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

[funyun 12]

Crawls over pebble, forced to stand up.:j:

[thefinn 3]

Was watching a video earlier where someone had made a soundtrack and done a lot of camera work which looked great against a desert backdrop with the sun going down.

Then the soldiers got out of the helicopter and just looked god awful doing it. I thought "man they should so add an animation for each seat in a helicopter for people getting out of the damned thing." (Instead of just appearing next to it).

This was maybe an hour ago.

They made how many 10's of millions (or more?) on the game. We put up with all kinds of awful AI shenanigans and don't say much, but they could at least spring for some decent animations for these kinds of things.

So I gotta agree.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

i think people don't realise what the real reasons are why there aren't many animation related mods for the arma series (total lack of tools, documentation or even a simple rig aside).

Absolutely. The most requests I get are "Hey, you can do this, why not stow the rifle across the chest instead of putting it on the back" and every time I get that thousand yard stare just thinking about how much work would a simple thing like that require.

And whenever you try to talk about the animation system, most people always jump on how they look. This thread, exhibit one.

[roshnak 41]

And whenever you try to talk about the animation system, most people always jump on how they look. This thread, exhibit one.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I haven't seen that much concern with the way individual animations look in this thread. There hasn't really been much critiquing of stances or the way characters hold their guns or walk or anything. It seems to have been mostly gameplay stuff, to the extent that several people are even talking purely about movement mechanics (which is probably due to the wording of the OP). There have definitely been some misunderstandings, but there also seems to have been a decent amount of talk about the animation system in this thread, so far.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I haven't seen that much concern with the way individual animations look in this thread. There hasn't really been much critiquing of stances or the way characters hold their guns or walk or anything. It seems to have been mostly gameplay stuff, to the extent that several people are even talking purely about movement mechanics (which is probably due to the wording of the OP). There have definitely been some misunderstandings, but there also seems to have been a decent amount of talk about the animation system in this thread, so far.

Yes, agreed, but there's been a lot of talk to clarify why people are comparing it to BF4 and trying to explain it to the "well why don't you play that then" apologists. There's been people attributing it to "design" when it's just outdated tech nobody bothered to do anything about, there's also been people taking unwarranted pot shots at the mocap people, comparing the amount of actions you can do, etc.

If both games had only one animation that looks exactly the same way in both games and that was to lift the characters arm 90 degrees, Arma system would still be greatly inferior.

It's been a mix of people who understand that technicality of it and the people who don't, that keep labeling them as some kind of BF4 fanboys.

Edited June 5, 2015 by Sniperwolf572

[cobrosstuidos 12]

Making games is hard. BI doesn't have the power/talent/money behind them that DICE has. Give them time.

[stilton 0]

I think.... (Not that anybody asked)

- People citing that bf4 video as the greatest thing ever... Then (and quite rightly) only one person? points out the fact the soldier can spin his entire upper-body 180* fracturing his spine to look behind him? That shit happened in the original Half-Life.

And to compare that part of the 'animation system' to Arma 3 -- surely in terms of 'realism' or just looks -- Arma 3 is better there no?

I mean, i understand what people are saying about 'slidey feet' when people pivot and what-not but (and i'm by no means an expert on the arma specific implementation) surely that's just a by-product of the upper-body disconnect and pelvis region slowly transitioning to match up with the orientation of the upper-body... They can either limit your range of motion to what is realistic for a human being, thereby lessoning 'player control' which is what they had when they had things like 'aiming deadzone' and jesus what a shit-storm that setting brought up...

..Or they can have it like counterstrike, and have the animations completely disconnected and not synchronized, as has been said previously, floaty cam.. Which isn't arma.

...Or they could have some sort of hybrid system, but i don't see anyone here suggesting the 'perfect system' ... And i doubt one of the current devs is going to dream-up an all-new system overnight that completely and perfectly replaces the current system. Maybe we could help with that?

*looks over current thread*

..Or not.

What we do have now is leaps ahead of the far-more-static previous iterations of the engine, and i applaud the devs on that.

...and i am confident that, as CoBrosStuidos said above, the people, who have the knowledge of how it works under-the-hood, will be able to improve on it.

