This game is about realism, right? Human movement still the biggest immersion killer.

[Opticalsnare 12]

Personnally i can't stand the way the movement feels ingame, it feels like im operating a remote control robot with a time delay. The best movement ive experienced so far is Vanishing of Ethan Carter the movement in that is fluid and butter smooth.

[vran. 13]

I like the movement and controls in A3, certainly a big improvement over A2 which had pretty bad movement and overtly complicated control. Not sure to which other games you're comparing it but if it's arcade shooters like CoD, BF and C-S then I don't see the correlation. Maybe you mean the animations themselves rather than movement but that's just a visual thing. Although I will say that civilian movement is pretty bad and generally it's pretty obvious that the game wasn't designed for role playing missions which seem to be a popular game mode in A3.

[pulstar 55]

Personnally i can't stand the way the movement feels ingame, it feels like im operating a remote control robot with a time delay. The best movement ive experienced so far is Vanishing of Ethan Carter the movement in that is fluid and butter smooth.

My same feeling. Since this game is mod-friendly we should be able to decide how to control our virtual avatar soldier. Want a nimble experience? Enable Insurgency-esque controls, want immersion? Enable VR-specific controls.

[doveman 7]

Funny that GTA is mentioned. I was looking forward to the 1st person mode but it's terrible. There's no sense of having a body with parts that move as you walk, it's like being on rails and gliding about and there's no sense of which way your body's facing. Third person animations might be better than A3 but I never use 3rd in ArmA, as it would ruin the immersion.

[bad benson 1733]

GTA's tech is impressive but putting it into arma exactly how it is in GTA would make no sense since the gameplay requirements are different. the "on rails" body simulation in GTA is awesome, looks natural and is what causes all those hilarious moments. it suits the game perfectly. not so much arma since arma is basically a shooter. so you need more control. that doesn't mean though that the tech behind it couldn't be totally useful for arma. it is tuned a certain way in GTA. and it can be tuned another way for Arma.

btw i'm not proposing euphoria for arma. just saying.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

As far as body movement I would like advanced wounding simulation.

I want to see a players leg get torn off and fly through the air after a close explosion, and things like this :)

[pulstar 55]

And as has been mentioned countless times before, animation transitions are clunky at best. Say your soldier is behind cover, he wants to switch to an anti-armor weapon to take out an incoming APC, but the way Arma does it, he will stand upright till the animation plays out, making him more than vulnerable. In real life soldiers are more nimble than that. I'd rather have a bit of Insurgency-esque controls (minus the silly jumping and crouch-slide)

[mr.g-c 6]

Check here:

Notice how the character pivots then gets up and turns when kneeling.

In Arma you turn like a top on the spot.

Wow! I'd love to see such animations in ArmA. They CAN do this with their own MoCap studios i believe. Maybe something for the expansion? :-)

[froggyluv 2136]

^^^ Hands down best battle animations in the field. Always to sped up with ability to be too twitchy, nonetheless are fantastic.

[doveman 7]

the "on rails" body simulation in GTA is awesome, looks natural

I'll have to disagree with you, I find it neither awesome or natural. ArmA3 is already much better IMHO.

[bad benson 1733]

I'll have to disagree with you, I find it neither awesome or natural. ArmA3 is already much better IMHO.

i think we're talking about two different things. i agree on the 1st person in GTA. you can tell that it's patched in and in my opinion the game is designed around 3rd person. although i find the super small FOV much worse than the body simulation. i think the latter is more a matter of getting used to.

arma is of course "better" in that regard.

however. arma fails were GTA succeeds when it comes to actual physical simulation of the body. transitional ragdoll and anatomical intelligence (reflexes to slow your fall with your arms and all that other nice euphoria stuff) or whatever you want to call it. which of course equals to some kind of loss of control. arma doesn't even attempt to do these things. so "fails" might be the wrong word. these are the things that make GTA unique and cause many awesome moments. it would be pretty lame, if it would be like any other shooter tbh.

when it comes to responsiveness every single shooter out there is "better" than GTA too in that regard, and better than arma some might argue. in GTA it's by design though. it's there to create slapstick moments. it's just fun to see someone being run over or seeing your character fall from a high place hitting several objects on the way down and seeing him/her react to it. it'S like watching a fail compilation on youtube ;). and it can be done because you don't need the precision you need in a shooter.

