Update the Hand & Arm Animations

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Hey Guys.

Was looking through the threads here to see if anyone mentioned anything

about hand and arm animations, but I guess I will start it.

The games have come along way since OFP, for animations.

I really enjoy the hand animations that a squad leader uses to command his squad,

and if you guys remember back in OFP there was a mod that did this, which made it promising

and unique, now that that is a reg ingame thing, what bothers me the most which

hasn't changed since Arma, is the reloading animation, and animations related.

Now I only have OFP, Arma, and Arma2, so Im not sure if these animations have been updated in OA, and BAF.

I dont understand why this has not been changed yet, OFP had a simple animation when reloading,

but comes Arma changing from weapon to weapon not main gun to rpg,

but stuff in between mostly when the guy is prone was whack.

What i find incredibly rediculous and it bothers me especially when your playing Ace2 and you deploy your weapon,

is that while prone when you go to reload your guy does this stupid dance his hand is flailing over his head like hes

got flies buzzing around him (more noticable in Arma), and then he leans over like the gun's magazine is like

a foot and a half long, it defeats the purpose of being a stealthly sniper.

When your deployed the gun aint going to move, so it should be I would think that your loading ammo,

on the gun, from your point of view, and not have to pick up the gun and move it, and all this stuff,

Im mostly talking about sniper rifles, and mgs.

On mounted vehicles with mgs, nothing happens, the gun magically reloads itself. It would be interesting

to see the character getting a box, and hooking it up, pulling the belt, placing the rounds into the breach,

and then cocking the gun, and go from there, a full sequence.

I think different reload animations should be setup based on the weapon.

for snipers it should be small, for Mgs a little bigger, all depends on the type of gun.

Surely there is a way to model this stuff, i believe BIS has done it for the running,crouching and basic moving animations,

can it be done for the hand sequences for reloading, or rebolting?

I know about rebolting animations which work on the gun, but you only see the bolt animation moving,

but no hand actually there rebolting.

In a way it rather destroys the immersion, or the simulated realism. making the simulation of animated

sequences realistic to lifelike counterparts, would be a challenge, I'm sure it can be done,

i think it would seriously up the njoyment of the game and really make you feel like your part of it then

a spectator with so much control. Once the guy does his little dance the control is out the window.

One question for those that have OA, and BAF, are their any new animations, or any different animations

in the expansions then in Arma 2?

I dont mean to be disrespectful to BIS, or come across as trolling, or whining.

But honestly i think were due for an update in this area, just a needed thing.

Is there a way to change the animations? I mean do we have to actually model,

or capture actual animations to pull this off?

Anyone else's thoughts.

[mr_centipede 31]

Pretty much seconded. On topic on animation, I hope ALICE will implement more anim for the civillians, like feeding the chicken, repair cars (just like in the ARMA2 civilian trailer). Something to make them look more lively. On top of that, isn't it weird that livestocks such as cows and sheeps dont have any herders? would be nice to add it in the ambient animal module.

But of course ARMA is a wargame first and foremost so anims like hand signals, reloading, bolt action anim should be more of a priority

[katipo66 94]

I can somewhat live without the extra hand animations although it would be great for immersion if some were added, i havent seen any difference in OA, but then i havent used everything yet... what i think is more important is the weapon cradle hand model for most of the the AKs and SVDs, its still wrong in OA... looks ugly!

[AnimalMother92 10]

Agreed, I'm sure it would be a huge amount of work but it's one of the things that annoys me most.

[PuFu 4600]

Since BIS already has a motion capture studio, it wouldn't take all that much to get it done. The system does allow it.

I don't even want animations for each specific weapon, but rather a couple for each weapon class

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

I can somewhat live without the extra hand animations although it would be great for immersion if some were added,

I agree, it isn't that bad, but changing something small as the reload sequence or anim all

together for weapons would be a major plus, as most of the other animations are good.

