Infantry Height Variation

[otrebla_snake_ita 2]

You realise it would require all new animations as well? Undersized/oversized avatars wouldn't fit right in vehicles and crew served weapons

It wouldn't if there are SMALL differences

[max power 21]

Rebel;1519313']I believe if the actual game system - or engine - is not supporting radical changes within it' date=' its not good in its basics.[/quote']

Just like if a car doesn't support radical changes, it's not a good car.

I think that a good engine is one that does what it is designed to do. This one does what it's designed to do fantastically well. I refute your supposition by saying that this game is the best in its class and nothing else really comes close- even imitators fall short. Therefore, the engine is great.

And what gives you power to be a spokersperson of BIS or put down ideas of forum members?

Oh, Jack Bauer to the rescue again. This time it took more than 24 hours though... and I think maybe your intelligence team may have failed you this time.

What I was saying was 'I wouldn't count on it for these reasons'. Where was I putting down the ideas of others? I think it's a great idea, I was just reacting to the often thrown around phrase 'it should not be that difficult'. I can think of many reasons why it would be difficult, being a mod developer.

The old tale says, if you dont have anything to add to the thread, then dont post.

So now you're putting down my ideas and telling me what to post and what not to? Seems like a hypocrisy problem. You might want to check in on that.

I could use your argument and say "why they motion-captured human movement just for the sake of appearing real, all we need is a gun and bullets". Or "why they motion-captured some guy dancing and put into the game as a hidden animation"? Motion-capture equipment (which BIS own), and actors to perform cost money and time, doesn't? Its because its technology, and sometimes breakthrough in technology are made because investments in things seemingly futile and unnecessary.

I think this incredulous analogy maybe the fault of some incomplete or nonexisting understanding of the issues on your part. Having some people dance in front of the mocap cameras is useful to calibrate and shake-down the equipment. Mocap computers have trouble figuring out what's happening when you have two arms crossing, say. To solve this, some mocap systems have balls shaded in a gradient so the computer knows the orientation of the balls in 3d space, and can better distinguish what's going on between the right and left arms, in this example. I can think of no better test than having someone perform complex movements like dancing in front of a camera, spinning and gesturing in all manner of speeds and angles, and no better way to make a calibration experiment fun than capturing dancing.

What the OP is proposing may be low priority in the grand-scheme of things, but who decides is BI, not you or me. Inverse-kinematics has been out there for long time, if they want to incorporate into their engine is their decision.

Again, my friend, if you read and comprehend, I wasn't arguing against the idea- just the assumption that 'it should not be difficult'. There is no reason to believe this. On the basis of lack of information about the complexity of the task alone, this is a faulty assumption.

From Wikipedia:

Inverse kinematics is a tool utilized frequently by 3D artists. It is often easier for an artist to express the desired spatial appearance rather than manipulate joint angles directly. For example, inverse kinematics allows an artist to move the hand of a 3D human model to a desired position and orientation and have an algorithm select the proper angles of the wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints.

For example, when one wants to reach for a door handle, their brain must make the necessary calculations to position his limbs and torso such that the hand locates near the door. The main objective is to move the hand but the many complex articulations of several joints must occur to get the hand to the desired location. Similarly with many technological applications, inverse kinematic mathematical calculations must be performed to articulate limbs in the correct ways to meet desired goals. One example where inverse kinematic calculations are often essential is robotics, where an operator wants to position a tool using a robot arm but certainly doesn't want to manipulate each robot joint individually. Other applications include computer animation where animators may want to operate a computer generated character, but find it impossibly difficult to animate individual joints. The solution is to model the virtual joints of the puppet and allow the animator to move the hands, feet and torso, and the computer automatically generates the required limb positions to accomplish this using inverse kinematics.

Key to the successful implementation of inverse kinematics is animation within constraints: computer characters' limbs must behave within reasonable anthropomorphic limits. Similarly, robotic devices have physical constraints such as the environment they operate in, the limitations of the articulations their joints are capable of, and the finite physical loads and speeds at which they are able to operate.

What an excellent example of a quote that has nothing to do with what we are talking about and displays a complete lack of understanding of the issues.

