163 replies to this topic

[Tennex]

something just doesn't seem right. feels like they are walking on ice or something. there's no weight to movement. My fav part about MW4 was the dynamic leg movement. doesn't seem to be any in this game right now...

in MW4 the mech's legs and feet would adjust to incline

[Undead Bane]

Tennex, on 25 July 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

something just doesn't seem right. feels like they are walking on ice or something. there's no weight to movement. My fav part about MW4 was the dynamic leg movement. doesn't seem to be any in this game right now...

in MW4 the mech's legs and feet would adjust to incline

...and they weigh nothing the same time. Like floating.

Yup, that's pretty much how it feels.

[Tennex]

mech movement does need to have some sway and dynamic to it though. the straight legged way mechs move in MWO its a wonder there arn't mechs fallin all over the place

[Komb]

I agree that the animations should be reworked a bit (unless it would mean to redo them completly). One thing that's missing is the sway animation, which should decrease with rising speed of the mech.

The other thing: Walking is controlled falling, and falling on your leg while running means it has to catch a lot more weight than walking. So on each step the knees should bend down to dampen the fall. The faster and heavier the mech, the more "oomph"

[Undead Bane]

Komb, on 25 July 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

I agree that the animations should be reworked a bit (unless it would mean to redo them completly). One thing that's missing is the sway animation, which should decrease with rising speed of the mech.

The other thing: Walking is controlled falling, and falling on your leg while running means it has to catch a lot more weight than walking. So on each step the knees should bend down to dampen the fall. The faster and heavier the mech, the more "oomph"

Yup, exactly what i described in the first post!

Sway may be minimezed, if legs with each step are moved towards the center, however this is a "model walk" and is unlikely suitable for a mech, as it decreases stability a lot.

And right now mechs are bicycling =(

[Leopard11]

MW 4 walking animation is all what the MWO nead to be greatest mech game ever for me, mechwarrior fan... but right now i'm disappointed.
It's only my opinion, sorry for my english. Regards

[SlavKatyusha]

The walking animations are bound to be just betas, as you can see alot of swaing and moonwalking on most cases, even floating feet.

This are all beta shots, not final, please keep that in mind...


.... but... just to be sure.... MW4 like animaions please...

[Undead Bane]

CloneWarrior85, on 25 July 2012 - 03:29 PM, said:

The walking animations are bound to be just betas, as you can see alot of swaing and moonwalking on most cases, even floating feet.

This are all beta shots, not final, please keep that in mind...


.... but... just to be sure.... MW4 like animaions please...

Well, that's the only hope I have now.

[Scytale]

Undead Bane, on 25 July 2012 - 11:57 AM, said:

...and they weigh nothing the same time. Like floating.

Yup, that's pretty much how it feels.

tbh I get the opposite impression - when I see a cat or a hunchie in a video take a step, it looks really... solid! I like it =) But I understand the concerns, and to each their own right? I don't mind if they do make it more like in MW4, mind you - I just like it as is too =P

EDIT: Though I *do* think the Jenner looks like it's floating, and the Atlas too to some extent. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Edited by Scytale, 26 July 2012 - 12:34 AM.

[Steel Smurf]

donkeybas, on 27 June 2012 - 07:47 AM, said:

That's what I thought, the sway would be canceled out by stabilizers. It would be kinda idiotic to have a weapon platform NOT stabilized when movement was initiated. Hence why tanks, (that have no legs but still move across rough ground) generally do not fire on the move, still have a stab system that allows them to.




Again, modern tanks and aircraft have stab systems that allow them to stabilize the weapon platform to allow fire on the move. A mechs platform would be the torso.

Sorry, I had to weigh in on this one. I spent 10 years on M1A1 tanks, so I can say with the authority of experience that there are at least 2 major differences between tanks and mechs:

1. Tanks do not walk. (on a side note I have to correct you on the fact that unless they are in a static defense or have a problem with their track, they fire on the move more often than not. Mobility=Life.)
2. Tanks are real and mechs are not.


in light of item 2, why worry about this? just strap in and have fun playing the game that some of us have been waiting ten years for.

[Steel Smurf]

Komb, on 25 July 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

.

The other thing: Walking is controlled falling,

I am sorry, but when I read this, I heard in my head Buzz Lightyear saying "It's falling with style".....

[l33tworks]

If you look at the very end of the new Jenner video as its running toward the screen, you can see the animation there is quite spot on.