I don't even want animations for each specific weapon, but rather a couple for each weapon class

Ya that would make sense, there are alot of weapons that are pretty much the same in

reguards to how they look, like the m16, ak47 for example, they have the same general length basically assault rifle,

so for assault rifles you could have your take clip out, put clip in, and cock gun anim,

then on m16/m203, even ak version of grenadiers you would have the same and then have

it where when a grenade is shot then the hand would come out slide forward the tube,

drop the grenade out, and then put a new one in and slide the cover back.

Sniper rifles you could have clip, or single bullet fed, and anim for the gun

Inf Mgs, would be something like box removed, new ammo added, chain pulled out,

fed into breach, top closed, and then gun cocked anim.

Mounted mgs could be the same.

Also whats missing and I really dont understand why its missing is the reload sequence

for Rpgs or rocket launchers in general, i mean the anim sequence is good, but the problem

is that theres no backpack of launchers in terms of missles that you see, and then theres no missile,

or rocket you see in the guys hand actually putting the rocket into the tub, and lets consider

other then RPgs that rockets, like at4s I bleive not 100% on this, or even Law are fed

from the back by a 2nd man, but surely one can do by oneself.

Thing is how would something be loaded in real life, then somehow capture the motion of it

and implement it, and like Pufu said you could have same animations for specifc classes,

and then other animations based on really the setup of the weapon.

lets also not forget other things, like when a grenade is being thrown,

is the grenade in the hand? I dont reacall seeing one.

how about satchels, when do you actually see the satchels when you put one down?

When its on the ground, I dont recall ever seeing a satchel in a soldiers hand and him placing it.

These things somehow magically appear.

the details bake the cake in my opinion, its an immersion killer when things are missing and somehow its

acceptable because the guy is going through the motions, and doing something, which is better then nothing

happening Im sure all can agree, but I think if the extra effort the extra step, to update these animations surely

the same amount of time to make extra units, vehicles, and weapons and retexture them and same for islands,

this could be done instead, theres enough units, and vehicles, and islands and everything else to pick from,

lets focus on what we got. The issue lies where we have 4 games now Arma,Arma 2, OA, BAF with the

same stuff in terms of anim, and like I said I'm not 100% on OA and BAf for

the animations as I dont have those games.

Any other thoughts on what i mentioned, anything I miss?

Edited September 3, 2010 by Gnter Severloh

[T.S.C.Plage 0]

I don't know where to start and where to end so I just pick some of your points and tell you my opinion about them but at first you should know/understand that motion capturing is not as easy as it may seems. Besides it's not exactly cheap to record animations even if BIS has it's own studio (btw, a quite good one as I noticed). There are actors and operators that have to get payed, most recorded datas have to be cleaned which is extra work and so on.

Ya that would make sense, there are alot of weapons that are pretty much the same in

reguards to how they look, like the m16, ak47 for example, they have the same general length basically assault rifle,

so for assault rifles you could have your take clip out, put clip in, and cock gun anim,

They aren't "pretty much the same" if you want correct animations. For example the charging handle of an AK is on the right side of the weapon (attached to the bolt) while an M16 has it at the back of the upper receiver (behind and below the carrying handle). So you actually can't use the same anims. This counts for many other rifles, too.

then on m16/m203, even ak version of grenadiers you would have the same and then have

it where when a grenade is shot then the hand would come out slide forward the tube,

drop the grenade out, and then put a new one in and slide the cover back.

As far as I remember an M203 is loaded from the back while an GP25/30 is loaded from the front which means two diffrent anims again.

Sniper rifles you could have clip, or single bullet fed, and anim for the gun

This would mean you'd have to record or at least manually adjust any animation for the specific type of rifle because locations of mags and chambers vary from type to type.

Inf Mgs, would be something like box removed, new ammo added, chain pulled out, fed into breach, top closed, and then gun cocked anim.

Same as above...f.e. M249 mag under the weapon belt-fed from left, M240 mag left of weapon fed from left, PKM mag under the weapon fed from the right and so on. Means special anim for every MG needed.

Mounted mgs could be the same.

Guess...

Also whats missing and I really dont understand why its missing is the reload sequence

for Rpgs or rocket launchers in general, i mean the anim sequence is good, but the problem

is that theres no backpack of launchers in terms of missles that you see, and then theres no missile,

or rocket you see in the guys hand actually putting the rocket into the tub, and lets consider

other then RPgs that rockets, like at4s I bleive not 100% on this, or even Law are fed from the back by a 2nd man, but surely one can do by oneself.