Inverse kinematics is a way of animating. It is opposed to forward kinematics. Forward kinematics solves positions based on transformation information over time. Inverse kinematics solves transformations based on position information over time. This has absolutely nothing to do with what we are talking about.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I vote against it, due to cost of implementing it. Arma uses prerecorded animation sequences to do the work, which is why they are hard (or even impossible) to blend. IK/FK methods has to be implemented, and that's the massive cost. Even with prerecorded animations, some looks completely off sometimes, like insanely stretched arms.

With some background in 3D apps/animation, it doesn't take me much effort to see all the things that could go wrong if IK/FK was implemented in this fashion. Personally, by the looks of those horrid animations, it could actually look like some IK simulations was going, because there are no way a human body could obtain the proportions they take.

With difference in heights, expect a lot more problems of the type where you play a force recon officer trying to shoot an M136 (using current beta, haven't tested in vanilla 1.04).

Having women rescuees being able to sit properly in rescue vehicles matters a lot more to me than varying heights and BMI. I'm not really against it, until I start seeing all the potential problems coming from it.

[-SONAF-Rebel 10]

Just like if a car doesn't support radical changes, it's not a good car.

How can you compare the Arma 2 game engine to a car? :) Don`t be hilarious. First of all, a car cannot be updated after it is launched. Arma is an evolving game, believe it or not. Requires some time to run well.

Regarding the engine goodness, it may be good for you, but in this case it seems like my value system is a bit different.

[max power 21]

Rebel;1520931']How can you compare the Arma 2 game engine to a car? :) Don`t be hilarious. First of all' date=' a car cannot be updated after it is launched. Arma is an evolving game, believe it or not. Requires some time to run well.

Regarding the engine goodness, it may be good for you, but in this case it seems like my value system is a bit different.[/quote']

Complicated machines are engineered with a clear purpose in mind. Some aspects of them maybe replaced or upgraded, but to make massive changes to how it works requires re-engineering. The same is true for software. I hope that helps you see where I was coming from with the analogy in response to the context of your comment.

I think that if that is the way you assess software, you may be in for some disappointment. Some things can be designed in modules and some things can't.

Edited December 21, 2009 by Max Power

[-SONAF-Rebel 10]

Complicated machines are engineered with a clear purpose in mind. Some aspects of them maybe replaced or upgraded, but to make massive changes to how it works requires re-engineering. The same is true for software. I hope that helps you see where I was coming from with the analogy in response to the context of your comment.

I think that if that is the way you assess software, you may be in for some disappointment. Some things can be designed in modules and some things can't.

Just take a deep look how many boundaries are set by BIS. You can not change the height of characters because the whole system turns onto its head, and if you create a fighter - just like the one called: F16 Fighting Falcon - you cannot place the pilot in the cockpit decently because of those boundaries (Not sure if you played with it, from the pilot view you see the hand of the pilot hanging freely because the flightstick was located somewhere else, such a predefined system). When you develop this sort of game, your primary goal should be to support the changes and further development. Not to block them.

[dm 9]

Rebel;1521355']F16 Fighting Falcon - you cannot place the pilot in the cockpit decently because of those boundaries...

...from the pilot view you see the hand of the pilot hanging freely because the flightstick was located somewhere else' date=' such a predefined system[/quote']

No, you can. You just have to create a new animation for it (which most people are too lazy to do)

Like I said before:

Woo hoo, lets all bitch about stuff we have NO idea about... :j:

[Laqueesha 474]

I think even small changes would negatively effect the hand placement on weapons quite dramatically.

Well, it's not that good to begin with. :D

Edited December 22, 2009 by Laqueesha

[max power 21]

Rebel;1521355']Just take a deep look how many boundaries are set by BIS. You can not change the height of characters because the whole system turns onto its head' date=' and if you create a fighter - just like the one called: F16 Fighting Falcon - you cannot place the pilot in the cockpit decently because of those boundaries (Not sure if you played with it, from the pilot view you see the hand of the pilot hanging freely because the flightstick was located somewhere else, such a predefined system). When you develop this sort of game, your primary goal should be to support the changes and further development. Not to block them.[/quote']

You can just create a new RTM to put into your f-16 Addon. It's a bit of a pain but all that is is time for the addon maker.