Low speed animation is articulated quite well on the catapault as well.as it begins to move. Mainly the legs and hips twist and move which is how I would expect a military walking robot to be designed. You want the cockpit and weapons to sway as little as possible so all the movement and twisting needs to.be in the lower end.

I just think high speed animation needs work.


I know what you are saying unread bane, but I think I know what the devs are going for and that is in mechwarrior 4 style animations there is a ridiculous amount of upper body/cockpit movement, Being inside would be worse than a roller coaster. So they are trying to do their own take on it.

[Undead Bane]

l33tworks, on 26 July 2012 - 02:59 AM, said:

If you look at the very end of the new Jenner video as its running toward the screen, you can see the animation there is quite spot on.

Low speed animation is articulated quite well on the catapault as well.as it begins to move. Mainly the legs and hips twist and move which is how I would expect a military walking robot to be designed. You want the cockpit and weapons to sway as little as possible so all the movement and twisting needs to.be in the lower end.

I just think high speed animation needs work.


I know what you are saying unread bane, but I think I know what the devs are going for and that is in mechwarrior 4 style animations there is a ridiculous amount of upper body/cockpit movement, Being inside would be worse than a roller coaster. So they are trying to do their own take on it.

Well, cockpit swaying can be minimized of course, the movement just must have a little sway. Just lower the amplitude of hip/torso sway. But it must be present at least a bit.
E.g. look at MW3, not 4. There animation is frame-based, but still, legs there do have some sway. The mech's walk looks quite solid, quite realistic (though, not completely, but quite enough not to be super noticable) and sway is minimized. And all that with old frame-based animation technology. Being honest, not all mechs in MW3 had adequate animation.

To save you some time, here is a short video:


Look at how annihilators move.

Edited by Undead Bane, 26 July 2012 - 03:32 AM.

[PlagueChampion]

good thinking and suggestions verry usefull for the developers, however, easily said than done



check out this video, the army is working on it!

Edited by PlagueChampion, 26 July 2012 - 03:44 AM.

[errmoop0]

OP, couldn't you just place this as a suggestion in the suggestion thread? (yes, I know this Topic is relatively old)

Would give the Devs a better chance at seeing it.

[Hayden]

Though MW3 did a better job at capturing the feel of a massive walking war machine...

[JaYmZzz]

Just seen JENNER video again.
Looks like the torso is floating in the air independenty from the rest of the mech.
The torso travels through the air and legs just flap separately just to make the animation complete.
Looks awful.

[WarfieldSRT]

There are other problems with the naimations other than the mercs themselves. But I'll chalk most of it up to polish as we're still in closed beta. On thing that bothers me is that the ankle joins seem rigid, and that your feet aren't really independant. Like when traversing a slope, your gait is unchanged as you climb, or any other uneven terrain for that matter. Right now mechs just kind of look like they're "Scooby-Doo" walking.

As far as the mechanics of the Mechs and how they walk, I don't know. You're already suspending a lot of disbelief by entering a world where 100ton fighting vehicles with legs would be the superior or more practical choice to a 100ton rolling gun platform with tracks. That asside, you also can't assume that the anatomy of these machines is in any way like ours. The shape and distribution of mass in the upper torso would be completely off. Also, think of top half of your mech as the turret on a tank. Other than the foward locomotion provided from the legs, the two halves of the mech would be completely independantly from one another, and I don't think it would be out of the question that the top half is heavily stabilized to some extent. Another problem with this bipedal gait system is that, given the current geometry of the mechs, I don't think standing on one leg for any period of time would be possible. The bulk of the armored legs, and the wide seperation between them for stability means that the center of gravity would have to shift >very< far over one leg to facilitate a slow gait, so I'd imagine mechs of this size would be very limited to certain speeds and be force to take full, large steps, one at a time, in a slower frequency, rather than being able to take slow, small steps. The former just seems like an awkward and unintuitive way to move slowly around the battlefield when necessary. My point being that, if you want them to move super-relisticly or human-like, then that would just be impractical in any realistic sense. You'd be better of removing leggs all together in favor of tracks, or rationalizing that the only thing these things have in comon with humans is arms and legs, but their system of locomotion would be completely different.

[Randodan]

WarfieldSRT, on 26 July 2012 - 05:38 AM, said:

On thing that bothers me is that the ankle joins seem rigid, and that your feet aren't really independant.

They seem to have fixed that recently. Feet do seem to be angled based on the slope they're stepping on.

[xenoglyph]

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