the drawback of more control is of course that it looks way less natural from 3rd person in most cases, looks (sliding feet, unnatural transitions, god awful ragdoll, lack of reaction to physical forces etc in arma's case).

but of course more loss of control feels less natural to some people. the closer you are to classic shooter floaty camera the more you feel in control. it's a no brainer. but you quickly end up doing things that a human body is not capable of. even in clunky armaland.

actually i personally would love, if arma would control even more like other shooters. because now in arma 3 the feet slide anyways (way more than in arma 2) and i just don't see the game ever succeeding at creating meaningful movement limits, if it's attempted using that old broken animation system.

what i'd take from GTA any day though is anything that happens when you ragdoll/lose control. bullet hits, being hit by a car, falling down a rocky slope. it's light years ahead in that regard.

[chompster 29]

What annoys me the most is that these exact same clunky, immersion breaking and lacking animations are being used for the Ai! I'v pondered this theory many times and while personally convinced I'm sure those more knowledgeable can tell me how completely wrong i am, but another major factor to why the Ai is so utterly shit in Arma is due to the lack of animations(which baffles me considering they have their own mocap studio..)

While the current amount of animations and their transitions can without a doubt be expanded upon and be vastly improved, i can put up with them as a player. But what gets me is that the Ai is so damn robot like and are basically turrets because there are so many things that they need to be able to do but can't because they lack the animations nor can they react as fast as players do.

In no way do i like making comparisons between games, especially not with Arma and others, but looking at things like BF and... CoD.. you can clearly see that the Ai have their own much larger pool of animations which they use to make them far more mobile and interactive. Yes yes arma is bigger and more calculations and so on and so forth blah blah.. but that doesn't change the fact that the Ai in arma can't quickly and effectively get in cover because it is bound to the same animations we are(and has some pretty sketchy pathfinding) and it can't even use them properly! From standing still to moving they tend to zig zag before getting into a line, they start walking slowly when close to something, constantly going prone, make huge circles around a vehicle before getting in eventhough standing right next to the door/spot they need to get in, barely if ever lean, heck as far as I'm aware they can't even use the advanced stances!

So please anyone who knows better feel free to tell me how wrong i am, where and why, but so far I'm convinced that they desperately need to add more Ai specific animations such as a surprised ducking turn when being shot from behind, a crouch run into cover, ducking up and down when in cover, leaning on a corner or door and looking back and forth(but with a more realistic tone of course, no sticking his head out for 4 seconds like a moron), climbing over low walls/obstacles, pretty much any animation you see baddies do in other games that vastly help their mobility

Just looking at what the DayZ team is doing to their engine in regards to animations(animation blending, retaining control while switching weapon or any item, being able to control how much you eat or drink(the animation plays) by clicking and holding) alone is a clear indicator that there clearly is a possibility for change, but i honestly don't have a shred of confidence we'll ever see it done for Arma3. Here hoping that if they do another arma they really improve the game on this part(among many others..)

Man have i wanted to get this off my chest since forever..

Edited June 1, 2015 by Chompster

[roshnak 41]

actually i personally would love, if arma would control even more like other shooters. because now in arma 3 the feet slide anyways (way more than in arma 2) and i just don't see the game ever succeeding at creating meaningful movement limits, if it's attempted using that old broken animation system.

On top of this, though, it doesn't have to look bad. Take that BF4 animations video for example. Most of those animations look pretty good and natural, and that game controls like most other shooters.

So please anyone who knows better feel free to tell me how wrong i am, where and why

I'm pretty sure you're wrong. People keep confusing animations with movement and behavior. Things like zig zagging before getting into a line, walking when too close to objects, constantly going prone, and making huge circles around a vehicle before getting in have nothing to do with animations, really. The AI could be completely unanimated, just sliding around with their arms sticking out and their behavior would be the same. Alternatively, they could be exceptionally well animated and these problems would still exist.

Specialized animations like you suggest -- for reactions to being shot at, AI specific cover animations, etc. -- could certainly help make the AI appear more believable in some instances (although it would also make it very obvious who was a player and who wasn't), but it's not going to fix the underlying problems with AI pathfinding, cover usage, or stance selection. It'll just make them look really cool while sliding into cover facing the wrong direction.

If the animations are good enough to allow a player to run up and take cover behind a car, leaning out to take a shot every once in a while, they are good enough to allow the AI to do the same.

