79 replies to this topic

[Dartan]

Karyudo-ds, on 08 January 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

Some animation would be nice. Sort of grounds the enitre concept. Without it you're just giant robots duking it out.

Nicely put, that's my major concern for this game, if this is not done right everything else falls apart, just like in FPS games everything falls apart if weapon animations are just not done right, either lacking in detail, "realism", punch or are just stiff.

[Naduk]

if they did this optional is not really an option
let me explain

it is likely that the animaion of pushing said button would need to complete before the given action (ie fire weapon) can take place
else it would look extremely odd to be firing guns and performing combat only to have it end and have a animation stack still being played long after the combat is finished and you are standing still waiting for orders

this in turn creates a new problem, if you can turn it off that would make your weapons and actions perform faster than your animation on counterpart who would need to wait for animations to finish before taking more actions where as you simply press a button and then it happens

the delay this would cause would make running those sweet animations a fatal choice every time
and it would not take long for the comunity to realise this en-mass and thus only noobs end up using the sweet animations (for a while)

so all that effort put in by programers and animators and 3D artists and concept artists and sound engineers and anyone else involved
would be of complete wasted effort

thus , if a system like this makes it into the game it should be non-optional, all or nothing

also the system resources argument is rubbish, take battlefield 3 for example
on the lowest detail setting all animations are present, firing, reloading, leaping over walls ect
just because your machine is in the lower performace bracket dosnt mean you can turn these vital functions off
this game will be the same, if cockpit button animations are in, they will peform just the same under minimum system requirements as highest
they however just might not look at pretty (buttons wont glow, button covers may not be trasparent, lights wont change color ect)

[Phelan Kerensky]

I agree with the above post. Also, considering how I see this game becoming the most "real", in terms of realism, of any Mechwarrior game to date. Sorry to those that think it would be distracting but many more people than you think want these kind of animations and would want to go full bore on it...

[CyBerkut]

If such animations would slow down the performance of the mech, delay operations of the controls, etc., then said animations should be left out of the game. Delaying the operation of something that a keyboard shortcut, or HOTAS switch, has commanded is a BAD idea (and counter-immersive for many).

If such animations do not cause any delays, then make them optional.

[MaddMaxx]

Given the Hunchback Cockpit view we have, all battle related functions are done via the 2 joysticks and foot pedals so no pushing buttons on the console to fire a weapon, they are on the Control stick, as are speed, turning and torso controls.

Like on the 2009 video, to launch a drone, you reach out and click a button, probably best done under cover if a fight is on or other related things. To set radar, reach up and Click to set new radar. A 1.5 second action shouldl noit be the demise of your Mech under pretty much most circumstances.

So yes, having in cockpit animations would be cool but be reserved for those few functions that don't directly affect or delay things that would require an immediate response or reactions. That should go without saying... or so I had it figured.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 09 January 2012 - 10:59 AM.

[UncleKulikov]

Mchawkeye, on 07 January 2012 - 03:05 AM, said:

Whoa there fella. No need to be so...assertive. In actual fact, his comment (which I don't necessarily agree with) is just as baseless as yours, neither of you have any numbers to back up your assertions, so lets go easy on one and other. It's all considered opinion, and that's just fine.

Just because a style has become prevalent (in this case, showing the avatar enter the field of vision, in some way) doesn't mean PGI should/has to do the same.

That said, I think it's relevant here, in the cockpit of a mech. i would like to see it. But then, how much of your self are you actually going to see, and therefore is it worth spending the time over? Animating hands or making the PPC work better?

Would you rather they made gloves not war?

i would not.

The people who do the animation are separate from those who control balancing and programming. You don't have to sacrifice game balance to add in more animations, they are two independent groups of developers with separate skills.

You can have both, and I want both. Also with the option to turn it off.

Edited by UncleKulikov, 09 January 2012 - 11:16 AM.

[Doctor Horrible]

I like the idea of adding more and more details like this into the game. As mentioned before, it should be an option that a player can disable for whatever reason. To take it further, perhaps we could have customizable cockpits too. Everyone customizes their room/office/whatever, why not your cockpit?

[Dartan]

MaddMaxx, on 09 January 2012 - 10:56 AM, said:

To set radar, reach up and Click to set new radar. A 1.5 second action shouldl noit be the demise of your Mech under pretty much most circumstances.

I am very surprised how people fail to simulate this in their heads, there would be no balance and delay issues, just like there is no such issue when you see a finger pulled on a trigger in a FPS game, or throw a grenade, or have longer reload animation if the entire ammo clip is expended so you have to c o c k it.

Of course the pilot of the mech would have his hands in an optimal position already primed to set off any function and more elaborate rare functions would be likewise appropriately manifested..

I don't understand where you see the problem here?

Edited by Dartan, 09 January 2012 - 10:46 PM.

