Briareos H on 21/9/2009 at 12:33
No one in his right mind would want something more flexible than what's already done in Dark Messiah. Mirror's Edge for example will be years ahead what can be done in Thief 4.
Ostriig on 21/9/2009 at 12:37
Quote Posted by Vivian
Because it only works in very prescribed situations, and if you want it to be truly flexible (as some people were talking about, I think), you need to do a lot more of the more complex, lower level pissing about that gets ignored in most animation. You're probably right though, with enough tweaking it will work well enough to look pretty in a videogame. But it won't be what I would call 'realistic'.
Yes, that's pretty much it. All I'm suggesting the IK for is to raise the feet and knees appropriately given small height variations of the terrain, with each leg consisting of likely 4 joints: hip, knee, ankle and one more to bend the foot. And
maybe to bring one heel behind another, if the foot were otherwise suspended at high altitude, and to place a hand on the side of a ladder (the only situation I'd propose animated arms for). Like you said, very prescribed situations.
Thor on 21/9/2009 at 13:22
Oh, I'm very aware of my lame body when I'm in awkward situations (aka any human presence).
SubJeff on 21/9/2009 at 19:14
The main thing is that its not done like Thief 3.
That list Ostriig linked to is utter bollocks since it misses out Thief 3 which is far more body "aware" than any of those games since you can knock things over by being clumsy and spoil your stealth.
Why does it say those games have "full" body awareness? Is there partial awareness? And if there is you can bet some of those games are in the partial category whereas TDS is definitely full.
You know, I just don't see the point of IK for an FPS. Its a massive waste of time. If you're going to do a game FP and have some body awareness feet would be fine. If you're doing a 3rd and 1st person game don't link the two - allow for the FP view to not inherit the body or animations of 3rd.
Ostriig on 21/9/2009 at 19:19
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
That list Ostriig linked to is utter bollocks since it misses out Thief 3 which is far more body "aware" than any of those games since you can knock things over by being clumsy and spoil your stealth.
Dude. TDS is on the third page.
SubJeff on 21/9/2009 at 19:41
There's more than one page? What the hell?
....
Ok. Had a look. Christ what is wrong with sites? I'm fed up of 1/2 page of content being spread over 3 pages just to get the ad loads in.
Chade on 21/9/2009 at 21:36
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
You know, I just don't see the point of IK for an FPS. Its a massive waste of time.
You know, I was just thinking about this thread in the context of our earlier argument about rope arrows / climbing gloves, and the player's climbing abilities more generally. And one thing that sprung up there was the realisation that most people were pretty happy with the idea of climbing being some skilled activity that the player could do by hanging onto decorations, etc ...
Anyway, depending on how you do climbing, it seems to me that some form of ik powered hand movement would be a powerfull technique of giving the player feedback while climbing.
If you show the players hands reaching out and attempting to hold on to the appropriate decoration, you can tell him what the game thinks you are trying to hold on to, and you can give specific feedback by playing the appropriate animations if the player can't hold on to that object (e.g., the decoration is too small, or the surface is too slippery, etc).
The same principle could even be used for mantling, although mantling is a pretty basic form of climbing, and you don't really need much feedback to show the player why he can't mantle somewhere. But if you wanted to, you could show the players hands slipping off the edge when he tries to jump if the surface is too steep to stand on. Or you could show the players arms colliding with the wall if there is not enough room to stand up on the ledge.
SubJeff on 21/9/2009 at 22:08
Nice idea with a major flaw.
You'd have to have a "test handhold" function. Do you really want that?
Chade on 21/9/2009 at 22:24
Not sure if I'm understanding you ... how can you have mantling (or any form of climbing) without functions to test whether the surface can be mantled/climbed?
SubJeff on 21/9/2009 at 22:28
What I mean is I'm halfway up a wall and I want to mantle onto a window ledge.
Using your method I have to press the "reach out and test if you can mantle onto that ledge" button. Which brings up all sorts of issues.