RPGs and such ok but AT4s and LAWs are "throw away" weapons they don't get reloaded.

Thing is how would something be loaded in real life, then somehow capture the motion of it and implement it, and like Pufu said you could have same animations for specifc classes, and then other animations based on really the setup of the weapon.

As you can see from what I wrote above that's not possible. You'd have to record specific anims for each gun preferably with a model of that weapon in the hand of the actor. To record one "general" anim and make it fit to diffrent kinds of weapons is a lot of work.

lets also not forget other things, like when a grenade is being thrown,

is the grenade in the hand? I dont reacall seeing one.

The grenade is actually created if it leaves the hand but I don't have a problem with it as you also don't have any visible nades on your gear. The soldier just makes a grap anim and then has one.

how about satchels, when do you actually see the satchels when you put one down?

When its on the ground, I dont recall ever seeing a satchel in a soldiers hand and him placing it.

These things somehow magically appear.

What do you want? That the guy actually takes off his backpack, takes out the satchel, places it and then puts back on his backpack? This would blow everything out of proportion in a game like ArmA. Not to talk about the performance issues that may come up if you've a shitload of new anims.

I actually don't need much more special anims and I don't think it's actually that kind of important for the immersion like you feel it is. But I agree that some already existing anims could need some tweaking and that some few newly added ones would make sense like f.e. some diffrent "get in" anims.

Edited September 14, 2010 by T.S.C.Plage
Removed OT...

[nkenny 1057]

I agree with the OP.

Proper animations are some of the cheapest immersion enhancers in terms of performance. The actual file size for the ‘skeleton’ data is minuscule compared to adding new textures/high polygon objects.

I understand that Arma2 has a number of very generic “flail-around-with-arms-while-holding-guns†– while this works on a macroscale – it doesn’t look very convincing.

On the other hand, there is no reason to go overboard. You wouldn’t need to many animations to get to ACCEPTABLE standards.

- Assault Rifle east ( ak style reloads)

- Assault Rifle west (M16 style ‘tacticool’ )

- Universal Machinegun

- Universal Pistol

- Universal Static weapon

- Possibly Assault Rifle Bullpup

Another major weapons handling issue in ARMA2 is the way the gun is held. Not only is the weapon shouldered in an manner which would render the sights useless – but it would appear that the actor is looking out of his left eye. This puts the weapon at an extremely right-side centric angle; which makes intuitive shooting hard.

Finally the ‘moving while crouched’ animations of ARMA2 are absolutely atrocious. Its hard to believe that these were motioncaptured in any studio subject to Newtonian physics – which only reinforces my belief that BIS are actually servants of the Deep Dreamer . All hail Cthulhu fhtagn!

-k

[T.S.C.Plage 0]

Finally the ‘moving while crouched’ animations of ARMA2 are absolutely atrocious. Its hard to believe that these were motioncaptured in any studio subject to Newtonian physics – which only reinforces my belief that BIS are actually servants of the Deep Dreamer . All hail Cthulhu fhtagn!

BIS works with an Optitrack/Arena mocap system for the general movements. This system relays on markers attached to the suite of the actor while the cameras record the positions of the markers. If markers get covered up which is definetly the case if you crouch on the ground the system loses track and starts to bug. This means you'll have to manually rework the datas and fill in the missing positions of the markers or completly create the animation by hand. I guess that's the reason why it looks a bit odd.

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Good post Plage,

Alot of work it seems to make anim like we both described available in the game.

What I care about in terms of the anim is seeing one move from the next, not all the extra stuff

that has nothing to do with what the characer is to be doing, and not seeing the arm flailing BS

thats Arma has, and in the demo of OA I noticed nothing really has changed either for the reload anim,

its rather a real turn off of the game. Sounds suck too but I know that can be changed by mods so its no biggie.

some stuff looks cool, but id rather see something change then play a new version of Arma

with the same old stuff being used.