...I'd also posit the only reason it's apparently so egregious "OH MA GAWD HIS FEETS SLIDED" is because you've not died 14 times in the last 30 seconds and you're actually getting a moment to observe your surroundings and take in the visuals as opposed to getting blasted by lights, bombarded by colours and flashy icons:

"nut shot +50 Battle credits"

" NEW MRE RECIPE [ Cottage Pie ] Uploaded to your UAV "

*goes into epileptic seizure*

Edited June 8, 2015 by Stilton

[babylonjoke 22]

I mean if you can't turn 180° without moving your torso or feets you 100% are a COD/BF player or you probably have never been in the Army, therefore you suck for begin a BF player and you don't deserve to compare A3 tech to BF ones.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

- People citing that bf4 video as the greatest thing ever... Then (and quite rightly) only one person? points out the fact the soldier can spin his entire upper-body 180* fracturing his spine to look behind him? That shit happened in the original Half-Life.

And to compare that part of the 'animation system' to Arma 3 -- surely in terms of 'realism' or just looks -- Arma 3 is better there no?

Trust me, the way that video looks has nothing to do with the system underneath it. Nobody is advocating for 360° spine bending. What they're saying is that the animation system has capabilities to blend multiple animations together incrementally to achieve something like that. Besides if you look at the finer details you'll notice that the guy adjusts animation according to the two parameters that the anim system has been fed. The "direction" of the soldier and the "view direction" of the soldier. When you rotate like that, it's blended so it looks constantly appropriate. While yes, they probably overdid the point where the "direction" changes so it looks slightly weird in the standing pose, it's not something they can't change. Crouched rotation is much better configured.

What happens in A3 when you do this on the other hand is that you are in a static animation and if your angular rotation exceeds a certain threshold, you do a "shuffle" animation. If you do it slowly enough "shuffle" never triggers and you're rotating on your belly, etc.

Again, BF4 is just an example of the underlying system in action. If you want to look at similar solutions, search for "animation blend tree" on YouTube. The whole "body attachment" and what the camera does is not specific to any animation system. What happens in 3rd and 1st person is completely up to the developer. You can do whatever you want with the camera.

Anyway, here's an example of Unitys Mecanim/Blend tree system, if the only thing that you can associate with BF4 is killstreaks and flashing points.

Edited June 8, 2015 by Sniperwolf572

[gibonez 18]

The lack of momentum, ability to sprint instantly to top speed and zig zaging back and forth while straffing are all more jarring imo than robotic animations.

[il_padrino 1530]

Just saw this leak from Dayz today

http://i.imgur.com/lZZu8k3.gif (1809 kB)

http://i.imgur.com/9xJlRDr.gif (2748 kB)

Proves BI can make good modern stuff when they want it, it's just they have different priorities (Dayz>Arma3)

Edited June 8, 2015 by il_padrino

[bad benson 1733]

The lack of momentum, ability to sprint instantly to top speed and zig zaging back and forth while straffing are all more jarring imo than robotic animations.

both are actually connected though. the robotic look and unrealistic movements being possible are both due to nothing happening under the hood except anim playback and blending. the examples you give there describe very well how not capable the anim system is.

procedurally changing animation playback speed is actually already in the engine though as can be seen by anims being slowed down by fatigue (well known slowmo effect). and when you control a rabbit you can also see it, when it accelerates/deccelerates like a vehicle and the anim plays slower or faster accordingly. it's by far nothing to brag about. same as IK it's just uninspiredly dropped in there and not being put to good use. reminds of how physX was "implemented". but it's there.

--------------------------

why does arma feel different? because it's more clunky. is that a good thing? i don't think so.

i mean due to the much softer transitions arma 3 already feels like a worse version of most shooters out there (and btw looks more like CS:GO than bf4 with all the ice skating happening now).

i can't see arma 4 (?) moving away from that direction.

there's nothing sim or complex about arma character movement like for example the momentum and leaning into turns you can see when he sprints in that unity video.

