justsome animations

[an_enlarged_stomach 1]

I watched the Russian trailer, and I have to say that I am very impressed. Howver, there are a few animation peeves I still have

1. hands not moving as helicopter gunner.

2. Non, animated vehicles-chopper doors moving when troops get out, car doors, hatches not opening.

3. Getting out AI animation-AI still seem to just "pop" out of a vehicle. Is it possible to get out more realistically?

Other thatn that, everything is great.

[Gustav62 0]

I watched the Russian trailer, and I have to say that I am very impressed. Howver, there are a few animation peeves I still have

1. hands not moving as helicopter gunner.

2. Non, animated vehicles-chopper doors moving when troops get out, car doors, hatches not opening.

3. Getting out AI animation-AI still seem to just "pop" out of a vehicle. Is it possible to get out more realistically?

Other thatn that, everything is great.

From my modest amout of experience in modeling vehicles for Armed Assault, I have to say that it would be a considerable heap of work just to add fully-animated doors on all vehicles.

As for the characters popping out of vehicles, I don't know of any game that makes that look life-like anyway. Operation Flashpoint 2 (ooh, I mentioned it, someone get me) seems to be implementing detailed animations like that, but I'm sure that there are many inclines / terrain features that the vehicle could rest on which would also make such animations seem really wrong. (Personally, I resent it when a game tries to bedazzle and mesmerize the audience with fancy graphics and effects, without having any "meat" to it, like we players don't care about anything but the eyecandy.) If the developers focus all their energy on improving the superficial looks of the game, they will have to delay actual gameplay improvement.

I must say, I think Armed Assault was close to perfect. Some more stuff on the side (new map, new vehicles and weapons, new static objects and props), and a good story / campaigns, and it would be the perfect game.

[Lepardi 0]

Static weapons like .50 cals should have recoil, it's just stupid how in the partisan video for example there's not even a slightest bit of recoil when the guy opens fire.

[Raphier 0]

actually cod4 had amazing chinook embark animations. tho they seemed more scrpted ofcourse, as it happens always same at same place, but greatnonetheless.

[an_enlarged_stomach 1]

Crysis had a nice animation for crew getting in tanks. The crew would step on the tank, and open the hatches, which was impressive. Also, vilas vehicles have opening/closing doors.

[Laqueesha 474]

As for the characters popping out of vehicles, I don't know of any game that makes that look life-like anyway.

In Grand Theft Auto III, which came out back in 2001, the entering and exiting animations for getting in and out of vehicles was fairly realistic; more so then ArmA 1's, in my opinion.

But still, there is no excuse for having "teleportation" or "popping" in and out of vehicles in ArmA 2.

With OFP on the PC back in 2001 it was understandable, but this is 2009.

There should be more realistic animations for entering and exiting vehicles.

But then again, we shouldn't say much as these are trailers and not the finished product.

ArmA 2 isn't even "Gold" yet, so we should keep waiting and keeping an eye out.

[welcome to hell 23]

Agree even if its a heap of work it is worth the eyecandy. The better the game looks the more people will want to buy it off the shelf.

For example Far Cry 2's gameplay sucks really bad but it graphics/animation looks fantastic so they made a lot of money.

[Gustav62 0]

Laqueesha, Grand Theft Auto takes place in a city, which means most of the time, cars stay horizontal to the ground. I played a game called "Soldiers" once, in which people climb in and out of tanks. Imagine: when a tank rolls over (pretty rare), the people are animated as jumping horizontally or upside down out of the vehicle.

Even in Armed Assault, there are many places where you can park a vehicle in a thirty-degree incline, and the character will scriptedly climb out with a thirty-degree angle vertical deviation from the natural stance. There is always an exception to scripted animation. You know scripted death sequences, for example. People fall and wind up with half their body sticking through a wall, or hovering parallel to the ground on a set of stairs.

I think the way technology is today, it's not possible to make lifelike animation in an open-ended environment like a game. Only in computer-generated video.

[Raphier 0]

Laqueesha, Grand Theft Auto takes place in a city, which means most of the time, cars stay horizontal to the ground. I played a game called "Soldiers" once, in which people climb in and out of tanks. Imagine: when a tank rolls over (pretty rare), the people are animated as jumping horizontally or upside down out of the vehicle.

Even in Armed Assault, there are many places where you can park a vehicle in a thirty-degree incline, and the character will scriptedly climb out with a thirty-degree angle vertical deviation from the natural stance. There is always an exception to scripted animation. You know scripted death sequences, for example. People fall and wind up with half their body sticking through a wall, or hovering parallel to the ground on a set of stairs.

