Briareos H on 19/9/2009 at 01:36
I wouldn't mind body awareness similar to what's in Dark Messiah i.e. you can see your feet & body when you move the camera around but there are no animations for item pickup and environment interaction. And the model is attached to the camera, not the other way around. Simple, nice and to the point, I enjoyed it and it isn't much to implement.
Full body awareness would be a visual treat but I know only one game where it works -that is Mirror's Edge- and there the body model, animations and behavior involved many coders over the course of years. Because it was the core gameplay. Well I'm not willing to sacrifice man-days of perfectly good coders for such an unimportant feature over refined core Thief gameplay.
jtr7 on 19/9/2009 at 02:03
What ZylonBane said. A body that happens to be there is fine. A model has to be made anyway. I don't want to be dependent on it, influenced by it, or have it hinder me at all. :thumb:
driver on 19/9/2009 at 02:30
Quote Posted by jtr7
Body-awareness is the gateway drug, leading to 3rd-person, leading to action-hero animations, automated movements, leading to... leading to... more and more of a departure, and it doesn't take too many steps for the game to become something else entirely.
Go and play Dark Messiah, Mirror's Edge and Arx Fatalis and see if you feel the same way. These games all contained body awareness and it actually enhanced the first person experience.
The inclusion of third person in T3 was a misjudgment aimed at satisfying the console market and was in no way related to the inclusion of body awareness.
Bakerman on 19/9/2009 at 03:34
Quote:
Body-awareness is the gateway drug, leading to 3rd-person, leading to action-hero animations, automated movements, leading to... leading to...
I don't buy that, it's just paranoia. I see body awareness as the way FPS games will move forwards, regardless of whether or not they include third person. You're discarding innovation on the basis of fear of the unknown as much as a rational regard for the resources which would be put into its development. I could throw in some rhetoric of my own here:
'A logical argument must be dismissed with absolute conviction!'
(From Warhammer 40k)
ZylonBane on 19/9/2009 at 05:13
Since TDS introduced the term "body awareness", I treat it as referring specifically to what TDS did-- namely, a first-person camera bolted to and controlled by a third-person model.
Vae on 19/9/2009 at 05:37
Quote Posted by Bakerman
I'll give you my perspective on this: I'm currently developing an FPS game, and right from the off I'm discarding the conventional FPS viewpoint epitomised in Halo, Half-Life, and yes, Thief: the floating camera with an arm attached. All my coding is going twards making each character move and animate realistically. Then I simply attach the camera to the character's eye node, and there you have it.
Good luck, I hope it works as well as the floating camera. I have played Arx Fatalis, Mirrors Edge, and Dark Messiah. They are comparable with the floating camera, though not quite as fluid.
Quote Posted by Bakerman
How is Thief's first-person perspective more immersive than that of Dark Messiah, or even Deadly Shadows? (Of course, I appreciate that it had leaning poblems, and that annoying swivel when you move after looking around - but they're not issues with body awareness.) How is it any better to feel like you don't exist than to be able to see your own body and feet?
Until we are able to create a body automaton that responds as well and as detailed in every way as real life (true virtual reality), ones unconscious mind will perceive any unnatural or unavailable mechanical bodily action as unreal and this in turn will diminish or break the suspension of disbelief of the individual. This effect is unavoidable as one is continually reminded whilst playing the game. Having no imperfect body to see, although not the ideal solution, is the better compromise of the two, because the mind is inherently less distracted by nothing than by an unnatural something, especially when the vast majority of conscious awareness is placed outside of one's focal presence.
Beleg Cúthalion on 19/9/2009 at 06:38
I don't think anyone here demanded a body model/awareness etc. at the expense of other important game content and I don't think either that anyone wanted it as a step towards simplification etc., and likewise do I not think that this will always be the trend in general. It was just about this little body thing element and that was why I was so surprised to see the scale at which jtr7 was aiming.
Vae on 19/9/2009 at 06:59
Sometimes jtr7 exaggerates a point in order to make it clearer to see...;)...add to this the relevant associated concerns and potential consequences, and things can become overblown...:tsktsk:
jtr7 on 19/9/2009 at 08:24
Beleg's a troll, sad to say. Year after year he pretends to know nothing about what has been spelled out for him time and again, pretending to hold assumptions about us that are way off-base, and making BS digs delivered as fact that are only offensive for the lies and that someone might believe his charade. Too much like ToolFan2007.:(
SubJeff on 19/9/2009 at 08:31
Well you're pretty passive aggressive and you over-egg things to the nth degree. You've pissed all over this discussion with your inane massive posts for example.
Which is a shame, because you're correct on the issue. Why do you have to be such and ass about it? It doesn't help our cause.