Some things do work and dont need to change that i can agree with, and work,

if your going to build a whole new, game on a new engine you built, I'd be willing to wait

another 3-6 months for the game to be completed then get something where I'd be bitching and

moaning on the forums on how this and or this are still in the game and havent changed.

One reason why I dont see the point of new units and vehciles, do the things that count:

optimization, fixes of bugs, animations, features, ect.,

I'd lie to see a fat patch that comes out and fixes, and adds, ect.,, then go buy another BIS game

with the same stuff, this partial reason why I didn't get OA, and or BAF, I'm to busy enjoying Arma,

Arma 2as it is, to much stuff to play with already to be diverted to new stuff.

Its like when OFP came out and then they had expansions and patches, that was the only game,

I mean it was all OFP, with all the addons and mods for it, you could play for the rest of your life,

who needs another game. anyways getting back on topic, I think the details are what bake the cake,

it would up one's immersion in the game.

[hellfire257 3]

The reloading while moving animations look crazy! I agree with what has been said above.

[pez2k 10]

As you can see from what I wrote above that's not possible. You'd have to record specific anims for each gun preferably with a model of that weapon in the hand of the actor. To record one "general" anim and make it fit to diffrent kinds of weapons is a lot of work.

It doesn't necessarily have to be entirely accurate for every gun. Simply having more than one reload animation per weapon slot would be miles ahead of where we are now. A lot can be reused too, a simple mag out, mag in, right hand side charging handle animation will roughly fit any AK, the SG550 series, FAL, FNC / Ak 5 series, removable mag SKS, M14, G36, and so on.

It could even be split, so there's a mag change animation then a charging handle. Mag changes are as simple as regular weapon or bullpup, with the option for niche cases like a Bizon or P90 if you want to get complicated. Then you have a left side bolt release, right side charging handle pull, left side pull. An AK would be regular mag change then right side pull, an L85 would have a bullpup change then a right side pull, an F2000 bullpup then left side pull, an M16 a regular change then a left side release... Suddenly you have less wafty animations, and a lot more variety, with a total of about five animations. LMGs could pretty much just replace the mag change with a left side belt swap and right side belt swap and they're covered too. A different pull for bolt-action weapons, and a fumble on the top right for fixed-magazine weapons and suddenly we're getting a lot of things covered.

It doesn't have to be pixel-precise to be better than what's there now. A P90, Garand, PKM and M1014 all have the same reload animation and time, which is useless. Look at the classic Counter-Strike and its custom model releases for just how many weapons will fit decently on one set of animations, and a game developed by two people on their own time that still has a couple of dozen sets of arm animations.

[Fox '09 14]

please update.. just dont mess with my selections

[BlackLord 0]

I would also like to see proper reload anims in ArmA2 but the thing is it's hard to make them as realistic as in other games where your gun and hands are rendered separately and aren't actually attached to the character model while in ArmA2 the camera you look through in FPS view is in the head of the character.

If you stop and take a look at another player in CoD MW2 you will see the gun in his hands isn't as detailed as in FPS view and when he reloads the animation is also much simpler.

In order to make fully articulated reload animations in ArmA2, BiS would need to animate the hands and fingers of all character models which would be a lot of work and put a strain on the performance.

With that said reload animations could be improved further to look better but no one expect truly realistic ones.

Edited September 14, 2010 by BlackLord

[PuFu 4600]

In order to make fully articulated reload animations in ArmA2, BiS would need to animate the hands and fingers of all character models which would be a lot of work and put a strain on the performance.

With that said reload animations could be improved further to look better but no one expect truly realistic ones.

BIS skeleton already have all the bones needed, including the finger with its phalanx.

You only need one animation done, and have that played

[pez2k 10]

The two Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter games on PC also simply placed the camera in the third-person player model's eyes, including having collision models for weapons, but still had detailed full-body animations for every weapon to the point of having a fire selector flick on the Glock 18. It's not an impossibility, it's just a matter of time and effort.

[Zipper5 74]

And cash, of course. ;)

[pez2k 10]

Yep, neither time nor effort are free.

