15 replies to this topic

[Marshmel]

Mechwarrior 3 had it Mechwarrior 4 had it.........mwo is supposed to have better graphics but the leg animations are actually worse. Why? The mech's feet do not conform to the terrain. When I first saw this feature in Mechwarrior 3 (released in 99) I was blown away, thinking this is how GOOD mech animation should look. Mechwarrior 4 while, not ground breaking also had this feature. Then we have MWO where this feature was conveniently omitted, but its ok they gave the mechs cockpit glass!

Now don't get me wrong the models in MWO look great. So how come when my Adder is standing on a hill his feet are perfectly flat? It just doesn't look right.
MechWarrior 4 above


Mechwarrior online

Edited by Marshmel, 13 November 2014 - 07:28 AM.

[WonderSparks]

Aff, I think this would be something worth modifying, once the resources become available (ie. once Community Warfare is not eating up all of the man hours PGI has to work with).

[Syrkres]

There are so many other things that need fixing, I could easily have this pushed off 2-3 years.

[Telmasa]

Much as I'm sure PGI has plenty on their plate since the breakup with IGP - and I'm guessing struggling with less staff than ideal, what with another gaming project and the awkward history MWO has had so far - this would be pretty cool to see, and I'd bet if they got in touch with the people who programmed the feet for the previous MW games, wouldn't be too difficult, to my imagination.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

This feature was enabled for a while, but they turned it off for some reason. I'm not sure why exactly, but it was probably some kind of "performance issue" thing, much like the drastic reduction in visual quality for most of the maps (dumb brown/gray filters on everything with lots of fog and other visual impairments).

[Burktross]

Inverse kinematics are even in source-- and that's 2004. This shouldn't be hard to implement.

[Skribs]

I would rather they first fix weapon clipping (i.e. forest colony tunnel, tourmaline crystals, all over in hpg) then fix legs on hills. I hate wasting a full alpha into an invisible wall.

[Impyrium]

I believe the problem with IK animations is the HSR, as adding deformable limbs makes said system many times more complex and may have led to seriously degraded hit accuracy and performance. It'd be nice of course, but I can see why they don't have it.

[Postumus]

The problem is that many features which exist in the game code, like inverse kinematics to sync the feet to the map geometry, and syncing the walking/running animations to actual mech speed (watch light mechs with large engines, you will see them sliding across the map faster than their feet move), were turned off globally to increase performance. Because they have a real, if minimal impact on gameplay (they affect which part of a mech is where when, which could be the difference between a leg shot and a miss), they cannot be selectively enabled client side. Personally, I have a hard time believing that such small changes have a large impact on performance, but they do cause annoyance and loss of immersion.

AUSwarrior24, on 14 November 2014 - 04:57 PM, said:

I believe the problem with IK animations is the HSR, as adding deformable limbs makes said system many times more complex and may have led to seriously degraded hit accuracy and performance. It'd be nice of course, but I can see why they don't have it.

Hard to make the call on whether IK would complicate HSR unless we knew more about how HSR is calculated. More likely there is something along the lines of a buffer containing information about model geometry movement history. That would involve much less processing that effectively re-simulating the mech's movement using the actual animation code. Would be nice if the dev's could weigh in.

Edited by Postumus, 14 November 2014 - 05:04 PM.

[Kodyn]

As far as I know, this used to be in game, and caused some sort of performance issues. A forum search would likely lead you to the exact details.

As far as whether this is a priority? I would put it on the list for within the next 5 years, maybe after PvE content, as this is so negligible as to be ignored. If you have time to pay attention to a mech's feet while in combat, you're doing something wrong.

Edited by Kodyn, 14 November 2014 - 06:24 PM.

[WonderSparks]

Kodyn, on 14 November 2014 - 06:24 PM, said:

... If you have time to pay attention to a mech's feet while in combat, you're doing something wrong.

What? But I thought we were supposed to stop moving and shooting every five seconds and look around aimlessly...

[Kodyn]

WonderSparks, on 14 November 2014 - 06:32 PM, said:

What? But I thought we were supposed to stop moving and shooting every five seconds and look around aimlessly...

I have the roses turned off in settings, so i can't be tempted to stop and smell them ;p

[Burktross]

Kodyn, on 14 November 2014 - 06:24 PM, said:

If you have time to pay attention to a mech's feet while in combat, you're doing something wrong

BRB, exploding MG ammo in jager legs.

[Marshmel]

The forum feedback is well appreciated. Seeing as the feature is coded into the game already makes me happy. So most of the work on pgi's part may already be done. Still wish there wasn't a one to five year wait to get it turned back on... If enough people ask for the feature they will probably enable it again. Until then mechs will continue to defy gravity.

[Nightmare1]

...I'd just settle for being able to walk across the terrain without having to stop or slow down every time I encounter a pebble...

Canyons is a perfect example. If you start in that stream, you have to run down it's length for a ways before you can climb out if you aren't in a fast Mech!

[Zephonarch II]

Is this a common problem with Crysis engine games? It was in Skyrim. Even still, you can code conditional statements to prevent these kind of things to happen. Say if an angle is too steep for say, or even previously mentioned a mech is moving beyond a specific high speed, can't this be disabled? Seriously I've played with an Owens and other light mechs before with engines, and I don't think I'll notice or care if the feet are actually aligned to the ground it's standing on at 150km/h.
I have limited coding knowledge by the way. Just basic recursion, loop understanding is all I know.

Edited by Zephonarch II, 18 November 2014 - 11:53 AM.