Armed Assault Video E3 Presentation

[dinger 1]

Again, listen to what Ebud said. A lot of what you're seeing is how it will be. If they want to be shipping in three months, they won't have time to redo animations or much of anything. So get used to it.

There are plenty of things that would be nice that just aren't going to happen. OFP 1.5 does not have by any appearances a "ragdoll physics" model. That means that animations have to be done by hand. That means that all the fancy motion-capture in the world isn't going to help them much with transitions.

The AI is not going to become genius overnight. I have a huge list of AI problems I'd like to see resolved, but that doesn't mean BIS will do it.

And guess what, no AI yet is perfect. With a bit of training, you can massacre them all. However, with OFP and some imagination, you can make it a challenge. But it requires that you contribute what the AI doesn't have: human creativity.

[Randy 0]

A lack of ragdolling has absolutely nothing to do with animation transitions. Like martinovic said, OFP had smooth and realistic looking transitions between animations.

Why would Arma take a step backward and suddenly look like Unreal Tournament in the animation department?

[gunterlund 0]

A lack of ragdolling has absolutely nothing to do with animation transitions. Like martinovic said, OFP had smooth and realistic looking transitions between animations.

Why would Arma take a step backward and suddenly look like Unreal Tournament in the animation department?

If the game is built like OFP, the community will be rebuilding the anims anyways(right Sanctuary ). So lets relax a little.

[ade_mcc 0]

Theres nothing in here that cant be tweeked with a patch or two. Failing that, the community will sort the rest out.

[dreday 1]

The AI is not going to become genius overnight. I have a huge list of AI problems I'd like to see resolved, but that doesn't mean BIS will do it.

And guess what, no AI yet is perfect. With a bit of training, you can massacre them all. However, with OFP and some imagination, you can make it a challenge. But it requires that you contribute what the AI doesn't have: human creativity.

I agree with your other points, but I don't see the value of this statement.

Of course, it's up to BIS to decide whether to improve the AI or not. All we can do, as fans of OFP and likely buyers of ArmA, is to express our wishes and suggestions. Yet, you can't blame us for being disappointed when we see that these suggestions were largely ignored (it's quite obvious that improved AI was not a big priority in ArmA development).

We all know that no AI will ever be perfect, but that's hardly a reason to give up on improving it.

Peace,

DreDay

[maxqubit 1]

Anyways,due to my lousy wording there was probably a misunderstanding.

No prob:)

To readers in general, just look at it this way ...

For the AI, any AI, their little electronic lives are at stake. They do their 100% best to stay alive. This is really fascinating to realize (have a look at battle at le port vid with music from platoon;).

Ok, AI doesn't resemble human intelligence so in the mix you will discover differences and think of AI as 'stupid' ... but that is not really fair towards the AI:)

But say, for the sake of argument, that your real life was at stake when playing ArmA. Would you even dare to startup the game? Would you still think of the AI as 'stupid'? No sir, you would be terrified by them LOL ...

We usually play ArmA (or other shooters) like paintball. You are killed but know that we always respawn into a new life/game session.

[dslyecxi 23]

A lack of ragdolling has absolutely nothing to do with animation transitions. Like martinovic said, OFP had smooth and realistic looking transitions between animations.

Why would Arma take a step backward and suddenly look like Unreal Tournament in the animation department?

Why jump to conclusions like that? It's entirely within reason and completely logical to assume that they're still working on transition animations.

Some of you have so little faith in BIS, it's incredible...

[NeMeSiS 11]

Some of you have so little faith in BIS, it's incredible...

Indeed, questions asked about the most logical things... People really think that everyone at BIS is blind, and every little thing has to be pointed out, multiple times if possible

I mean *Late Alpha*

That means the game isnt finished yet, and dont hope for everything you want, it wont be in! its an upgraded OFP like BIS said it would be! They said they trew in more stuff then planned already so be happy...

(and if something you hoped for happens to be in, well you are lucky )

[gunterlund 0]

The AI is not going to become genius overnight. I have a huge list of AI problems I'd like to see resolved, but that doesn't mean BIS will do it.

And guess what, no AI yet is perfect. With a bit of training, you can massacre them all. However, with OFP and some imagination, you can make it a challenge. But it requires that you contribute what the AI doesn't have: human creativity.

I agree with your other points, but I don't see the value of this statement.  

Of course, it's up to BIS to decide whether to improve the AI or not.  All we can do, as fans of OFP and likely buyers of ArmA, is to express our wishes and suggestions.  Yet, you can't blame us for being disappointed when we see that these suggestions were largely ignored (it's quite obvious that improved AI was not a big priority in ArmA development).

We all know that no AI will ever be perfect, but that's hardly a reason to give up on improving it.

Peace,

DreDay

Well then why dont we start making a list of things to do as a community based on these screen shots and movies so when the game comes out we can jump on it right away!!

[dslyecxi 23]

Well then why dont we start making a list of things to do as a community based on these screen shots and movies so when the game comes out we can jump on it right away!!

Crazy thought, I know, but maybe you guys should wait until the game's actually RELEASED before you start assuming that X and Y features are missing/broken?