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

If they have both time and effort as well as cash to build a new expansion like OA and BAf

then surely they got time effort and money to optimize the game, fix bugs, and or do the animations,

i would think that animations could be done in less time then it takes to build all new models,

and islands for us of those that want to play on.

I can see the point of needing more money to pull things off, as BIS aint no COD folks pumping

out new cars (COD games) with a new finish on them and making a fortune, off the suckers

that buy the new look, I def prefer our games here, but I think the priorities should be more focused,

but I cannot say for sure as I am not there where they work or know what they are working on.

[T.S.C.Plage 0]

Good post Plage,

Alot of work it seems to make anim like we both described available in the game.

What I care about in terms of the anim is seeing one move from the next, not all the extra stuff

that has nothing to do with what the characer is to be doing, and not seeing the arm flailing BS

thats Arma has, and in the demo of OA I noticed nothing really has changed either for the reload anim,

its rather a real turn off of the game. Sounds suck too but I know that can be changed by mods so its no biggie.

some stuff looks cool, but id rather see something change then play a new version of Arma

with the same old stuff being used.

Some things do work and dont need to change that i can agree with, and work,

if your going to build a whole new, game on a new engine you built, I'd be willing to wait

another 3-6 months for the game to be completed then get something where I'd be bitching and

moaning on the forums on how this and or this are still in the game and havent changed.

One reason why I dont see the point of new units and vehciles, do the things that count:

optimization, fixes of bugs, animations, features, ect.,

I'd lie to see a fat patch that comes out and fixes, and adds, ect.,, then go buy another BIS game

with the same stuff, this partial reason why I didn't get OA, and or BAF, I'm to busy enjoying Arma,

Arma 2as it is, to much stuff to play with already to be diverted to new stuff.

Its like when OFP came out and then they had expansions and patches, that was the only game,

I mean it was all OFP, with all the addons and mods for it, you could play for the rest of your life,

who needs another game. anyways getting back on topic, I think the details are what bake the cake,

it would up one's immersion in the game.

I agree with you that animations are something the developer has to focus on because unfortunately nobody in the community will have his own mocap studio at home. New models and other additions can be very well done by the com itself but as you already mention the old "OFP spirit" seems to get flushed down the drain more and more by the way BIS seems to work now (f.e. buying off modelers of the community to create DLC).

BIS skeleton already have all the bones needed, including the finger with its phalanx.

You only need one animation done, and have that played

Read something about the problems right here.

http://pro.bistudio.com/index.php/services/motion-capture/fingers-motion-capture.html

The two Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter games on PC also simply placed the camera in the third-person player model's eyes, including having collision models for weapons, but still had detailed full-body animations for every weapon to the point of having a fire selector flick on the Glock 18. It's not an impossibility, it's just a matter of time and effort.

I don't know the second part but how many weapons do you had in part 1 exactly. IIRC not more then 10. How many do you have in ArmA? Mmmmmkay?

If they have both time and effort as well as cash to build a new expansion like OA and BAf

then surely they got time effort and money to optimize the game, fix bugs, and or do the animations,

i would think that animations could be done in less time then it takes to build all new models,

and islands for us of those that want to play on.

I can see the point of needing more money to pull things off, as BIS aint no COD folks pumping

out new cars (COD games) with a new finish on them and making a fortune, off the suckers

that buy the new look, I def prefer our games here, but I think the priorities should be more focused,

but I cannot say for sure as I am not there where they work or know what they are working on.

For not knowing how it (mocap) and they (BIS) work exactly you're quite demanding. There're a couple of things you've to consider. For example how many people have to work on an animation compared to a model or island (map). While the last can be done by a single person to create an animation takes at least three (actor, operator and animator). I agree that modeling or creating a map is much more time consuming then to capture some anims but I'd say the mocap guys also get a higher pay (not sure here but they're more specialized then 3d artists f.e. which you can find like sand on the beach nowadays). Is there even free space in the studio? As far as I know BIS also rents it's studio to other interested parties because it's not exactly cheap to build and maintain such a studio.

