Switching weapons

[Masharra 10]

I was wondering if someone was going to post that video :D

[dunedain 48]

I was about to post it as well. I know the drill, not the same team, goals and so on but well VBS2 got features ages ago we are still all begging to see in ArmaIII such as full 3D editor, firing from passenger seats, accurate wounding model, underground stuctures ect... ect... We got the fog first though!

Edited June 25, 2013 by dunedain

[EDcase 87]

I think VBS took a different path to character animations from ARMA way back when it started.

VBS was started by BIS but branched out and became a separate product with different developments.

[roberthammer 582]

I think VBS took a different path to character animations from ARMA way back when it started.

VBS was started by BIS but branched out and became a separate product with different developments.

Sad but true - if they were on same "side" we could have even more features from it

[OrLoK 20]

Hello there

I'm also in favour.

I'd give up all the improvements that A3 has bought and would rather play A2 with decent smooth avatar control than A3 as is. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all that has gone into A3 and all those involved. But Avatar coontrol is a key aspect, at least to me.

A3 is a splendid huge step in the right direction (no pun intended) but it's little things like the binoc switch and weapon switch which cause me grief as did the old stop to reload animation.

I'm fully aware of the "BF3's just a cam"/"sim vs real life" arguments etc but for me avatar control is clunky. Improved? Vastly. But still clunky.

Now, I very much doubt we'll see a major change to the movement system any time soon but if "small" tweaks to old bugbears could be smoothed out, it'd really bring the game up to date.

If one has to "fight" to control the character then IMHO there's an issue. Being shot due to an inconsistent/irrelevant animation playing cause much frustration.

Again, I appreciate the improvements and if they stayed as is would not be a game breaker, but of the many issues I'd like to see fully sorted, player control is it.

Wave your magic wand devs. Add all the things.

Rgds

LoK

[Anachoretes 10]

If anything BF3 is more realistic with this.

Today, 99% of soldiers have their rifle on a sling..

BF3? Realistic? With 1sec swap? Even AT? Nope. We need proper animation with proper delay(certainly considering tri-strip slings and other fancy stuff). For me personally, important to see real humans, and not super swaphero from youtube. And i don't know how can help someone you video about raw swap?

[ZoneTrooper 10]

Hope they NEVER implement this requested feature,maybe on the firing range but never in ARMA 3 final.

[Smurf 12]

Why the hell not?

[fujix 11]

Why the hell not?

Dude, dont you know already? Its not realistic!!111

I mean how can you possibly rest your main weapon in real life and switch to your pistol while moving??? You have to stand still man. Multitasking cant be done irl!!

Go play CoD!

[tedats 1]

I can't post new threads or PM anybody, apparently due to the fact that I haven't created at least one new thread lol

Can an admin help me out? The list of people I was given that I could contact, was empty so apologies for this manner or requesting help but it does seem to be the only way.

Cheers!

Ted

[Anachoretes 10]

"Never Say Never Again" - Bond stopped and slowly pulled out a gun.... and killed a all.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Less instant and more appropriate now, yeah? Still a bunch of things to do, but ahem, engine limitations. :D

Apart from the little leg spasm that happens that I believe I can override, it even looks neat.

[Masharra 10]

Less instant and more appropriate now, yeah? Still a bunch of things to do, but ahem, engine limitations. :D

Apart from the little leg spasm that happens that I believe I can override, it even looks neat.

Looking great. How does it handle in the other stances whilst moving?

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Looking great. How does it handle in the other stances whilst moving?

I'm not planning to do it for prone, as I don't see anyone crawling and using their hands to swap weapons at the same time. As for crouched, basically imagine whatever the switch looks like now in your game when you stop and switch, except the legs and the unit will be moving. You have an animation playing for running, then the switch gesture plays over the torso part of the animation, overriding it with the "secondary animation". If you ever used the handsignals in Arma 2, that's the general idea.

The spasm happens because I cancel out the default "I'm going to stop and change weapons" with the switchmove for that stances default animation and it messes with the 3rd person camera a bit as well. I'm thinking if I can make those transition animations zero-length or blank animations it will look way better.

Additionally, I need to study the config for the animations, as right now, the weapon holding gesture gets overriden by the gesture, which I assume I can somehow interpolate/merge/mask via some config parameters, if I'm reading them correctly. The worst case scenario would be switch animations for each weapon so that little "jerk" doesn't happen, but even so, I'd rather move and switch weapons than be worried about the "jerk".

Good thing is, the gestures can prevent firing themselves so I don't need to do any work there, it... "just works".

I kinda gave up waiting for someone to offer themselves to do the gestures as I believe without it looking nice, it's pointless to do. But then it hit me today at work, "Hey, BI already made the animations for switching weapons, I'll just make them gestures", so I figured I'd give it a shot. :)

Anyway, I'm sure BI understands their system better than I do, considering the last time I messed with addons was back in the OFP days so they can do a much better job at this than I ever will if they decide to do so.

Also, first person:

Edited June 28, 2013 by Sniperwolf572

[Anachoretes 10]

Nice work. But looks too fast.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Nice work. But looks too fast.

Thanks. Duration is (should be) identical to the BI animations and you are prevented from firing for the same duration, except, you know, you're moving and stuff. It probably looks too fast because the weapon goes on back, would be much nicer and "real" if the default position for the rifle when not in use was the chest, but anyway, it is what it is. I'll upload a comparison in a few minutes as the default switch can still be accessed via the action menu. It can be adjusted either way.

---------- Post added at 21:17 ---------- Previous post was at 20:53 ----------

Here is the comparison. Time is about the same, except that when moving it appears that you can fire a bit earlier because i'm not standing in place. Reverse switch is for example, in the same way slower. But that's besides the point anyway for a proof of concept. Tweaking can happen later if this ends up actually being an addon. Weapon holding animations have now been blended in as well.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Sniperwolf572

[clifdenhill 1]

Whoa thts some proof of concept!

[EvenLease 11]

Seriously... if you were able to create this, they just need to get permission from ya and put it to use! :P

[Allory 10]

They definitely need to add changing weapons while moving. According the Rocket2guns DayZ has it, why can't Arma 3 have it?

[ghostnineone 10]

Is it possible to use animations from a2? I know smookie is a dev now, but the old SMK anim's had the character drop his rifle across his chest and pull out his handgun.

The way you have it now is pretty nice and I'd use it as is. It would be icing on the cake if he slung it across his chest or similar to rear sweep except just hanging

[Smurf 12]

Would be weird with big guns. Can you define these to use the on back (which is also weird, but less) for them?

[lev 21]

I agree that it would be a great change if weapon switching didn't freeze the player in place anymore. However, just FYI you can get gold on all the challenges even in the current state.

[fraczek 4]

This is the problem when you build a game off an engine that's over 12 years old :(

Doubt they can pull off changing weapons while moving before the game launches.

Nonsense re the engine. VBS 2.12 has weapon switching on the move and it's based on Arma 2 (sic!) engine. I guess same thing was with the reloading on the move back in A2 vs A2OA. It might not be easy, it might require engine changes or more animations for what I know, but quite probably it's possible. In VBS it does look a bit awkward, since it seems it's two animations spliced into half (lower torso running, upper torso changing weapons).

[HKFlash 9]

The question is, if this is possible to implement, why the hell did Vespa say it wasn't? :mad:

[fraczek 4]

I was more like responding to the "12 year old engine" argument with the VBS one. Of course I know completely nothing about how much work would it entail to have it in A3 :) Perhaps too much ATM...I guess at least the animations need to be reworked, manualy spliced together, and some engine work done. Keep in mind it took until VBS 2.12 to have that feature...