Get in get out animation + more questions

[r20 10]

Hello.

Will there be get in/get out vechile animations with doors opening like in Far Cry 2?

Will every button and part of weapon move like fire mode?

Since it is future war game will there be urban indoor combat, underground lighting? ArmA needs to improve 10 year old indoors disasters.

Will anything be removed to simplify game for new comers? God I hope ArmA 3 doesn't do the mistakes Red Orchestra 2 did.

Thats it for now.

BTW: It's been since 2009 and I am not bored of A2, not ready for A3 yet. Time has passed so fast for me ;D

I wish to play campaign as "bad guy" kill USA NATO side with Iran, Russia... It's overused in my opinion. Everywhere USA in every game. (I am in NATO, Europe union country, not a fanatic ;)

Edited February 21, 2012 by R20+

[metalcraze 290]

BIS is still considering get in / get out animations

There was a VBS2 presentation where they talked about this.

Basically there are problems like - when you need to get out of the vehicle it will essentially force you into an unbreakable animation and will make you extremely vulnerable. This may cause a lot of gameplay problems in a game where 1 bullet may kill you.

The amount of animations needed is also enormous since it isn't 1 vehicle like in Far Cry 2.

And if your vehicle is f.e. stuck between several objects blocking doors what to do then? Since animations will clip through walls/objects. There are many issues when it comes to an open world where vehicles have more than 2/4 sits like in, say, GTA where all cars are essentially the same when it comes to entering/exiting. Since Chinook has a lot of sits and you will have to animate each and every one and since everyone will be exiting out of specific order it will become messy.

So basically my bet is - some vehicles may have them, but some won't.

[-=Grunt=- 10]

I can do without vehicle entering or exiting animations but it would be nice if you actually have to use an open door/hatch/ramp animation to be able to get in.

For example, people can't get into the Bradley IFV's rear seats from outside until the ramp thing opens.

EDIT: Or using humvee doors for cover.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I'll even settle for a builtin version of "immersive getin/getout animations" by Shacktac, which I believe is also part of ACE. It basically moves a camera to your position, so you can expect more where you are when you get out. No more exiting the vehicle quickly and running off in the wrong direction :p

[metalcraze 290]

Yeah opening doors will be a welcome minimum. And with the engine they already will be like cover. Note that in one of VBS2 PhysX demos humvee already had opening doors - so maybe ArmA3 will get at least that.

Wouldn't mind animations for cars though since exiting/entering the car is fast and thus won't cause serious issues with vulnerability during the animation.

Abstraction will be enough for tanks/choppers if no balanced way between vulnerability/animations is found.

[r20 10]

Exiting a jeep in Far Cry 2 is really fast, same could be for ArmA III. There should definately be APC boarding animations, back doors opening... If there are objects blocking doors they shouldnt open ?... This is a simulator right?

[liquidpinky 11]

They have enter and exit animations active in Take On Helicopters, so they certainly know how to do it but like metalcraze mentioned it is just a case of making it work in the combat environment.

Weapons have always been quite well animated in A2 anyway, a visible fire selector position would be a nice addition though.

Fingers crossed that we will see some underground bunker action too.

[PuFu 4591]

Weapons have always been quite well animated in A2 anyway, a visible fire selector position would be a nice addition though.

.

lol what? i am pretty sure you don't mean the human interaction

[Leopardi 0]

BIS is still considering get in / get out animations

There was a VBS2 presentation where they talked about this.

Basically there are problems like - when you need to get out of the vehicle it will essentially force you into an unbreakable animation and will make you extremely vulnerable. This may cause a lot of gameplay problems in a game where 1 bullet may kill you.

The amount of animations needed is also enormous since it isn't 1 vehicle like in Far Cry 2.

And if your vehicle is f.e. stuck between several objects blocking doors what to do then? Since animations will clip through walls/objects. There are many issues when it comes to an open world where vehicles have more than 2/4 sits like in, say, GTA where all cars are essentially the same when it comes to entering/exiting. Since Chinook has a lot of sits and you will have to animate each and every one and since everyone will be exiting out of specific order it will become messy.

So basically my bet is - some vehicles may have them, but some won't.

Never heard of animation blending? Why not just make it possible to cancel the animation?

[160thSOAR 10]

As others have mentioned, I think animating the player himself would cause too much trouble to be worth it. Also, we already have enough trouble with the relatively short unbreakable grenade animations. Now imagine an unbreakable animation several times as long. :/ Urgh.