Edited June 2, 2015 by roshnak

[Defunkt 431]

I think Frostbite is the gold standard in shooter engines, I'm a big fan, but it's the product of God-only-knows how many millions of dollars of investment by EA.

Arma gets the job done very nicely now, the animations have always looked very good to me and I think there's little to complain about with regard to most of the first person experience these days (with the possible exception of switching to/from a launcher). The introduction of 'slidey feet' is a shame but the compromise seems sensible.

I'm sure I could (quite literally) rattle off 50 or 100 other things about Arma that are more in need of work.

[toadie2k 799]

Notice how the character pivots then gets up and turns when kneeling.

In Arma you turn like a top on the spot.

^^^ Hands down best battle animations in the field. Always to sped up with ability to be too twitchy, nonetheless are fantastic.

Wow! I'd love to see such animations in ArmA. They CAN do this with their own MoCap studios i believe. Maybe something for the expansion? :-)

I think Frostbite is the gold standard in shooter engines, I'm a big fan, but it's the product of God-only-knows how many millions of dollars of investment by EA.

Arma gets the job done very nicely now, the animations have always looked very good to me and I think there's little to complain about with regard to most of the first person experience these days (with the possible exception of switching to/from a launcher). The introduction of 'slidey feet' is a shame but the compromise seems sensible.

I'm sure I could (quite literally) rattle off 50 or 100 other things about Arma that are more in need of work.

So here's why picking Frostbite2 is a VERY poor comparison for animation - EA and DICE poured a CRAPLOAD of money and resources into porting across EA Sports' proprietary sport kinematics package to make it work in more generic applications. More than probably BIS could reasonably throw at an ENTIRE game. The reasons were twofold- so that Frostbite 2 would not only be a viable, multi-purpose "in-house" engine, but also to make a significant tech bullet point for potential licensors outside of EA. I'd speculate they spent about as much doing it as they did their incredibly robust sound engine, for same results. It was a drawcard for the tech, and because of that it's basically on top of the pack for kinematic frameworks in game engines. No, you're better looking at like a Call of Duty, which in MP STILL handles much like Arma's motion does.

Now having said that, yes Arma's kinematics system needs work, but at it's core it's already pretty solid. It's got limb-based IK solvers, pose interp, motion masking. It's not THE most powerful suite, but it's far from the worst. Basically everything that Frostbite uses at it's core is there, but it's one main detraction is tied to Arma's OTHER key engine problems. Like how rendering is tied to simulation and thus drags down performance due to simulation-heavy processing times, Arma's animation system is inextricably dependant on simulation- everything in character animation is linked by fixed animation states. That is to say, for example if they unit is crouched and not moving, that's one state with is one animation defined for it, same for moving forward, backwards, drawing a sidearm, reloading, etc. All 1:1, you can't have more than one animation per action state, and they don't allow for transitive phases, which is what you want with the turning. As it stand now you'd have to make turning left/right on the spot unique actions. Now it CAN be done, but for that one change, but it'd be fairly hacky without some solid background work (some of which BI looks like they did the groundwork for in #bipods, but given this is entirely not even a mechnaical improvement, I wouldn't count on ever being done)

Ideally what needs to happen is to decouple it from the simulation. Allow it to run in a more generic state to do more contextual sub-sequences per animation (which is what turning basically boils down to), and that can really only happen around the same time they're looking at the renderer. Considering at least as we the public know about the chances of that happening in Arma3's life, you're PROBABLY not going to see it happen until Arma4.

I mean make of that what you will, just my thoughts as an animator.

[bad benson 1733]

there's one thing though that Arma does waaaay better that battlefield due to its true first person approach. the actual presentation of where parts of your body are. the fact that bf4 still has this problem annoys me to no end.

what i mean is the fact that in bf4 someone can shoot you from behind an object while only one centimeter of the top of his head is showing while on his screen he is having his whole upper body (the gun and everything above) showing. and the worst part is that true first person or not. i wouldn't have to be like that.

my biggest problem visually in arma is what has been mentioned by someone too. the fact that animations look horrible when you look at other players in MP. makes it look ten times worse than it actually is.

