AI crouch cringe animation needed for flee points

[Fidcal]

I need an AI to indicate some kind of cowering, cringing, crouching posture to be used at a flee point, probably in tandem with a turn to face a wall perhaps although that I guess would be done separately with a turn. This would be of general use. For instance, an AI could run into another room and crouch behind some furniture. In fact a crouch is probably a good general purpose useful animation for an AI. Any additional variation, hands over back of head, head down etc. might be a variation of a general crouch.

 

Wait a minute, we must already have a crouch right? Because AI crouch to inspect their fallen comrades, I've seen that. So how would I set that up? I did do a search for 'crouch' but found nothing but maybe I'm looking in the wrong folders.

[Noisycricket]

Not sure what the name of it is, but the one your looking for should be there somewhere. Should be in the proguard folder. Probably "kneel_down".

[Springheel]

The kneel down one won't work for scared AI, other than as a placeholder. I suspect this feature would need code support as well.

[Springheel]

Yes, I'd like to make an official request for a "cower" animation.

 

This would be played whenever AI are scared but don't have anywhere to run to. We used to have one for the old skeleton:

[Noisycricket]

On the list...

 

What kind of reaction do we want here? Didn't they used to have the characters kneel down and cover their heads with both hands, shaking a little bit?

[Springheel]

In the old one the character didn't crouch, just hunched over a bit, covered his face and shivered.

[Fidcal]

Nice to have both. In some situations the AI could crouch behind furniture. How long would this animation continue? Does it replace idle animations? Do the regular coughs, whistling, mutters, get disabled?

[Springheel]

Yes, it would need to disable idle animations while playing. From an animation perspective I think it will need to be fairly long to not look repetitive. From a gameplay perspective I'm not sure how long it should last--possibly indefinitely. If you were hurt to the point of running away, would you go back to your regular routine any time soon? Not to mention that combatants will have dropped their weapons when running away.

[Fidcal]

Perhaps it can be extended as a composite of three animations: a semi-crouch with head-turning, shivering for 15 to 30 seconds, a cringe similar, plus normal standing. If there is some way to randomly keep switching between those three for 4 or 5 minutes I would think that might be long enough. It should not look repetitious yet does not need a too-long single animation.

[Springheel]

I remember playing a FPS where the civilian AI crouched like that. I think they stayed in a standing crouch until you came close to them or fire your weapon, then they dropped down to a cringing crouch.