I like the idea however. I think that simply having to open the doors of a vehicle to change positions (i.e. to get in a Humvee you have to open the door, to get in a BTR you have to open the proper hatch, etc) would be enough. It would greatly add to the realism and not cause large problems in combat like a full animation would.

[Smurf 12]

Well, they are working in a (complete; i hope) new animation system.

Doors and ramps (for IFV\APCs\Helos) would be really neat, but other problem is the AI coupling with it.

[liquidpinky 11]

lol what? i am pretty sure you don't mean the human interaction

Hell no, just the guns themselves.

The reload animations etc are pretty dire at the moment in A2.

[maddogx 13]

Long animations need not be unbreakable, and there are solutions for most of the problems mentioned here and in other threads. As always it just comes down to how much time and resources BI is able to invest in these "cosmetic" things.

Consider the following:

- Vehicles with many seats, such as large transport choppers, have been mentioned as being problematic. Solution: Instead of making many animations the whole way from the door/hatch/ramp to each seat, allow players to enter and move about the interior of large vehicles freely and move to the seats themselves. Then you can re-use the same (short and simple) sit-down/get-up animation for each seat. This does, of course, come with its own problems, as moving about inside cramped spaces has never been a strong point of the RV engine.

- Regarding the potential clipping issue with obstructed doors (parking a HMMWV next to a wall, for example), it would need to be checked whether the door can actually be opened (ideally by physically opening the door and detecting collisions). If not, exiting the vehicle through that door should simply be impossible. Players could then switch seats inside the vehicle to disembark through a different door.

[r20 10]

ArmA III must overhaul the game, it should be improved by miles.

I think scopes should look like this

Perhaps there could be some kind of cover system not crouching leaning

(Notice how he says that it takes 3 months for 1 tank interior.)

Another demo.

What do you think?

Edited February 22, 2012 by R20+

[Maio 293]

The above two topics have been discussed to death :). The only thing we can do it wait for an official dev statement regarding 3D scopes and cover systems. Although if I recall Lord Ivan was reluctant to talk about both of them and kinda dismissed the cover system. However Smookie is now a BIS dev and who knows what wall hugging/climbing goodness we will get in ArmA 3 :)

[metalcraze 290]

Never heard of animation blending? Why not just make it possible to cancel the animation?

How will you cancel the animation during exiting from a tank where you open the hatch, crawl through it and then move to the ground for example? There's no way. Even if by cancelling you mean playing it backwards to get back in - it still exposes you to an enemy fire for a very long time. In reality of course there are many other ways a human can react in but predicting and including them into a game is nigh to impossible.

Exiting a jeep in Far Cry 2 is really fast, same could be for ArmA III. There should definately be APC boarding animations, back doors opening... If there are objects blocking doors they shouldnt open ?... This is a simulator right?

Far Cry 2 has you jumping in and out of jeep - something that has no place in a sim where you can get some traumas doing that with that backpack of yours. Also in Far Cry 2 there's 1 dude per car if you catch my drift.

And the drift is like - take a gunner position for example. What if your humvee has 4 places taken and you want exactly that 5th dude to be a gunner? So basically for animation to look natural BIS will have to enforce at least one of the dudes in the back to exit the car so the dude can get into the gunner's position otherwise the car will be blocked for him. This is all good and all but what about the gameplay?

Even more. What if a dude in one of the sits got shot? But I guess when taking his place BIS can still have his body teleport outside of a car?

Also boarding APCs is one thing. Exiting APCs will be hard or impossible to do without enraging the players due to extreme vulnerability since everyone will have to wait for their turn to exit with an unbreakable animation otherwise it will turn into a mess.

Giving other games as an example is easy because all of them have only one guy entering/exiting the vehicle and not a squad of 8 people.

Perhaps there could be some kind of cover system not crouching leaning

Why would you want a cover system in a PC game?

Cover systems were made so it will be possible for extremely imprecise gamepads to not have their owners get shot as they try to hide behind some box.

Why would you need them with the keyboard and mouse considering that cover systems take away almost all control from the player and in case of RO2's one - completely unrealistic with hollywood-ish blindfire? In RO2 you can't even stay on overwatch behind some low wall. You are either completely blind behind it or looking down the sights. And thus it turns into a game of whac-a-mole like it is the case with all other consolish cover systems where enemies just jump up and down behind some box.

I think save for 3D scopes RO2 shouldn't be used as an example as it is a very hollywoodish shooter.