Edited September 15, 2010 by T.S.C.Plage

[pez2k 10]

I don't know the second part but how many weapons do you had in part 1 exactly. IIRC not more then 10. How many do you have in ArmA? Mmmmmkay?

Arma 2 has roughly 30 guns, but you'd need nowhere near that amount of animations. The AK47, AKS, AK74, AKS74, AK107 and RPK-74 would all handle pretty much identically, so there's six guns catered for already with one set of animations. GRAW2 has about 18 guns, but all have unique animations. For the amount of effort that it took per gun, bear in mind that GRIN, the developers, added in the fully animated M1014 and the actual code to handle shotguns at all (loading round-by-round, multiple projectiles per shot, etc.) entirely as a free patch because some fans wanted a shotgun. It's not exactly profit-destroying, even for a small company like GRIN (although the stupidly bad reviews for Bionic Commando were).

Also don't forget that I'm not arguing that BIS should spend hundreds of hours being as detailed as GRAW's animations. There's a huge gulf in detail between multiplayer-synced third person fire selector animations and having literally two reload animations for guns at all. I'd be happy if they just aimed anywhere in the middle of that area. It doesn't have to be motion captured even, I'm pretty sure they didn't get a guy into the studio and have him reload a PKM like you do in Arma 2. The GRAW mention was solely pointing out that it's feasible to do even entirely with full-skeleton animations.

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

For not knowing how it (mocap) and they (BIS) work exactly you're quite demanding.

Yes seems that way dont it, lol

Lets imagine for a moment that BIS was working on Arma3 I only hope:rolleyes:

But this new game probably take a year, its very optimized, and animations for weapons, and general stuff is pretty intricit

(i forget the spelling but you get the idea) I can fathom a smooth, detailed animation with the character and

were not talking just reloading a weapon or stuff already mentioned, but a more life like movement,

makes you think when you see an AI move around that you were playing with real people, thats what I'd like to see.

I love how the Ai now peaks around corners and stuff, as well shoots sometimes when doign so, its so cool to see,

and it really gives you a more tactful type of battle, versus a bunch of dumbasses out in the open,

AI still need work as everyone knows.

Real sounds recorded from live guns, I wonder if they have done this already, not sure, you guys know?

Then there is a texture, a type of texturing, that gives off the color making the terrain look as if its real,

the lighting would have to be updated to of course.

Speaking of lighting, one thing i'd like to see is the HDR, I wish i could turn it off.

More options in the options to tweak one's game further in terms of video and such.

Give me a job with BIS, I'm a picky detailed oriented guy, I can be a tester and give you my feedback,

I love trying to help out with of stuff like that, done it before.

[T.S.C.Plage 0]

Arma 2 has roughly 30 guns, but you'd need nowhere near that amount of animations. The AK47, AKS, AK74, AKS74, AK107 and RPK-74 would all handle pretty much identically, so there's six guns catered for already with one set of animations. GRAW2 has about 18 guns, but all have unique animations. For the amount of effort that it took per gun, bear in mind that GRIN, the developers, added in the fully animated M1014 and the actual code to handle shotguns at all (loading round-by-round, multiple projectiles per shot, etc.) entirely as a free patch because some fans wanted a shotgun. It's not exactly profit-destroying, even for a small company like GRIN (although the stupidly bad reviews for Bionic Commando were).

I don't know where you look but it has a lot more then roughly 30...click.

But let's put it together. I count about 11 diffrent types of rocket/missile launchers, 10 types of pistols, PDWs and MPs, ~10 diffrent types of assault rifles and ~10 sniper and anti-material rifles plus some various unique things like the M79 which would all need more or less special animations. Rifle mounted grenade launchers also need at least a single animation per type. This sums up to about 50 diffrent anims which all had to be recorded and/or animated and squeezed through the pipeline till you have them ingame. That's a lot of work and you don't even have the statics included.

Also don't forget that I'm not arguing that BIS should spend hundreds of hours being as detailed as GRAW's animations. There's a huge gulf in detail between multiplayer-synced third person fire selector animations and having literally two reload animations for guns at all. I'd be happy if they just aimed anywhere in the middle of that area. It doesn't have to be motion captured even, I'm pretty sure they didn't get a guy into the studio and have him reload a PKM like you do in Arma 2. The GRAW mention was solely pointing out that it's feasible to do even entirely with full-skeleton animations.