With scaled troops, we're talking about new skeletons, then checking to make sure the all of the rtms are still proper with the new sizes (which they won't be), then making all the new rtms for everything that needs it. It also means selectively rescaling the men but not their equipment for all LODs where the equipment is present. For a company, that's dollars and cents. What new revenue will resized soldiers bring in?

[MulleDK19 21]

@Maxpower, I really don't think that is a challenge either. Again, quoting secondlife where there are avatars of ALL shapes and sizes and somehow, weapon positioning looks ok because the player get to align and adjust the positioning ingame.... if this has been possible in secondlife for the past 5 years (or 6 years) I think its possible for BIS as well. :)

It's far from the same.

All the weapons would need to be scaled down in ARMA 2 to fit the smaller soldiers. And weapons just don't change size based on the person holding them in real life.

[SFJackBauer 10]

Oh, Jack Bauer to the rescue again. This time it took more than 24 hours though... and I think maybe your intelligence team may have failed you this time.

How funny.

What I was saying was 'I wouldn't count on it for these reasons'. Where was I putting down the ideas of others?

Let me see:

"I think that this suggestion is very unlikely to amount to anything."

"This is because you lack any understanding of what you are talking about. To appeal to some unknown technology 'out there' that would help BIS do this thing is at best premature."

"How much would this technology cost BIS? How much would training their staff on it cost?"

Does this phrases sound familiar? I see someone putting down ideas from others and talking seemingly "in behalf" of BIS.

I can think of many reasons why it would be difficult, being a mod developer.

Look, I respect the fact you are a modder. But the guy wasn't asking for a mod - he is asking for a feature that should be introduced into the engine, so even though it can be costly up-front, this should mean that man-hours are saved down the road because models would be already created over this paradigm. But why we are arguing about cost if this is up to BIS managers to calculate and decide?

So now you're putting down my ideas and telling me what to post and what not to? Seems like a hypocrisy problem. You might want to check in on that.

List which ideas different from the one the OP posted you added to the thread, besides non-constructive criticism.

I think this incredulous analogy maybe the fault of some incomplete or nonexisting understanding of the issues on your part.

Having some people dance in front of the mocap cameras is useful to calibrate and shake-down the equipment...

I'll skip the personal attack introduction and go directly to the argument.

My point is about using high-cost technology for fullfilling a seemingly unimportant thing. Motion-capturing enables life-like movement right? This brings immersion to the game. Each one perceives this as a different value, so what is superfluous for one, would be very important for other. Now, humans are pretty good in detecting repeating patterns, and the fact all soldiers are the same height is easily detectable and slightly breaks the immersion (exacerbated when they are neatly lined together). Again, low priority in the grand-scheme of things, but I'm not rejecting entirely the idea as you did.

Again, my friend, if you read and comprehend, I wasn't arguing against the idea- just the assumption that 'it should not be difficult'. There is no reason to believe this. On the basis of lack of information about the complexity of the task alone, this is a faulty assumption.

And again, my dear friend, one does not need to be condescending or presuming what others think. Who in this thread did say it was EASY or CHEAP to do? We are obliged to only propose and suggest "simple" things? And again, who would be in proper capacity of decisively weighing difficulty if not BIS devs, who made and work in the engine?

What an excellent example of a quote that has nothing to do with what we are talking about and displays a complete lack of understanding of the issues.

Inverse kinematics is a way of animating. It is opposed to forward kinematics. Forward kinematics solves positions based on transformation information over time. Inverse kinematics solves transformations based on position information over time. This has absolutely nothing to do with what we are talking about.

I will ignore the personal attacks and go purely to the issue in hand.

I'm not saying IK solves the problem of soldiers height - I'm saying it proposes a solution to the "binding hands to weapons" problem - problem which you brought into the discussion. It means we dont need hundreds of different couples of models/animations to solve that problem. Its not a silver bullet - probably a blend of artist-created animations and IK would be needed - anyway, this is BIS job and BIS business, after all - they decide what would be better for them.

