As ARMA3 has ragdoll, can we still be able to see the feet?

[msy 22]

I don't know if these two things are alternative. If using ragdoll, you won't see your feet anymore? And will ragdoll influence 3rd person performance?

[PuFu 4600]

why would it change? Do you know how ragdoll works? Looking at the E3 presentation, the 1st person view is the same as A2 atm. Full body, not just some floating hands.

Ragdols are based on mesh cage and skeleton

Edited June 11, 2011 by PuFu

[sqb-sma 66]

Quite often, yes, the two are mutually exclusive. However, you should not start fretting yet. Mostly the reason is that devs cannot make first person animations for the feet work correctly (see fear, the feet appear to slide and stairs just look odd), technologically there is nothing much stopping BIS from putting in both. And my guess is, there will be both.

[PuFu 4600]

Quite often, yes, the two are mutually exclusive.

Care to explain why?

The reason why there are only a couple of games besides BIS having the entire body in the 1st person is because they don't need to take care of the animations for it. It is way easier to animated some floating hands in relation to a floating camera than the entire bodies..much less work and able to cheat a lot of things

From my own experience, animated something (true, manually, without mocat in any 3d software) getting the eye camera to behave properly is hard as hell...

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

I'd love to see people's height randomised, that would be possible with ragdolls, unless they've re-used old animations for miscellaneous things.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Care to explain why?

The reason why there are only a couple of games besides BIS having the entire body in the 1st person is because they don't need to take care of the animations for it. It is way easier to animated some floating hands in relation to a floating camera than the entire bodies..much less work and able to cheat a lot of things

From my own experience, animated something (true, manually, without mocat in any 3d software) getting the eye camera to behave properly is hard as hell...

Are you sure that's it? Or at least the main reason? In Oblivion if you "disconnect the camera" so that camera is at eyepoint even if it's 3rd person, the main animations (3rd person) are "too big" to be visible in 1st person. You can never see where your hands are going. It also looked a lot less smooth in this view. 1st person animations are small and smooth and looks ok in 1st person. Playing the 3rd person animation in quasi 3rd person make things look really ugly.

I think it may be easier for shooters to "get it right" since the animations are fairly small compared to i.e. a double handed sword swing. Still, I hope Skyrim somehow lets me see my own body and shadow.

[PuFu 4600]

Are you sure that's it? Or at least the main reason? In Oblivion if you "disconnect the camera" so that camera is at eyepoint even if it's 3rd person, the main animations (3rd person) are "too big" to be visible in 1st person. You can never see where your hands are going. It also looked a lot less smooth in this view. 1st person animations are small and smooth and looks ok in 1st person. Playing the 3rd person animation in quasi 3rd person make things look really ugly.

I think it may be easier for shooters to "get it right" since the animations are fairly small compared to i.e. a double handed sword swing. Still, I hope Skyrim somehow lets me see my own body and shadow.

the detail for animation in 1st person and third are miles away for most games. (for instance switching fire mode, reload animations, etc) are simplified for 3rd person view (even if we are talking about a game where you can't see yourself, but only others players - BFBC, Crysis, FC2 etc).

There is no constrain when it comes to ragdoll though, and having the entire body modelled in 1st person view. What i am trying to say that there aren't a lot of developers going "full body" for all the other reasons, but not ragdoll

[Primarch 10]

the detail for animation in 1st person and third are miles away for most games. (for instance switching fire mode, reload animations, etc) are simplified for 3rd person view (even if we are talking about a game where you can't see yourself, but only others players - BFBC, Crysis, FC2 etc).

There is no constrain when it comes to ragdoll though, and having the entire body modelled in 1st person view. What i am trying to say that there aren't a lot of developers going "full body" for all the other reasons, but not ragdoll

Crysis has really good 1st person ragdoll/ full body simulation.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

How you view your body in ArmA and how it moves are completely seperate. The only dependency between the two is where your eyes will be relative to your body as it moves. Besides, ragdoll is only in effect when you die is it not? I doubt you'll be able to see much of anything while dying...

---------- Post added at 10:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:23 AM ----------

Quite often, yes, the two are mutually exclusive.

I wouldn't even say that, it's misleading. Full-body simulation in 1st person is rare enough on its own, so out of all the games that do it few I know of even use ragdoll. But there are some that do, and it works perfectly fine. M&B Warband (yes M&B has a first person view very similar to ArmAs) is good example.

Now if you're talking about "fake" feet, then ragdoll doesn't even apply to them because it's not real full-body simulation, it's just a pair of feet slung under a floating camera. There is no body to apply ragdoll to except in 3rd person.

---------- Post added at 10:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:31 AM ----------

It is way easier to animated some floating hands in relation to a floating camera than the entire bodies.

It's actually not much more difficult to do full-body simulation in 1st person if you use the same model & animations for 1st and 3rd person. More than anything else, the reason so many shooters use the floating camera with arms method is simply because of legacy; there's no reason (in their opinions) to change something that has been established as standard. Of course that's what I hate most about the game development industry: the relunctance to innovate.

