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Noisycricket

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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.

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Sitting so close to a wide monitor makes it so that the distance from your eyes to the monitor varies drastically from the center of the monitor to the far sides. You say you are 6-8 inches from the monitor, but then that would make your eyes actually around 12-15 inches from either side. That's bad for eye-strain, having such a huge difference in focal length.

 

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.

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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 you mean mantling, that's all in code. There's no actual animation file for it; there wouldn't be much point in having one, since we're not supporting third-person view and we're not doing body awareness.

 

We can always use skilled animators. I believe the workflow involves Maya and Motion Builder rather than 3ds max, but this shouldn't be a problem for a good animator who's willing to learn. If you're interested, you can apply by following these instructions.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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....

 

Edit: Unless of course you already knew that and you're just playing with his name because it sounds like the song, like you say. :)

...by jove he's got it!

 

You forgot the 'yeah' between 'huh' and 'what is it good for?' :P

My mistake! I probably wasn't alive when it was popular :)

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If you mean mantling, that's all in code. There's no actual animation file for it; there wouldn't be much point in having one, since we're not supporting third-person view and we're not doing body awareness.

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?

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By mantle, do you mean when the screen when sideways when the PC jumped onto the hedge at 5:28 in the Blackheart video?

Yeah, that's called a mantle. (Thief called it that too.) It's a climb/clamber more than a jump. The sideways movement is meant to simulate the player swinging their legs up and around onto the top of the hedge.

 

You typically invoke a mantle by holding down the jump key while facing an appropriately-sized obstacle. I believe you can also assign a separate, dedicated key just for mantling. TDM's implementation is extremely versatile. It's pretty cool. Sometimes I get distracted in our warehouse test map, running around and climbing all over the crates just for fun. :D

 

(My excuse is that I'm testing the AI, seeing how well they can keep up. It's real work, honest.)

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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Is there any free animation software that can be used or would i need full versions of Maya and/or Motion Builder.

 

There is http://www.blender.org - but I haven't used it :)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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I used to be pretty much wholly against body awareness as a big feature - it looked neat in Thief 3, but I hated the movement constraints it created.

 

Crysis, however, convinced me that it can be done right. In Crysis your movement is pretty much completely free, and yet you do have legs that climb terrain appropriately. If you climb a ladder, your hands actually go to the right places. And picking items up, you actually reach out and grab the item.

 

It doesn't affect controls, but it really does make the game more immersive. Anyone interested in seeing body awareness done right should definitely check out at least the demo.

 

Having said all that, it must have taken a huge amount of polish time to get it both working and looking correctly, and the Dark Mod definitely has higher priorities than something like this.

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I used to be pretty much wholly against body awareness as a big feature - it looked neat in Thief 3, but I hated the movement constraints it created.

 

Crysis, however, convinced me that it can be done right. In Crysis your movement is pretty much completely free, and yet you do have legs that climb terrain appropriately. If you climb a ladder, your hands actually go to the right places. And picking items up, you actually reach out and grab the item.

 

It doesn't affect controls, but it really does make the game more immersive. Anyone interested in seeing body awareness done right should definitely check out at least the demo.

 

Having said all that, it must have taken a huge amount of polish time to get it both working and looking correctly, and the Dark Mod definitely has higher priorities than something like this.

 

I have to agree there. Crysis does have very good body awareness. The main reason why T3 failed in it's body awareness is because it tied the player camera to the animations, which meant jerky camera etc.

 

I am against implementing body awareness into TDM for v1.0 - not because I would not like it etc, but because I know it would take way too long to do properly etc, so I think it should be left for after v1.0. Afterwards anyone can add anything if they wish. You can easily go and make a nuclear warhead arrow if you so wish, so I'm pretty sure someone will make a body awareness addon.

 

Anyway, the body awareness would have to be as inobtrusive as in Crysis for it to be immersive etc, which is strongly dependant on animations. I guess we'll see what happens once we release TDM

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