One last thing - you seem to be an intelligent and well-informed person. Then I'm sure you know one of Abraham Lincoln's quote - “Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.â€.

[Alex72 1]

Max Power work with 3D as far as i know and he has been here long enough to see a lot of requests that probably wont happen because of named work load (ie not worth the time contra reward). And it isnt the first time someone asks for precisely this feature - it has been asked about for years. Many years and still hasnt happened.

Maybe dwell a bit more into this forum might bring some aha moments. :)

[SFJackBauer 10]

Max Power work with 3D as far as i know and he has been here long enough to see a lot of requests that probably wont happen because of named work load (ie not worth the time contra reward). And it isnt the first time someone asks for precisely this feature - it has been asked about for years. Many years and still hasnt happened.

Maybe dwell a bit more into this forum might bring some aha moments. :)

Alex, you explained what I have read myself. That doesn't explain its behaviour, though. One thing is, based on his experience, stating that it would be difficult to implement. He made this point once. But other thing is repeating it several times, along the way offending members opinions. That I see as unnecessary.

And to top it, that is even after someone pointed out that the suggestion requested actually EXISTS in VBS 2:

BI's VBS2 has a setHeight & setBMI command, so it would be possible within ArmA 2. Such options are a luxury, but would be nice

So this is what was impossible/difficult to implement? Now you tell me on whom I have to believe.

[Binkowski 26]

I was thinking of this a few weeks ago..when I was reminded of my 5'7"-ness. I personally would get a kick out of myself being a short little guy running around.

[dm 9]

edit: nvm....

Edited December 23, 2009 by DM
cba to fight with the trolls

[sgt_flyer 0]

the 'vehicle' bone system since arma 1 is totally and really easily scalable (i don't speak about rotation angles, those are not affected by scale) but the translations did scale. the translations unit was not in meter or any other unit, the translation unit for each translations was based on the distance between the two points of the axis used for the translation. (when you give a translation distance of 3 for example, the object will translate by 3 times the distance between the two points of it's axis.)

this allowed to make a full rescale of the models without having to change anything to the animations.

if they used this just for the vehicles, we can imagine they used something similar for the complex skeletons. (it would be a pain in the ass making a skeleton, the anims for it, and see their skeleton too small for the object it has to animate, and having to redo all anims.)

[max power 21]

How funny.

I'm glad you found it as amusing as I did.

Let me see:

"I think that this suggestion is very unlikely to amount to anything."

"This is because you lack any understanding of what you are talking about. To appeal to some unknown technology 'out there' that would help BIS do this thing is at best premature."

"How much would this technology cost BIS? How much would training their staff on it cost?"

Does this phrases sound familiar? I see someone putting down ideas from others and talking seemingly "in behalf" of BIS.

On the quotes:

1. That's my honest appraisal of the situation. It's a pessimistic outlook but it's a realistic one, I think. Perhaps I should hold TOPs hand and stroke his hair and tell him that his suggestion is sure to be put in the game? We could have an amazingly satisfying cuddle- he could feel safe and warm. We could watch some straight-to-dvd disney movie until he falls asleep...

2. To appeal to some other, unknown, outer influence is a bit... fallacious. Especially if it's substantiating the supposition that 'it shouldn't be hard'.

3. That's in direct response to someone saying that it shouldn't be hard, which is not an assumption that's supported by any evidence.

Look, I respect the fact you are a modder. But the guy wasn't asking for a mod - he is asking for a feature that should be introduced into the engine, so even though it can be costly up-front, this should mean that man-hours are saved down the road because models would be already created over this paradigm. But why we are arguing about cost if this is up to BIS managers to calculate and decide?

Because this is a discussion forum for discussing things, and I like this suggestion and I find it mentally stimulating to think about. The inevitable conclusion is that it's a difficult thing, from where I'm standing, however.

List which ideas different from the one the OP posted you added to the thread, besides non-constructive criticism.

How is spreading the 'it should be easy' misconception constructive? All it does is further perpetuate the myth that programming is some magic art where all things are possible in a short time for little or no effort. I'm trying to give concrete arguments why this is not the case and all of a sudden I'm Germany blitzing poor little Poland.

