108 replies to this topic

[Enrique Barahona Ramos]

Tennex, on 01 February 2015 - 09:25 AM, said:

But will we get Kit Fox/Adder feet animations? 2 birds with 1 stone

I checked the Kitfox and Adder rigs, and although the joints are there for the back talons, they where not animated. We dropped the ball on that one, this will be addressed ASAP.

[Axeface]

Thats good to hear, but the timberwolf jumpjet animation IMHO should be absolute top priority, it is used exploitatively and has been since they came out.

[Johnny Z]

Hey the Orion walking like a duck needs to be looked at also! Dont forget the classic mechs!

Make it walk like the awsome maybe

Edited by Johnny Z, 03 February 2015 - 05:06 PM.

[Navid A1]

Enrique Barahona Ramos, on 03 February 2015 - 04:22 PM, said:

I checked the Kitfox and Adder rigs, and although the joints are there for the back talons, they where not animated. We dropped the ball on that one, this will be addressed ASAP.

Thanks again Mr. Ramos

Can't wait for the revised animations... specially the DWF.

[Glaive-]

A dev talking about animations?! This is a dream come true!

Thank you very much for talking about these issues, Mr. Ramos.
Would it be possible to increase the stride length for some mechs? I feel like the larger mechs like the Dire Wolf would appear heavier if they took longer, slower strides.

I feel like the Stormcrow could use a similar treatment, since it always feels like it not stepping forward far enough for the speed that it runs at.

[Kmieciu]

Enrique Barahona Ramos, on 28 January 2015 - 06:18 PM, said:

Coders again sought solutions to deal with that bandwidth problem, but then kinks would appear such as legs still flexing after re-entering level ground, which looked a lot worse than not having the IK at all.

How about client-side IK? With the current poor hit detection, nobody would notice the difference anyway :-)

[Senor Cataclysmo]

Thanks so much for looking into this Mr. Ramos, for me personally it's been the most immersion breaking thing in the game; I can't wait to see the new animations.

Would it be too much to ask if the timberwolf/mad dog walking animation could have a little polish too? It's always seemed like they're dragging their feet a bit to me; almost like they don't take high or long enough strides, especially at high speeds.

Can I ask (this might be a stupid question, I dont know much about games development!), when you animate mechs with the same leg molds, (say DWF/WHK or KFX/ADR) do you animate one and then just port the same animation over to the 'sister' mech, or do they get animated individually? I ask because to my eyes at least, the Mad Dog seems to suffer from 'dragging its feet' somewhat less than the timber wolf, but Im not sure thats just because the skinnier body of the mech makes it just seem like thats the case.

Kmieciu, on 04 February 2015 - 02:34 AM, said:

How about client-side IK? With the current poor hit detection, nobody would notice the difference anyway :-)

Yes, it could be a quality setting you could just toggle on and off in the graphics tab. If you didn't have a very good computer you could just leave it off and performance wouldnt suffer.

[Navid A1]

Some less noticeable issues on the DWF in addition to the problems when passing slopes and jumpy walking.

[Koniving]

Navid A1, on 28 December 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

You guys did awesome jobs with animations for a catapult for example. It would be awesome if we could have the same quality for all of the mechs.

Just like art passes on the weapon visuals, i hope PGI will take another look on polishing these kind of sharp edges.

100% agree with the entire post.

You missed the arm-spasm of the Dire Wolf / War Hawk though. This video points it out very specifically, as it only occurs during full speed turns.


Visuals on Summoner arm glitches during combat (watch the little window that pops up on the bottom).

[Koniving]

Enrique Barahona Ramos, on 28 January 2015 - 06:18 PM, said:

El Señor Animador.

Delighted to hear the address of inverse kinetics.

Above in the first video shot from the third person perspective with the hud off, I have referenced a spasm on the right arm that only occurs under the specific condition of turning at high speed (48.6 or higher). It applies on both the Dire Wolf and the Warhawk as both are using nearly identical animations.

It drives me absolutely nuts as a fellow animator. Just referencing it as unlike most animation issues it is among the far less apparent and more situational issues.

[Ghogiel]

Senor Cataclysmo, on 04 February 2015 - 02:38 AM, said:

Yes, it could be a quality setting you could just toggle on and off in the graphics tab. If you didn't have a very good computer you could just leave it off and performance wouldnt suffer.

It'll be a server bandwidth issue not client PC hardware dependant.

[AEgg]

Ghogiel, on 08 February 2015 - 06:54 AM, said:

It'll be a server bandwidth issue not client PC hardware dependant.

He's suggesting a client-side only version.

Problem with that is if you had it turned on, mechs wouldn't actually be exactly where you see them (i.e. a mech on a hill wouild no only have straight legs on the server, it's torso could be slightly higher or lower on the server too). So you'd get a lot of complaints about hit registration from people who had it turned on.

[carl kerensky]

Enrique Barahona Ramos, on 28 January 2015 - 06:18 PM, said:

Hey guys, let me address some of the concerns and observations made here.

It’s true that some mechs need a TLC pass, that’s evident in the DWF and WHK, part of the problem stems from the fact that they were released in a pack so there’s less animation man-hours available to work in them, as opposed to other mechs released individually.