[NeMeSiS 11]

Well then why dont we start making a list of things to do as a community based on these screen shots and movies so when the game comes out we can jump on it right away!!

I hope you are kidding!

[Goeth 0]

Pros:

-Great graphics

-Animations still much improved

-Awesomevidedistance

-Rivers!

-Switching feature was cool, seemed like a fully functioning battle

I don´t understand what is the big deal about those rivers, even FDF mod 1.1 had rivers on Eastborder.

[GBee 0]

They aren't even rivers anyway!

[ebud 18]

About the animations. FFS people, the complaint over the years has been bad movement in buildings, which equals bad cqb. Why was that??? Because the animation transitions caused the player and ai to continue moviing even after stopping movement. I'm not exactly sure, but the transitions from moving to stopping still moved you just enough to bounce off the walls. Now you explain to me how, with this engine and how it animates avatars, you can have extremely smooth movement transition animations AND have movement that will translate to precise movement inside structures?

I'm sure there are reasons why things look like they do.

[aus_twisted 0]

The things that I've mostly wanted in OFP are:

MP Join in progress.

Newer updated graphics engine that takes advantage of DX9.

Multiple gunners.

Better collision model.

Those features above have been included and or been improved on since OFP. The rest is a bonus for me, I'm looking forward to playing on the new island with all these great new looking units and vehicles as the core stuff.

The problem with such big hits as OFP was in 2001 is they are so good it's hard to give people that same feeling again because OFP was such a breakthrough game in many ways, now a lot of people expect to much for future versions.

[gunterlund 0]

Well then why dont we start making a list of things to do as a community based on these screen shots and movies so when the game comes out we can jump on it right away!!

I hope you are kidding!  

Absolutely. It cracks me up that people here are debating about how the blades of grass look on someone boots in a photo of an unfinished game.

[sanctuary 19]

About the animations. FFS people, the complaint over the years has been bad movement in buildings, which equals bad cqb. Why was that??? Because the animation transitions caused the player and ai to continue moviing even after stopping movement. I'm not exactly sure, but the transitions from moving to stopping still moved you just enough to bounce off the walls. Now you explain to me how, with this engine and how it animates avatars, you can have extremely smooth movement transition animations AND have movement that will translate to precise movement inside structures?

I'm sure there are reasons why things look like they do.

As i imagine not everyone has an idea how animations are played in OFP, here is a small informations, so you see better what Ebud is talking about :

As Ebud said, you all certainly noticed how really difficult were some of the OFP movements inside of a building for a player, and for the AI.

Why ?

Because of situation like this one : you are inside of a building, you crouch to give yourself a lower profile, then you want to run to the door and stay crouched there.

Here is the static animation for when you are in crouching stance (file named klek.rtm), until there, no problem

If you just press "move forward" to run to another position, the running animation (file named sbeh0l.rtm) will be soon played :

But in fact this running animation does not play immediately after you pressed forward : there is a transition animation file that will interpolate the "crouch" stance into the "run" animation before.

This transition animation (a file named klEkBEH.rtm) move the unit on a specific distance before the running file takes over, like indicated on this screenshot :

the unit is going from the crouching stance from the frame 0 then stand up to begin to run in frame 31, but during that animation , as i draw on the screenshot, as short distance is made by the unit.

For this distance you have few control as a player (as you can just rotate left or right during this transition animation is played, but while you as a player has few control, the AI has none during the duration of the transition.

That's why most of the time, moving inside building is annoying for a player that try to crouch, run, then crouch again as it put you in a slightly different position that you could expect.

For the AI it makes doing so a painfull process, and may explain why CQB inside of a building is difficult in OFP.

So a possible alternative is letting the OFP/ArmA engine to do the transition itself, like it happens when you press forward (so you run) and then you press the srpint key : there is no animation file that is making the transition between the run and srprint animation file, this way there is no "extra" distance added during which you have no control.

This allow you to stop right there.

But don't worry too much about animations, if you remember well, Placebo said it would be the last thing implemented, and it seems the game will not be released before 3 months.

so they always have 3 months to improve the small annoyances

[ebud 18]

thanks for explaining it in depth Sanctuary I'm probably wrong though.

[sanctuary 19]

I hope you recognize the model in OFPAnim

[l etranger 5]

Lord Guba !

[Blake 0]

Speaking of rivers and seas, I damn well hope they have removed the tides from AA. In OFP it was more like an annoyance than anything that would add to immersion. They affected all areas, like 'rivers' and lakes which was pretty unrealistic. However if they've done it realistically, no problem.

[chipper 0]

I remember reading somewhere that inland lakes are possible without being affected by tide in ArmA.

[ebud 18]

I think the tides really added iniitally to the immersion for beach landings, but it would be great if it were an option that can be turned on and off. I really hate it on islands that have terrain too low, you see the tides suddenly appear in the middle of nowhere, then disappear. Chalk that up to poor island terrain planning, but having the option to either change the tides or turn them off would be a nice thing to do.

[Web(13) 0]

check out the 16min vid, there you can see a river and a lake (its the scene with the flying cobra).

[ebud 18]

Yes, but are they elevated? Is the tide working on them?