Ideally what needs to happen is to decouple it from the simulation.

yes! this is exactly the whole problem.

for example the way the main 3 inventory weapon slots dictating how the anim tree is structured and that even being tied to actual weapon simulation types (change sim type and the engine forces a different animation set...ugh). it's insane.

and many things are a matter of the system being overly complicated when it actually needs to be way simplified and instead made more modular and flexible to allow it to make all the necessary things happen.

the latter is why i think that the budget argument is not that valid imho. it doesn't need all the fancy bf4 stuff. it just needs to get rid of all the ofp stuff so the nice mocap anims can finally flourish.

in my time modding anim stuff i haven't come across a lot of things that made sense. usually it's more like "we set it up this way one time..now we can't change it anymore". and the IK stuff you mentioned while present needs to be actually finished and used properly to unleash its power. not to mention "gestures" which could be an immensly powerful tool, if it was used as a whole upper body system instead of a broken half excuse for one.

OThe AI could be completely unanimated, just sliding around with their arms sticking out and their behavior would be the same. Alternatively, they could be exceptionally well animated and these problems would still exist.

i actually experienced the opposite when working with the raptors for example. the more simple the animation tree the more effective the movement. and it's funny you mention the t-pose. once i made a test with zombie AI and due to an anim config bug they only had the t-pose. result: guided missile like hunting behavior.

i honestly think, while i agree with everything else you said, that animations are another additional factor why AI is so problematic. i still get nghtmares from working on the raptors ;) . doing hte simplest things is incredible hard or even impossible with the current anim system.

Edited June 2, 2015 by Bad Benson

[doveman 7]

i think we're talking about two different things. i agree on the 1st person in GTA. you can tell that it's patched in and in my opinion the game is designed around 3rd person. although i find the super small FOV much worse than the body simulation. i think the latter is more a matter of getting used to.

Ah right, yeah I was talking about 1st person.

[toadie2k 799]

in my time modding anim stuff i haven't come across a lot of things that made sense. usually it's more like "we set it up this way one time..now we can't change it anymore". and the IK stuff you mentioned while present needs to be actually finished and used properly to unleash its power. not to mention "gestures" which could be an immensly powerful tool, if it was used as a whole upper body system instead of a broken half excuse for one.

Oh, wholeheartedly agree with what you're saying, there is PLENTY of stuff that needs more work in there, but enough of it works that it IS workable on some level(even if that level is basically the comparative NIGHTMARE MODE for animating). I mean, if you want "broken, and can no longer be fucked trying to fix it", just look at the X-ray engine's animation implementation: Half-life 1 era skeleton system shambling along with a lack of English-speaking support or tools.Virtually inaccessible to anyone but Russian-native technovikings with a masochist streak, and the results are, blunty, mostly garbage.

Edited June 2, 2015 by toadie2k

[Fulcrum_ 10]

there's one thing though that Arma does waaaay better that battlefield due to its true first person approach. the actual presentation of where parts of your body are. the fact that bf4 still has this problem annoys me to no end.

what i mean is the fact that in bf4 someone can shoot you from behind an object while only one centimeter of the top of his head is showing while on his screen he is having his whole upper body (the gun and everything above) showing. and the worst part is that true first person or not. i wouldn't have to be like that.

Actually this was changed in the very latest patch so bullets spawn out of the gun instead of the head to eliminate the head glitching. Took them long enough but I do appreciate the support it still gets even though I'd have assumed they would just abandon BF4 for BF:H.

[chrisb 196]

Like so much in the forums, its not about the subject, but instead its about the people.. That's a shame.

OP: Yes the animations do break the immersion for some players, but I have to say I'm not one of those effected by that..

_

Endless circular arguments that get nowhere, thank god for other places to talk about Arma.

Edited June 3, 2015 by ChrisB

[vran. 13]

No offense but there's so much talking about Battlefield and what it does better than ArmA I sometimes get the feel I'm on a 'BF fan club' forum rather than an ArmA site... ;)

Don't really see the point of such comparisons personally, the games aren't even doing the same thing. BF is strictly TvT MP game with limited space maps and little in the ways of simulation-oriented gameplay whereas 'true' ArmA is team focused co-op play against AI in well-made missions on large, open maps. And it is also a sandbox game that had the player content creation thing going on way before it became 'trendy' and popular in the main-stream. :p

[PuFu 4600]

No offense but there's so much talking about Battlefield and what it does better than ArmA I sometimes get the feel I'm on a 'BF fan club' forum rather than an ArmA site... ;)

Don't really see the point of such comparisons personally, the games aren't even doing the same thing. BF is strictly TvT MP game with limited space maps and little in the ways of simulation-oriented gameplay whereas 'true' ArmA is team focused co-op play against AI in well-made missions on large, open maps. And it is also a sandbox game that had the player content creation thing going on way before it became 'trendy' and popular in the main-stream. :p

This isn't about the gameplay, but the animations system (which is indeed one of the best in BF3 and updwards). A fluid animation system would, together with the IK used correctly throughout the animation pipeline, allow both developers and modders to bring new content to life, and bring more immersion in.