---------------------------

@il_padrino: i could totally live without anims like that, if basic movement was improved instead. i feel like the animation data itself was never the main problem. and it's even wasted effort imho.

although this reminds me of another very outdated thing. getting on ladders and into vehicles is really bad too. the transition is nonexistent. for getting in and out of vehicles the screen even blends to black shortly to hide the fact that you basically just teleport.

by being able to procedurally move the root bone you could make smooth getting into vehicles and even things like climbing happen in a proper way.

i think the player controller itself needs to be revamped/redone too. this could help fixing the horrible way the character "interacts" with terrain and especially objects "physically".

but fuck all that, right? only epilepsy inducing arcade games do that shit :p

Edited June 8, 2015 by Bad Benson

[chrisb 196]

Just saw this leak from Dayz today

http://i.imgur.com/lZZu8k3.gif (1809 kB)

http://i.imgur.com/9xJlRDr.gif (2748 kB)

Proves BI can make good modern stuff when they want it, it's just they have different priorities (Dayz>Arma3)

That's just a 'Bus Simulator' game they're working on.. :p

Edited June 16, 2015 by ChrisB

[x3kj 1247]

As long as weapons and gear clip through each other all over the place i don't care about sliding feet. Way too much efford repairing all that to be worth it. New animation system - yes please. Those small things are a waste of time imo however, you will never get it perfect enough to be "realistic", so why bother?

If you examine everything very closely you will always find a problem or something that's not good...

[bad benson 1733]

you will never get it perfect enough to be "realistic", so why bother?

that was kinda my point. sorry if i wasn't clear. i have no problem with sliding feet whatsoever. as i have said before. it's a symptom of common methods to get more responsive controls (player controller > animation). arma more than ever is not that different to most shooters.

so yes, exactly! what's the point of still doing it like that, if there's no benefit and only drawbacks?!

about the gear. i think arma does a solid job when it comes to clipping, if you consider the amount of gear items the animations have to work with. before you show me a really extreme example i'd say that it's by far less worth looking into than how characters move. the latter is right in your face all the time. the former is only noticable from close examination, ironically :p it's just your personal pet peeve.

[x3kj 1247]

I'm saying that without sliding feet you still have dozens other things that make it just so it's not completely "immersive" (whatever the hell that means)... It's like water drops on a hot boulder if you try and fix the little things.

Just click on random gear button in the loadout editor and you will see an awefull lot of clipping. Not animation based clipping neccessarily.

[bad benson 1733]

you mean like arms clipping into mag pouches and stuff, right? i dunno. i've never noticed. but i also barely used the arsenal so that's probably why. ;)

and yea i get your point. totally agree with it. although i have to say, in line with the OP, that some of the stuff about turning (slow prone turn and missing turn anims) would be relatively easy fixes that should be possible without having to overhaul everything, as in arma 3 instead of hypothetical future armas. still don't see it happening though.

[babylonjoke 22]

Well since they closed the other thread, let's bring it there

No comment from me.

[pete10 0]

Man that's terrible

---------- Post added at 13:04 ---------- Previous post was at 13:00 ----------

Better. Though still some moon walking:

[il_padrino 1530]

Well since they closed the other thread, let's bring it there

No comment from me.

Sweet mother of God...

[pete10 0]

Notice in this vid how patrolling soldiers generally hold their rifles high across their chest. Usually resting them on top of their magazine rig.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JlfkSpRTLaQ

No spinning on one spot either!

[Jona33 51]

Notice in this vid how patrolling soldiers generally hold their rifles high across their chest. Usually resting them on top of their magazine rig.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JlfkSpRTLaQ

No spinning on one spot either!

They did bring a new walking animation into devbranch with two hands on the weapon, it was pretty similar to the ARMA II one, they said it would reappear in a bit.

[chrisb 196]

Movement style in A3 is not great. The A2 movements (with smk), certainly the walking movement, was better, well from a brit's point of view I suppose.

[gibonez 18]

Well since they closed the other thread, let's bring it there

No comment from me.

Looks terrible but even more jarring is the ability to just switch direction instantly almost at light speed.

[babylonjoke 22]

Looks terrible but even more jarring is the ability to just switch direction instantly almost at light speed.

I always admired people complaining about "jumP" animation because they are scared of bunny hopping but never gave a fuck about the fact that a player can run around like a crazy fucker changing direction so quickly and without getting hit once.

Realism... I guess.