how it should work.

Yeah.

 

The only "blending" that needs to happen is transitioning from one animation to other, so the transition looks natural rather than like "my limbs just teleported into position!"

[Ishtvan]

Yeah, that makes sense. Getting back to the original question though about having the player walk swing the player arms, yes it is technically possible, but wouldn't it look weird to do it with weapons attached to the arms? Especially if certain weapons clipped into the body when the arms swung normally. You'd have to make an arm-swinging permutation for each of the weapons and movement speeds. IMO that's not worth it just to make the shadow of the player's arms look better because they sway along with the walk.

[Crispy]

Yeah, that makes sense. Getting back to the original question though about having the player walk swing the player arms, yes it is technically possible, but wouldn't it look weird to do it with weapons attached to the arms?

Ah... I didn't think about that. I guess you're right, and that probably is why they did it.

[Springheel]

Yeah, that makes sense. Getting back to the original question though about having the player walk swing the player arms, yes it is technically possible, but wouldn't it look weird to do it with weapons attached to the arms?

 

That's pretty much how it's done for other AI who carry weapons--there won't be a specific animation for each weapon. There's just a 'running while carrying weapon' animation. I'm not advocating any extra work to officially support the player shadow, but I don't see why the animations would work any differently on the player than they would for regular AI.

[Ishtvan]

The other AI don't have 6 permutations of movement animations (standing/crouching + creep/walk/run), more if you count leaning. I think it would look pretty weird if the hands moved the same for all of those.

[Crispy]

But hang on, don't we need player animations for each combination of movement states anyway? So the hands would move differently in each case just by virtue of them being different animations.

 

I thought you were just referring to it looking weird to have the weapon bobbing up and down on- and off-screen all the time if the player was running, for example.

[Ishtvan]

But hang on, don't we need player animations for each combination of movement states anyway? So the hands would move differently in each case just by virtue of them being different animations.

 

I thought you were just referring to it looking weird to have the weapon bobbing up and down on- and off-screen all the time if the player was running, for example.

The first person anims are completely decoupled from the third person anims. What I mean is, the player can use a few different weapons: sword, blackjack, bow. These different weapons might clip into them or look weird in the shadow if you just use the same third person hand animations for all movement types regardless of what weapon the player has out. There were even more possibilities in D3, and there you had people aiming the weapon while jogging, so it wouldn't look good to have it swinging with the hands.

[Springheel]

What I mean is, the player can use a few different weapons: sword, blackjack, bow. These different weapons might clip into them or look weird in the shadow

 

I don't think it would look that weird...sure, it might not look like there is enough weight in the player's hand for some weapons, but that's an issue with all our AI animations. The only thing that might clip is the bow, and who would notice in a shadow anyway?

[Domarius]

My ideal solution is to take a leaf from Duke Nukem 3D's book and don't even show the different weapons the player is holding in 3rd person view. Duke was permanently holding the RPG. Our thief can be permanently empty handed. Or he's permanently holding the Blackjack instead of empty handed.

 

Then there are no permutations and no seperate channels for legs or torso, just run, walk, crouch, etc.

 

Then the only thing that needs to be done on the code side is to bypass the part that locks the torso channel to whatever it's currently trying to do, so that it just works like every other AI in the game.

[Springheel]

How does seeing your shadow with a blackjack when you're holding a bow look better than seeing you hold a bow but it occasionally clips into your legs? In a shadow you can't see clipping anyway.

[Domarius]

If it comes down to that, I don't think either looks that much better. For me, seeing an object shadow snap in and out of existance as you changed weapons would be more immersion breaking for me than just sticking to one weapon.

 

But it's not a huge deal, so whichever is easiest to implement.

[Domarius]

Yeah on thinking about it, I see that it's just easiest to leave it the way it is but remove the part that locks the torso channel. So the weapon will change in the thief's hand.