BTW. you haven't contributed to the discussion with a single thing. expressing your ignorance doesn't count.

[vran. 13]

This isn't about the gameplay, but the animations system (which is indeed one of the best in BF3 and updwards). A fluid animation system would, together with the IK used correctly throughout the animation pipeline, allow both developers and modders to bring new content to life, and bring more immersion in.

BTW. you haven't contributed to the discussion with a single thing. expressing your ignorance doesn't count.

Well if BF is such a shining example of things ArmA should do, why not simply play that instead? Saying how 'thing X is better in game Y, therefore ArmA should have that too' seems counter-productive to me... :p

I don't mind discussions about things ArmA is either lacking in or not doing that good, I just see no point in constant comparsions with games that might not even be designed in the same way.

[PuFu 4600]

Well if BF is such a shining example of things ArmA should do, why not simply play that instead? Saying how 'thing X is better in game Y, therefore ArmA should have that too' seems counter-productive to me... :p

I don't mind discussions about things ArmA is either lacking in or not doing that good, I just see no point in constant comparsions with games that might not even be designed in the same way.

You seem to be stubborn enough to continue to express your lack of understanding and overall ignorance, not only in regards to ArmA as a game, but to what a sandbox is (sorry to burst your little bubble, but arma can be a TvT game just as much as a PvE game, alongside whatever else the scenario designer wants it to be - of course based on some scripting knowledge), but also in regards to how other game engines handles character animations. I could have said frostbyte in this case, but it is only partly related to the engine.

And because you seem to need to be explained point by point,i will simply gonna do that for you:

a. Every game out there, arma included uses animations. Most of todays animations, at least when characters are concerned are mocaped (locally or externally). Those are skeleton dependent to engine dependent. In other words mocap anim could work in any game out there with a similar skeleton setup.

b. Those animations are later put into the game for you to look at when you push your WSAD (and combo) keys.

c. The discussion here, as you don't seem to be able to grasp that, is based on the fact that there are certain legacy issues with the way those (otherwise beautiful animations) are implemented, and the fact that while some are implemented as "gestures" (new features in A3 that allows to reload on the move), things like changing weapons are still kept as legacy (although it is just as possible to have them as gestures as demonstrated here). More on the same point, allowing both IK and real time blending would allow more fluid interaction, which is related to the way both the human controlled character and AI interacts with their environment.

d. bringing up BF3 and BF4 animations system is simply for argument's sake. One could have brought the fifa francise just as well (same animation system), but since arma and bf are more related than arma and fifa, bf francise was used. If you failed to notice, i feel it is important to underline that only the animation was brought into the argument, not the gameplay, or any other parts of the said game. There was no comparison per say, just stating that allowing blends between static poses (besides the moving feet instead of pinned around the axis rotation) would not only create a more immersive depiction of human motion, but would also allow AI to react more freely without the current robotic-one-animation-at-a-time-approach

I feel i need to remind you that posting outside the scope of the thread is considered spam, and since you already posted non-sense twice, it might be wise to refrain yourself from making a fool of yourself for the third time

[bad benson 1733]

i will never understand why people get offended by discussions like that. yea the title of the thread kinda sucks and usually these threads start out pretty rough before turning into something constructive. but that's the nature of things.

you can't take an honest look on this game without some white knight getting butthurt. and i bet it's mostly grown men too which makes it even worse. you basically just said "go play bf4 kid". the mighty magic bullet argument.

Saying how 'thing X is better in game Y, therefore ArmA should have that too' seems counter-productive to me...

that makes zero sense. what is the constructive way in your opinion? oh i know. telling the devs: "you go guys! what you did is perfect. always has been since ofp. don't you get distracted by the competition and what they do. only a fool does that", right? no wonder you don't see the point in comparison with that kind of logic.

did you ever hear of comparison as means of illustrating something easier? so people are supposed to write long detailed essays about technical features now instead of just pointing at a good example of them working well? oh right, "you shall not speak its name". i forgot about the "rules" for a second. lol

I just see no point in constant comparsions with games that might not even be designed in the same way.

did you even read the post you responded to?