The wonky behavior of the DWF in slopes is a mix of code and animation issues, we’re looking into this. Regarding its “prancing and bouncing”, I have to agree that for its weight class is way too much, and the same goes for other mechs mentioned in this thread.
Bear in mind that animators also try to give each mech a distinctive motion where possible, as the more mechs are released the harder it is to make them stand out in the crowd.
Back in the day, it was really easy to spot a Trebuchet out of an incoming lance. Nowadays a distinctive silhouette is not enough to distinguish who is who in a crowded battlefield, so we try to make up for that with animation (to the extent that is possible to do that with a hulking walking tank).
Albeit the DWF weighs 100 tons, you still need to make sure the anim cover the distance when it runs @ 50kph. So the speeding up of the animation compounds the kinks and bounces and makes them all the more evident.
Anyways, we’ll give the mechs mentioned in this thread a good revisiting, so they move and look the part.

The ground detection (a.k.a runtime leg IK) is a source of frustration too for us since the start.
When we first started to implement it, the first hurdle we encountered is that the sheer size of the mechs made the built-in ground detection inaccurate.
Once coders got around it and got it working (as the cool pic of the hunchback shows), the problem became the overhead in raytracing two feet times a dozen plus mechs, which is what you regularly see on-screen in a regular match.

Coders again sought solutions to deal with that bandwidth problem, but then kinks would appear such as legs still flexing after re-entering level ground, which looked a lot worse than not having the IK at all. So it was a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils, which is why IK is off for the time being. This is a bummer (understatement of the year so far), and as animators are very fastidious about their work, you can be sure we’re the first to be very frustrated by this issue.

This doesn’t mean we’re still not looking for a solution. In the meantime, every new mech is still rigged with the bells and whistles needed to detect ground, for when the time comes to flick the switch back on.

Enrique Barahona Ramos

El Señor Animador.

Thanks for the reponse. MWO for me lost a lot of realism when you decided to turn of ground detection and IK. I really hope you make this a big priority to turn it back on. This game sorely needs it and will make mechs even more attractive to purchase knowing they will behave very realisticly in your game enviroment. Literaly having the foundation of this game firmly created is going to be a win win for everyone.

wtf what happened to my founders tag??

Edited by carl kerensky, 08 February 2015 - 09:14 AM.

[Navid A1]

well... for lazy people...

Koniving, on 08 February 2015 - 04:48 AM, said:

You missed the arm-spasm of the Dire Wolf / War Hawk though. This video points it out very specifically, as it only occurs during full speed turns.

Spoiler

The arm-spasm is visible around 2:40. And the jumpy walking animation through out the entire vid.

Koniving, on 08 February 2015 - 04:48 AM, said:

Visuals on Summoner arm glitches during combat (watch the little window that pops up on the bottom).

Spoiler

around 1:30 the glitch in the summoner arms is visible in the small camera window.

[Ghogiel]

AEgg, on 08 February 2015 - 07:15 AM, said:

He's suggesting a client-side only version.

Problem with that is if you had it turned on, mechs wouldn't actually be exactly where you see them (i.e. a mech on a hill wouild no only have straight legs on the server, it's torso could be slightly higher or lower on the server too). So you'd get a lot of complaints about hit registration from people who had it turned on.

I know. That's why they turned it off in the first place.

[MATRAKA14]

Russ Bullock, on 28 January 2015 - 11:52 AM, said:

will make sure the art team at least reads the thread to file away any items they agree with etc

Really awesome answer from Enrique Barahona.

Maybe now we can get one for this thread?
http://mwomercs.com/...-broken-the-a1/
Its ongoing since Nov 05 2013 without a proper official answer, we would be extremely glad to get one.

[Molossian Dog]

Siriothrax, on 02 February 2015 - 12:18 AM, said:

What are the odds we can get the janky, potentially hitbox breaking jumpjet animations on several mechs looked at? For example, the Timberwolf has some pretty mad hops. It quickly becomes an issue when people are spamming the JJ key to throw off incoming fire.

This.

Timberderp hops are what made me call it like that. I consider JJ spamming on certain mechs nothing else than a bug exploit.

Either rein in the Timberderp or call it a feature instead of a bug. But then give all Mechs the bunny hop.

[jarien13]

This seems as good a place as any for this:



This video is a few years old, but it shows real life leg movement capabilities of modern robotics. Now, of course I have no idea what the actual force being applied for the unbalancing test are and how they and the robot reactions would scale up, but that's not the point. The point is to display an example of actual motion of the legs and the platform they hold.

Plus the jump at the end is hilarious.

This one is fun to watch too:

Edited by jarien13, 15 February 2015 - 04:30 PM.

[Senor Cataclysmo]

AEgg, on 08 February 2015 - 07:15 AM, said:

He's suggesting a client-side only version.

Problem with that is if you had it turned on, mechs wouldn't actually be exactly where you see them (i.e. a mech on a hill wouild no only have straight legs on the server, it's torso could be slightly higher or lower on the server too). So you'd get a lot of complaints about hit registration from people who had it turned on.

Of course. Didn't think of that. Silly me.

[Widowmaker1981]

Axeface, on 03 February 2015 - 04:28 PM, said:

Thats good to hear, but the timberwolf jumpjet animation IMHO should be absolute top priority, it is used exploitatively and has been since they came out.

So much this. Its the ONLY reason why the Timberwolf could be considered 'OP' at this point, that animation is totally ludicrous.