Edited February 22, 2012 by metalcraze

[saltatormortis 12]

i think this break up a animation discusion is absurd..

have you ever put a splint back inside a granade after you pulled it out?

sometimes its good that some animations are not breakable but on otherhand at somepoints its bad...

the moveable cargo is sadly not possible at every car. (limb breaking on trucks :-))

for closed cars you have to make the skript search the closest open Door(reachable) and disembark automaticly(play the needed animations but skip the sitdown on every seat).

because manual seatswitching is bad for my option... it takes too long

but we dont need a animation exiting..

for my opinion we need only a "realistic" delay thats enoth for the beginning(the animations can come later)...

the most thing i hate is the instant exiting(if thats away im happy)..

[r20 10]

What about standing up and running yourself inside APC?

And fast animations are better than no animations? Atleast opening car doors teleporting inside and closing doors (Dragon rising/Red river did it)? Like on some vechiles its possible to open cargo doors. What about opening tank hatch standing up on tank, and the player takes over? It doenst have to be for all vechiles and all seats but for most?

BTW Will there be tank interior for gunner? ( I don't keep a track of A3 updates)

(Ironically DR also had thermal vision before OA did ;D.)

Edited February 22, 2012 by R20+

[metalcraze 290]

What about standing up and running yourself inside APC?

What if other 8 guys are doing this too?

And fast animations are better than no animations?

What about complaints that animations look bad if too fast?

Atleast opening car doors teleporting inside and closing doors?

As I've said I wouldn't mind this if no other solution is found

Like on some vechiles its possible to open cargo doors. What about opening tank hatch standing up on tank, and the player takes over?

Standing up on a tank when your tank got taken out of the combat which means you are still in the enemy sights is a bad bad idea. There will be a lot of whining from players (me included) that standing up on the tank will make them a "shoot me" beacon.

I certainly would like full entering/exiting animations for cars which are simple but when it comes to tanks, APCs, choppers... Well I have trouble seeing how it can be done to not break the gameplay too much and to please animation-junkies enough at the same time. Maybe BIS has a better vision on this.

[Smurf 12]

Why would you need them with the keyboard and mouse considering that cover systems take away almost all control from the player and in case of RO2's one - completely unrealistic with hollywood-ish blindfire? In RO2 you can't even stay on overwatch behind some low wall. You are either completely blind behind it or looking down the sights. And thus it turns into a game of whac-a-mole like it is the case with all other consolish cover systems where enemies just jump up and down behind some box.

I think save for 3D scopes RO2 shouldn't be used as an example as it is a very hollywoodish shooter.

None of the above statements is true. You played the game of just watched some random videos and read the rant from realism nuts around?

Standing up on a tank when your tank got taken out of the combat which means you are still in the enemy sights is a bad bad idea. There will be a lot of whining from players (me included) that standing up on the tank will make them a "shoot me" beacon.

If Fire while in cover => Hollywood, wtf are you saying there?

Someone already made the get in\out animations for the tank hatch in A1 and you had to climb the whole way to the turret to do so.

[smookie 11]

Although if I recall Lord Ivan was reluctant to talk about both of them and kinda dismissed the cover system. However Smookie is now a BIS dev and who knows what wall hugging/climbing goodness we will get in ArmA 3 :)

Sadly, I don't know either ;)

[fraczek 4]

What about standing up and running yourself inside APC?

Well, have you tried standing up and running inside an APC in RL? In full combat gear? Offroad?

I did, and even with it moving slowly, you are really cramped and glad that your helmet saves you all the bumps on your head you would get otherwise. With a backpack and some gear, you fit very snuggly and very very close to your comrades even if you are of lean build. Your knees are literally between the knees of the guy in front of you. Even getting inside it is a chore if its near full, in most such vehicles, there is no space to move inside at all unless crawling on the others.

OTOH, opening doors in cars/IFVs/... would be pretty nice. As somebody else said, you could take cover behind them like in RL, and imagine that lucky RPG shot into open rear hatch of a BMP just as the opfor squad inside prepares to disembark... :)

[frostwyrm333 1]

this depends heavily on whether the new animation system will be implemented. its incredibly hard to add new animations, so they are avoiding it. These things are trivial in modern games but in arma its a big problem.

animation blending etc. is impossible on current arma anim system.

Opening doors - the same, they could do an animation of that, but only in one position, player can face door from different angles etc. It would look weird.

Long animations - IMO possibility in A3, if they can do whatever animation->rag doll, so crewman could be shot while climbing, but again with old anim system they would have to record all the animations.

TKOH animations were recorded just for a few helis, I doubt they would do the same for everything.

[r20 10]

It's probably been discussed, but will ArmA III use Take On Helicopters advanced pilot interaction with aircraft?

[Maio 293]

No word on that, however it will use the flightmodel , but not in the SP campaign.