[Windexglow 10]

#1 reason why most games don't show body/feet : Performance. Why show something 99% of players won't notice unless told?

[Big Dawg KS 6]

#1 reason why most games don't show body/feet : Performance. Why show something 99% of players won't notice unless told?

Performance doesn't really seem like an issue for this, especially if you aren't looking at them anyway.

And like I said, most of these design decisions come from developers just copying what's already been done.

[antoineflemming 14]

Crysis has really good 1st person ragdoll/ full body simulation.

Yeah, so does America's Army 3. And both of those games have ragdoll (I know Crysis 2 does. I THINK America's Army 3 does also).

EDIT: Only thing is, the torso is completely rigid, so it has the same floating hands effect.

Honestly, though, I would have no problem with this being the case in ArmA 3. A static torso and hands that move with your view (sorta locked to your view) would make CQB a lot easier without taking away from gameplay... prepare for flaming.....

Edited June 12, 2011 by antoineflemming

[-GR-Operative 10]

Not seeing the anims = problems with FOV in the game, shall need readjusting.

Animating only the hands for FP view is easier. In FP you try to make the anims more believeable, so concentrating only on the hands will deliver a better product than making the whole body by the same time.

[max power 21]

It's actually not much more difficult to do full-body simulation in 1st person if you use the same model & animations for 1st and 3rd person. More than anything else, the reason so many shooters use the floating camera with arms method is simply because of legacy; there's no reason (in their opinions) to change something that has been established as standard. Of course that's what I hate most about the game development industry: the relunctance to innovate.

Perhaps you haven't animated before, but animating for a fixed viewer angle is way easier than making something look right from all angles. You seem to be speaking from a place of knowledge of developer opinions. Whose opinions do you know and how did you come by them?

[dmarkwick 261]

Employing ragdoll has nothing at all to do with whether or not you can see your feet.

[Mr.Wolf 10]

Well, I guess full body awareness how it's done in BIS games has it's shortcomings as well. Because of the camera FOV and position, all weapons have those funky proportions, that feel kinda "wrong". ACOG scope looks like it's 30cm long, Eotech sights take half of the screen, not talking about those huge thermal sights. I think that classic "floating hands with a gun" approach allows to adjust camera/fov/perspective of gun much better and to be honest, I would happily sacrifice seeing my feet (is it really THAT important?) to see believable weapons and their animations.

I guess I'm the only one with this oppinion though. Looking at E3 presentation I'm pretty sure full body awareness is still there...

[liquidpinky 11]

I guess I'm the only one with this oppinion though. Looking at E3 presentation I'm pretty sure full body awareness is still there...

I would agree, you could see it in one of the vids showing the scuba diving, his body was their when he appeared to swim backwards for a second.

[andersson 285]

For me, as a TrackIr user, a full body is important.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Perhaps you haven't animated before

Nope I haven't really, I'm not an artist. But I am slightly familiar with the technology & process.

You seem to be speaking from a place of knowledge of developer opinions. Whose opinions do you know and how did you come by them?

My own actually, from my own experience. I guess I was comming from more of a technical viewpoint though. Implementing a full-body 1st person like that in ArmA isn't too difficult when you already have fully animated bodies (ex for 3rd person).

Edited June 12, 2011 by Big Dawg KS

[PuFu 4600]

Nope I haven't really, I'm not an artist.

My own actually. I guess I was comming from more of a technical viewpoint though. Implementing a full-body 1st person like that in ArmA isn't too difficult when you already have fully animated bodies (ex for 3rd person).

it is, especially when you want to cheat it. Animations sequences for 3rd person are never as detailed (there are some exceptions). On the side, camera needs to be attached to the 1st person body in an inteligent way, otherwise motion sickness can occur

[Big Dawg KS 6]

it is, especially when you want to cheat it. Animations sequences for 3rd person are never as detailed (there are some exceptions). On the side, camera needs to be attached to the 1st person body in an inteligent way, otherwise motion sickness can occur

Agreed, it can be quite difficult to master it. ;)

But TBH I prefer full-body simulation even with less detailed 3rd person anims over floating camera w/ higher detailed arms + weapon anims.

[PuFu 4600]

one more thing, most game with floating hands have those hands attached to the weapon, that said the reload anims and so forth are per weapon, rather then having a lot of anims for the same body, for all weapons and other gimmicks out there. anyways, we are getting away from the subject

EDIT: you can have very detailed reloading animations in A2 (proper reload, weapon cocking etc)

Edited June 12, 2011 by PuFu

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

I'd love to see people's height randomised, that would be possible with ragdolls, unless they've re-used old animations for miscellaneous things.

Yes, randomized height and weight was in Rogue Spear and/or Rainbow Six, I believe. It really helps things look more realistic.

[2nd ranger 282]

If I recall correctly there is already a feature in VBS2 that allows for variation in a character's height and even their build (maybe it was just build, can't remember).

Edited June 12, 2011 by 2nd Ranger

[PuFu 4600]

If I recall correctly there is already a feature in VBS2 that allows for variation in a character's height and even their build (maybe it was just build, can't remember).

no, it is both

setHeight

setBMI