COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
Realistic Animations At a Cheaper Price?!

Hello there peoples!! and SBS!!

Link To Video

Please watch!! (or at least skip to Movement!)

I making a a character for my class and was researching character tilt movement when I stumbled on this video. I'm not sure if you've seen this already but the techniques that go into the character were revolutionary to me and I just thought I'd put it out there.

Note that I'm not talking about the game it self, just the character and its movement. (like tilting in the directions its moving or the slight bounce when crouching, etc)

Why I say its cheaper is because they dont have that much animations, as in, 2 keyframes for run, 2 for walk, 2 idle, 1 crouch, 2 crouch walk, 2 for jump, etc. What they are using for smooth but responsive anim system is animation interpolations. It is explained more in the video.

While Ive yet to do further research into how exactly to implement lerps, I just wanted to show you guys, SBS especially, in hopes of lightening the load because I know how hard animating can be.

Bless Up!!!

(and yes.... Im using UE4.... ;) )


1/19/2017 6:16:15 PM #1

I used to remember watching him do weekly updates on this game. He gave a LOT of insight into game development through practice. Also his mention of the hypocratic oath at 4:24 is amazing, that you do no harm to the gameplay due to the animations.


1/19/2017 7:23:06 PM #2

Exactly why I wanted to share! So they can use this method to lower resource cost and still have responsive gameplay and realistic animations.

So they can decide where they can/need to implement these techniques to have more time for something else!


1/19/2017 7:28:10 PM #3

It was a good video, I've always hated in a lot of games didn't have that "curve" that made it feel so much more natural :P Vindictus is one of the games that had that curve done really well (2010) where Rift (2011) on the other hand were more linear. It really does add a lot to the feel of the game, and it's nice to know that it could possibly save a lot of time. :3 (y)


1/19/2017 8:03:34 PM #4

neat video


1/19/2017 9:31:26 PM #5

Fascinating stuff


Yours Sincerely, Verde the Zealous Kypiq

1/19/2017 9:57:21 PM #6

Great video. Thank you for sharing. I enjoyed it very much.


1/19/2017 10:18:38 PM #7

We've seen that video already ;)


1/19/2017 11:31:46 PM #8

Awesome!! And kind of expected lol!

I just thought it'll help out somehow... So I shared :)


1/20/2017 12:06:36 AM #9

its pretty interesting. I especially liked the part where they showed the face looking at say the face of another person and how you can have the torso turn away. It usually one of those things that annoys me that aspect of realism in movement isn't there. Most people look at graphics and think of only how the colors look and their fps, but ignore the actual factors that make it immersive which is ofc movement.

Also Prince of Persia one!! haha I remember playing that game back in the day...

1/20/2017 12:36:39 AM #10

Very interesting video. I enjoyed that a lot


1/20/2017 2:54:27 PM #11

Great solution.


1/21/2017 4:05:24 AM #12

Just imagining COE with Overgrowth combat is wow! But if COE could do even better, then why not.


1/21/2017 8:24:22 AM #13

I remember watching this a few years back, good stuff in there. Glad to hear SBS is on top of it, I was a little worried after seeing the animations in the combat preview video.


Referral Code: 912EC9

1/22/2017 7:10:25 PM #14

We heavily considered a pose-based system for combat and movement in some cases.

The initial reaction is that it will save time to only have a couple of poses for each action, instead of an entire animation. In reality, you either have an incredibly stylized (usually bouncy) movement (a la Overgrowth) or you spend a lot of time tweaking those blend curves (or adding more poses) to get everything just the way you want it. We could build tools to expedite the process, but that adds a bunch of engineering cost.

Ultimately, we decided to let our animators stick to what they know and are skilled at, rather than try to approximate it with a pose based system.

But, god, as a programmer and mathematician, I f#$%ing love the idea of a pure mathematically-modeled procedural movement system.


:3

1/22/2017 9:10:17 PM #15

Very cool :)


Count Dante Rhyne The Black Fox of Vornair

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