jtr7 on 17/9/2009 at 23:00
Body awareness screwed the 1st-person with those animations and not being able to line my feet up with my head without over-compensating, dragging the model around and being tugged by it. "Immersive"? My bloated ass! Get it out of my way! I've got things to do, places to go without this frikkin' dead weight robot!
Taff it all to HELLLLL, I say!
Elegance first.
SubJeff on 17/9/2009 at 23:08
Quote Posted by Chade
Oh, but wait, thief is
different!
By this sarcastic remark I take you think otherwise.
But you are wrong.
Thief IS different because being in control of your body, which (as jtr7 correctly pointed out) means having good intuitive movement, is very, very, very important because its a stealth game.
It doesn't matter in Half Life or Halo or whatever but when you are going to give me body awareness that makes me clumsy, knocking over stuff and alerting guards when even
I wouldn't do that in RL never mind Master Thief Garrett whom I'm playing, then it can get
right.
out.
The ONLY way it could be even slightly feasible is if it were just a pair of feet that let you know where you are standing on a ledge so you don't fall off. And that would be very, very hard to pull off without looking stupid or being slow.
theBlackman on 17/9/2009 at 23:17
I think the "body awareness" aspect is lack of thought and, frankly, amatuerish game play.
I know within an inch where Garrett's feet, head and outer extremities are because I took the time to learn them.
Like driving a car or truck. I know to an inch or two where the front starts, the rear ends, (no pun intended), and the side and top clearance the vehicle needs.
I know the same with Garrett. I can move to within a fraction of an inch of falling from a ledge almost without thinking about it.
You don't need to see your hands, hell you don't look at the real ones unless you are doing delicate work. You reach for your drink and you pick it up. You don't even think about it. Your hand and eye know where it is, what it weighs, and most times you never look at the glass while you are picking it up. You might look to see "where" it is on the table (or bar), but once located you just reach and pick it up while your eyeballs are looking at the hot broad across the room.
If Garrett is climbing a ladder what the hell do I need to see his hands and feet for.
jtr7 on 17/9/2009 at 23:39
Yes!
I wanna move as I move, not drive a Garrett-mobile!
I wanna have improved environmental navigation and mantling, responding to my chaotic analogue movement more tightly (as before in the wee Dark Engine), not strapped into a body that moves in obvious digital, predetermined, increments that do not do what I want (an example in the trilogy to improve upon would be when Garrett's stuck to a ladder, requiring a jump, rather than simply letting go). You can thank body-awareness for the lockpicking in the middle of the doors, and the automated positioning, requiring a separate control to detach from when the attempt needs to be aborted. And being locked onto a ladder, with automated positioning so the animation looks correct. Oh but wait...ya'll LIKED that, didn't ya?! FRAK THAT UNNECESSARY CRAP! I wonder what swimming would look like--immersive? COURSE NOT!
Freedom of movement in 3 dimensions is far more important than seeing your avatar, dimwits! It's a fundamental! Think of what EM could do without all that time making Garrett's body work for you action gamers! Perhaps, I don't know, better AI animations!?! Especially since it looks like EM's gonna animate them by hand (Farrrrrgg!).
And for you Binary Loadlifter lovers, I think you should have to put up with a Garrett model that actually has all his gear and cloak and huge loot bag built on, looking like a twig carrying 200 stone of taff'n'stuff. Heathens!
driver on 18/9/2009 at 00:16
Quote Posted by Namdrol
Body awareness means no rope arrows.
You'd best let Dark Messiah know about that, then.
As for the 'it's not necessary to see your body' argument, then why do you need to see Garrett's hands and arms? You could just have the weapons floating in the air and your vision would be less obstructed, if that's what's worrying you.
:edit:
As for 'moving as I move', the movement in T1 & 2 is far more unnatural than in T3 (However badly the body awareness was done).
Chade on 18/9/2009 at 00:17
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
good intuitive movement, is very, very, very important because its a stealth game.
Rubbish. Being able to accurately place your body is important in a great many action games, including but certainly not limited to thief. What's more, movement in stealth games is much slower and more deliberate then it is in most action games, so it's a lot easier for the player anyway.
(As far as I'm concerned, even with T3's horrible controls*, if you're having trouble moving your T3 avatar around, then you're doing stealth wrong - although this doesn't defend having horrible controls in the first place.)
What's more, you're all making lots of crappy assumptions about player movement in FP games and this hypothetical T4. Who says movement isn't a problem is FP games? Who says people don't bump into objects and walls in thief? Why do people always complain about having to look down at their feet in FP games (including thief)? Why do most platformers choose 3rd person? Who says that no body awareness is more immersive then body awareness for a 00's audience? Why does a modern implementation of body awareness have to suck? Why are you all still stuck in T3 land?
I don't actually personally care much about body awareness or lack thereof. It seems that body awareness is an idea which is finally starting to work out well, but I don't think that this is an important area where T4 needs to "lead the way". If EM think they can do a good job though, I'll believe them untill shown otherwise.
* I don't actually find the controls horrible, but for the sake of argument I'll just concede that point.
jtr7 on 18/9/2009 at 00:26
And what the taffin' taff are you doing looking vaingloriously at your avatar for, instead of...
The City?!?Wrong game wrong game wrong gaaaaaaame...!!!!!! Ungrateful bastages...:nono:
EDIT: And before one more person goes off about conservatism and fear of change (*nghghgng* *Hhhaaawk* Pih-TOOey!), this is NOT about that, so stuff it!
EDIT: And before one more person goes off on how it could simply be an option that I could turn off... Don't get me started on your lack of education!
P.S. Not much (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDWjhliN3PE)
body awareness during the rope/chain climbing, but the climbing and swinging are fine enough. Ropes and chains and guy wires (oh my!), etc., will be more dynamic without having to have animations for everything.