I completly understand what you mean but for me it's not the case that I've problems with (not existing) "weapon" animations. I'm struggling with other things that need to get fixed with a much higher priority. Infact it's just eyecandy we're talking about. No matter if they record or animate it otherwise. It's quite a lot of work.

Yes seems that way dont it, lol

Lets imagine for a moment that BIS was working on Arma3 I only hope:rolleyes:

But this new game probably take a year, its very optimized, and animations for weapons, and general stuff is pretty intricit

(i forget the spelling but you get the idea) I can fathom a smooth, detailed animation with the character and

were not talking just reloading a weapon or stuff already mentioned, but a more life like movement,

makes you think when you see an AI move around that you were playing with real people, thats what I'd like to see.

I love how the Ai now peaks around corners and stuff, as well shoots sometimes when doign so, its so cool to see,

and it really gives you a more tactful type of battle, versus a bunch of dumbasses out in the open,

AI still need work as everyone knows.

Real sounds recorded from live guns, I wonder if they have done this already, not sure, you guys know?

Then there is a texture, a type of texturing, that gives off the color making the terrain look as if its real,

the lighting would have to be updated to of course.

Speaking of lighting, one thing i'd like to see is the HDR, I wish i could turn it off.

More options in the options to tweak one's game further in terms of video and such.

Give me a job with BIS, I'm a picky detailed oriented guy, I can be a tester and give you my feedback,

I love trying to help out with of stuff like that, done it before.

I know that compared to other games the BIS animations aren't top of the notch. I played around myself enough with them to know that many things from simply a proper naming to better transitions could need a fix. Not to talk about some new animations that are really needed but I also see that with the evolution of the BIS games they got better and better on this part. I just think everything demanded here is not of top priority. Sure it would be nice to have pilots actually moving the controls in aircrafts and what not but is this really important considering the dimension of this game? It may add to the immersion but I actually never had the feeling I'm missing this or that animation in a firefight or what ever but maybe I'm not playing these "other" games often enough to actually miss something like that.

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

It may add to the immersion but I actually never had the feeling I'm missing this or that animation in a firefight or what ever but maybe I'm not playing these "other" games often enough to actually miss something like that.

Ya much agreed, You really arn't paying attention enough when your playing especially when

the enemy has you pinned, your not like, oh this animation could be fixed, lol

But tbh if the reloading and the weapon switch the flaling of the arms bs was fixed It would make my day.

About the only really anim that do interfere with your game to some degree, mostly the crazy flailing stuff,

an for all those newbies to the game get to cover first!

[pez2k 10]

I don't know where you look but it has a lot more then roughly 30...click.

I was counting the M4A1, M4A1 ACOG, M4A1 Aimpoint, suppressed M4A1 etc. as one weapon since you'd handle them all identically, in the same way that GRAW2 handles a SCAR-L, SCAR-L ACOG, SCAR-L Aimpoint, suppressed SCAR-L etc. with the same animations. Basically, the actual guns in each rather than each individual setup, and sticking solely to guns since launchers are rather different with a lot not being reloadable in the first place.

Infact it's just eyecandy we're talking about. No matter if they record or animate it otherwise. It's quite a lot of work.

It is definitely just eyecandy. There are several other feature requests that are way more important, never mind bug reports, but you can't polish something too much. If it wasn't so trivial I'd even suggest BIS should try to make strings like magazine names more consistent, rather than 'G36 Mag..', '20Rnd STANAG', '.45 ACP' and so on. It's a case of making the game look more professional and finished. It's really just a reflection of BIS' approach to games development, we have a game that does a very wide range of things in quite accurate technical detail, but sacrifices some prettiness and polish to do it, in complete contrast to the likes of COD:MW2 where everything is shiny but you can basically only shoot and jump.

Bottom line though, like has been brought up, is time and budget. It's not like a lack of fancy hand-waving would stop me buying the next BIS title, but it'd be nice to see.