I think the way technology is today, it's not possible to make lifelike animation in an open-ended environment like a game. Only in computer-generated video.

What current techology needs, it's Procedural IK's blended with Animation. (Which Crysis has). It's does pretty amazing job, but is semi-badly executed.

[Pyronick 21]

Laqueesha, Grand Theft Auto takes place in a city, which means most of the time, cars stay horizontal to the ground. I played a game called "Soldiers" once, in which people climb in and out of tanks. Imagine: when a tank rolls over (pretty rare), the people are animated as jumping horizontally or upside down out of the vehicle.

Even in Armed Assault, there are many places where you can park a vehicle in a thirty-degree incline, and the character will scriptedly climb out with a thirty-degree angle vertical deviation from the natural stance. There is always an exception to scripted animation. You know scripted death sequences, for example. People fall and wind up with half their body sticking through a wall, or hovering parallel to the ground on a set of stairs.

I think the way technology is today, it's not possible to make lifelike animation in an open-ended environment like a game. Only in computer-generated video.

What current techology needs, it's Procedural IK's blended with Animation. (Which Crysis has). It's does pretty amazing job, but is semi-badly executed.

That would be the best solution. But I think they'll rely on old-fashioned keyframes only, using their motion capture studio.

Would be ace if they could combine the best of two worlds.

[Electricleash 133]

"Crysis had a nice animation for crew getting in tanks. The crew would step on the tank, and open the hatches, which was impressive. Also, vilas vehicles have opening/closing doors."

Hmmm... dont know where you saw that, from my experience it used the 'popping' as well... AI opened doors to the Jeeps before getting out... that was nice, but the tanks? I think you've got that wrong.

I would rather they have the 'popping' with it's set jump down animations. Remember this game (ArmA) survives for it's modability, you start putting all sorts of bells and whistles in there, and it becomes that much more complex to change things. Going back to Crysis for example, it has a great Mod community but the comparable amount of quality releases are few and far between.

[kidam 0]

Quote[/b] ]3. Getting out AI animation-AI still seem to just "pop" out of a vehicle

+1

[sparks50 0]

Number 2 and 3 is pretty much covered by this topic:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=77681

[Alex72 1]

static weps need some recoil for sure. Make it like in ACE. Its enough for me. As long as its not completelly still when firing.

In and out of vehicles, well thats not as important to me even though it would look good.

[soul_assassin 1723]

The biggest problem is, is that A2 is still at it's core just OFP, like COD4 is still quake 3. Enormously improved yet nothing revolutionary (e.g. you still cannot have immense open environments in COD4). The problem is that while visual improvements is just a matter of optimising code and making it compatible with latest graphic shader technologies, then making new models that correspond to those changes, while adding Procedural Inverse Kinematics is alot more core-bashing which is undesirable = longer production times etc etc.

The whole popping out thing is just a huge time saver. Its generic = 1 anim for all vehicles. Like damage textures in ArmA, 1 texture for all instead of unique custom made ones for every vehicle.

All the other games are visually successfull because the creaters descided not to take shortcuts. I still have wet dreams about Far Cry 2 and its driver-to-gunner-by-swinging-on-the-roll-cage animation...damn. And the whole "horizontal surface" stuff is pretty crap. All surfaces are "relatively" horizontal given the right frame of reference.

[Kirq 0]

My bigest concearn about animations is lack of reloading animations, None of released videos is showing soldier actualy reloading his rifle so I'm afraid we will have ArmA1 style of reloading ( soldier waving his empty left hand around the rifle for few seconds) :/

[Gustav62 0]

My bigest concearn about animations is lack of reloading animations, None of released videos is showing soldier actualy reloading his rifle so I'm afraid we will have ArmA1 style of reloading ( soldier waving his empty left hand around the rifle for few seconds) :/

In Armed Assault right now, the magazine leaves the rifle when reloading, doesn't it? Anyway, I'm more worried about the fact that when you push "R" in the game, you're immobilized for three seconds. That is the worst.

If you're expecting an animation in which the soldier removes the magazine, puts it away in one bag, opens the flap on a pocket, pulls a new magazine out, the flap falls down realistically, then he rocks the magazine into place and chambers the first cartridge, I doubt that'll be featured in any game in the next decade.

There are too many kinds of small arms (conventional dimensions, bullpup, uzi-style, underbarrel grenade launchers, left / right / center charging handle) and too many kinds of tactical vests with way too many kinds of pockets. It's not realistic to expect anybody to make a life-like reload animation for all of those cases.

[dentist guba 0]

you can now move while reloading.