I'll skip the personal attack introduction and go directly to the argument.

My point is about using high-cost technology for fullfilling a seemingly unimportant thing. Motion-capturing enables life-like movement right? This brings immersion to the game. Each one perceives this as a different value, so what is superfluous for one, would be very important for other. Now, humans are pretty good in detecting repeating patterns, and the fact all soldiers are the same height is easily detectable and slightly breaks the immersion (exacerbated when they are neatly lined together). Again, low priority in the grand-scheme of things, but I'm not rejecting entirely the idea as you did.

I'm not rejecting it. Read and understand the thread. I quite like the suggestion, I just don't think 'it should be easy'. Maybe the way BIS has their software set up, it's a matter of flicking a switch and suddenly all things are possible. There is no reason to believe this, though. No rational person with an iota of experience would come to that conclusion.

On the subject of mocap, despite the fact I've given your argument a lot of charity and time thinking about it, I still can't really see how it's appropriate. Animation isn't unimportant, and neither is debugging technology. In a real time game, movement over time is pretty much the foundation of the experience.

And again, my dear friend, one does not need to be condescending or presuming what others think. Who in this thread did say it was EASY or CHEAP to do? We are obliged to only propose and suggest "simple" things? And again, who would be in proper capacity of decisively weighing difficulty if not BIS devs, who made and work in the engine?

When you are preparing a reply to this message, in your next muck-raking endeavour into the thread to find weaknesses in what I may have said previously, maybe you could be so kind as to read what I'm responding to and take the time to actually understand it. Kthnx.

Be my guest and suggest whatever you want. If you don't want it to be discussed by the general forum population, you probably want to find a more private way of suggestion. If the devs read the thread in it's entirety, it would probably be out of either morbid curiosity or to get more information about the suggestion. I verily doubt they will see my opinion and that will dictate whether or not they go forward with it.

I will ignore the personal attacks and go purely to the issue in hand.

I'm not saying IK solves the problem of soldiers height - I'm saying it proposes a solution to the "binding hands to weapons" problem - problem which you brought into the discussion. It means we dont need hundreds of different couples of models/animations to solve that problem. Its not a silver bullet - probably a blend of artist-created animations and IK would be needed - anyway, this is BIS job and BIS business, after all - they decide what would be better for them.

The weapon aiming animation already uses IK. I'm sure they've already put lots of thought into this issue and other issues. To be honest, I'm quite certain that they've considered a lot of the issues in the suggestions forum well before they were made by community members.

One last thing - you seem to be an intelligent and well-informed person. Then I'm sure you know one of Abraham Lincoln's quote - “Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.â€.

Of course. Everyone is up on the adages of random, dead American Presidents.

Is citing pithy sounding quotes to say that you also consider yourself an intelligent and well informed person, and that I should describe you as such in order to ingratiate myself to you? This is because I obviously place a high value on pathos and rhetoric, right? :p I'm not attempting to form a long standing relationship, here.

Regarding the VBS images hotlinked by ceeeb, quoted by jackbauer:

No one said it was impossible. I said it was not easy. Listen here. In updating the renderer, BIS made the ArmA 1 grass layer incompatible with their technology, and it took that 4 patch versions to bring it back. VBS is based on a technology that shares a lot in common with ArmA 1, kind of like how dolphins and porpoises share a common ancestor. They have ported VBS technology in the past, but does that mean it was a simple matter? I'm not so sure. BIS devs have commented on the past that while they have access to the technology and procuring it is a simple matter, implementing it is not always a snap of the fingers. Because some VBS version has it does not mean that it is effortlessly ported into ArmA 2, or visa versa. Furthermore, if ArmA 1 technology isn't compatible with ArmA 2, there is no reason to think that anything in VBS is necessarily compatible.

[Binkowski 26]

This thread is full of so much RAGEEE. Anyway, enough of my off topic-ness.

A problem I could see with the different heights of people and the seats in vehicles. I mean, you'll have those really stupid people who will make themselves freakishly tall or short. It's bound to happen, as with the people who make the pitches of their voices freakishly high or low. Which might I add is HILARIOUS. But at any rate, that's the only problem I see with it.