Ostriig on 18/9/2009 at 00:44
Quote Posted by New Horizon
:laff: Epic fail!
Try it for yourself and find out.
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Ostriig, this is rare to be able to say but - you don't have the experience of what it is like without the awareness (as you haven't played T1/2) so your opinion is irrelevant.
The two of you form a pair of fucking pissants intertwined in a moronic circlejerk. There is nothing putting Thief apart from this argument because it's one directed at first person games in general, and if you had a basic grasp of how animations are implemented into a game you'd understand that there is
absolutely no requirement on wrenching control away from the player while the animation plays, and that there's no need to have the camera do
any movement on its own. Fallout 3 does not take control away from you while it's arranging your character's feet on the pavement. Sure, if your arm showed when you were opening a door, the mesh would contort and would look weird if you're bunny hopping around it, but you shouldn't be doing that in the first place.
And, SubJeff, like Chade pointed out, I've got plenty of experience with games that do not implement body awareness, since that's the case with the majority of first person games to date. Tell it like it is to someone else.
Let me state this as clear as possible - implementing body awareness in a game need not bring
any further constraints to movement and character control further than what we already have in games. The animations can stem exclusively from the combination of environment and player controlled position, and
never anything else. It's an application of Hierarchical Modelling and Inverse Kinematics, nothing more. And that's the full extent of tech behind it.
Quote Posted by driver
Just because T: DS did body awareness badly doesn't mean we should dismiss it entirely. Personally I find there's little else that's more immersion breaking than to look down and see that I'm just hovering about.
This.
Quote Posted by jtr7
And what the taffin' taff are you doing looking vaingloriously at your avatar for, instead of...
The City?!?
Wrong game wrong game wrong gaaaaaaame...!!!!!! Ungrateful bastages...
Is there anything valuable you can contribute here? 'Cause it seems to be your usual stance of CHAENG IS BAD. Proper implementation of body awareness can only serve to further immersion into the game world and enhance gameplay feedback to the player.
Especially in a game like Thief, where positioning is important, not to mention that the lighting on your character's body could serve as a further source of information on how well you're hidden in your environment. In fact, with it and a good lighting model, you could opt to switch off the lightgem and estimate the extent to which you're hidden by shadows with just that and the look of the environment itself. If you like minimal HUD elements.
Edit: Nice stealth edit there, chief. But there's a timestamp on your edit and on this post, too.
Also, since this was why I returned to edit this post in the first place - complaining that your feet obstruct your view of the ground below you is as ridiculous as complaining that the blackjack and your hand obstruct your view forward.
Bakerman on 18/9/2009 at 01:19
Wow... two pages in one night? :P
Quote:
Let me state this as clear as possible - implementing body awareness in a game need not bring any further constraints to movement and character control further than what we already have in games. The animations can stem exclusively from the combination of environment and player controlled position, and never anything else. It's an application of Hierarchical Modelling and Inverse Kinematics, nothing more. And that's the full extent of tech behind it.
Thank you. That's exactly what I would have said. Just because TDS didn't do it this way, doesn't mean T4 has to make the same mistake.
Quote:
The developers would have to compensate by putting the player on rails while the model got put into position, opened the door, sidestepped and yadda yadda.
I believe Ostriig took care of that, so I don't have to.
Quote:
Now here's a question for you: In the good Thief games, when on a ladder you can move all around it and look in any direction. How would that be animated with a body awareness model?
That's actually fairly easy. You animate vertical looking the same way as you would any other time. You add a horizontal look animation that includes the character shifting each shoulder away from the ladder, enough so that the horizontal motion of their head can let them look all the way backwards. Now, you wouldn't be able to rotate 360 degrees without falling off the ladder, but seriously, can you do that?
Oh wait, that's probably actually possible. You'd have to add another animation state for climbing the ladder backwards, which wouldn't be too much of a chore.
Quote:
The only thing body makes me aware of is that it's not my own body up there doing things on the screen. The floating arms are just an extension of my hands that are already doing things on the keyboard and mouse to translate commands into on screen movement.
I agree with what Beleg said on this issue. I don't look at my own body when I'm playing - when I look down in-game and see Garrett's body on the scren, it's as much
my body as Garrett's hand is
my hand. It doesn't make sense that the floating hands are extensions of your hands but the body somehow doesn't translate the same way.
Quote:
Body awareness means no rope arrows.
Wrong. Utterly wrong. I hope you were being flippant :P
Quote:
Body awareness screwed the 1st-person with those animations and not being able to line my feet up with my head without over-compensating, dragging the model around and being tugged by it. "Immersive"? My bloated ass! Get it out of my way! I've got things to do, places to go without this frikkin' dead weight robot!
That wasn't body awareness, that was soddy programming and laziness.
Quote:
And what the taffin' taff are you doing looking vaingloriously at your avatar for
Body awareness doesn't mean you'll be looking at your avatar the entire time (that's third person :P). Unless you like to go around staring down your own trousers. You could say the same thing about seeing a blackjack in your hand - what a taffer, he likes to look at his own blackjack!
Quote:
It's a waste of programing time to my mind.
I guess my perspective is a little different, at least where my own game is concerned. The game will be online multiplayer, so everything needs to look good in 3rd person anyway - T2 got away with barely any animations on Garrett at all, and consequently he would have looked horrible if you were ever allowed to get outside his head (scouting orbs solved this nicely by not allowing you to move while using them :P). So from my point of iew, it almost saves work - I just make an acceptable 3rd person view, and stick the camera on.
I'll probably cop flak for suggesting that, because that's basically what TDS did. But I reckon they screwed it up, and I can do better. Maybe arrogance, but hopefully not.
Quote:
But Bakerman, I'm willing to be proved wrong.
Hope I can oblige ;) :P