[Duncan Jr Fischer]

Karyudo-ds, on 08 January 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

Some animation would be nice. Sort of grounds the entire concept. Without it you're just giant robots duking it out.

Exactly! And that's what MW4 was all about! Always felt myself a robot, not even a giant one, but some small robot.
So much hope for the MWO to deliver believable proportions to the mechs and environment, and let us feel ourselves mechwarriors, not robots.

For those who fear for animations slowing down the process.. Haven't you really played games before???
Again, steering wheel animations in racing games or pulling the trigger animations in FPS have hardly ever slowed down anything, as was already mentioned here.
All those cockpit animations are a-must for the atmosphere and the concept!

Edited by Duncan Jr Fischer, 10 January 2012 - 12:11 AM.

[Dartan]

Duncan Jr Fischer, on 10 January 2012 - 12:10 AM, said:

Exactly! And that's what MW4 was all about! Always felt myself a robot, not even a giant one, but some small robot.
So much hope for the MWO to deliver believable proportions to the mechs and environment, and let us feel ourselves mechwarriors, not robots.

Not only that but I think this is one of the major reasons why such games didn't appeal to a wider audience. When you see immersive first person animation now like in MW3 or Battlefield 3 many campaign and multiplayer situations you can clearly see that this is a very important element and it sets a new standard for other games to be judged upon.

[Cepeza]

I need to add to my previous statement the following. Cockpit animation MUST NOT be switchable. They inevitably have to be permanently on, or off for all. It is probably pretty obvious that a switch will break PvP balance, just like switchable 1st person, 3rd person view. There are time critical key elemets to cockpit animations. It takes pilots time and attention to activate/deactivate certain functions of a mech. e.g. the drone launch from debut video. If you leave it to the player to be able to skip that animation and save time, those who like eye candy will not be able to compete against those who switch animations off.

[CyBerkut]

Cepeza, on 10 January 2012 - 02:25 AM, said:

I need to add to my previous statement the following. Cockpit animation MUST NOT be switchable. They inevitably have to be permanently on, or off for all. It is probably pretty obvious that a switch will break PvP balance, just like switchable 1st person, 3rd person view. There are time critical key elemets to cockpit animations. It takes pilots time and attention to activate/deactivate certain functions of a mech. e.g. the drone launch from debut video. If you leave it to the player to be able to skip that animation and save time, those who like eye candy will not be able to compete against those who switch animations off.

And if your contention that (at least some of) these animations introduce a time delay between the player issuing a command (via keyboard, joystick/HOTAS button, mouse, touchscreen, or whatever else) and the action being initiated, then they should NOT be put into the simulation.

I seriously doubt that I'm alone in feeling that when I touch a control to initiate some action, that it should start then. *I* have already made the reach to whatever location was necessary to press the button, key combo, touchscreen location, or whatever... No additional time delays are desired or called for.

Keep in mind folks, we do not yet know all about what we are getting. We may be locked into a cockpit view such as what is depicted in the media section... or, we may have options to drag various control panel sections around to other screens / screen locations. If we get that sort of customization available to us, then having hands moving around on the screen to locations that do not match up with our chosen control layout make little sense, and could be seriously counter-immersive.

I don't know if animations would introduce time delays (although it does seem like it would for at least some things). If they don't, then make them optional, and no advantage is gained or lost. If they would introduce time delays, they shouldn't be in the simulation.

I already have hands... what I want from the producers of MWO is a mech with great controls.

[NotNewHere]

I see no reason why animations would delay firing. Most of you will remember from the MW4V intro that mech weapons are controlled via joysticks; so rather than having a long animation of button pressing, you could just have your pilot pressing a button on his joystick.

!!Warning off topic!!
Maybe as part of the xp system, a rookie pilot could somtimes press the wrong button (thus firing the wrong weapon), but the more experienced you get the less likely this is to happen.

[Mason Grimm]

I was thinking about this one a lot today since you guys really came up with some good points and here are my thoughts.

As soon as you pull a trigger, press a button, rotate a stick, tap a thumb hat or fart in the wind it happens in game.

For firing or piloting your mech this would be instant since your hands (in game and out of game) are already on the controls. You fire, he fires, you turn, he turns, blah blah blah I don't forsee there being any animation lag at this stage of the game.

For fancy things like UAV selection it's simple. Have it done immediately after you press the appropriate control interface and then play the in game animation. For instance; you wanna activate your UAV? Press F1 and BLAMO you have launched a UAV. While all that is going on and you are waiting for tactical data your character reaches out and presses a button. That might take all of 1 second of animation time but the command has already been executed so there is no lag.

This may not work for things like switching to thermal optics since when you activate thermal on your keyboard or joystick it would be instantly done, even before your pilot reached out to switch the controls over in game. So for things like this you may have to have a little animation lag. Still, since this mechanic applies to EVERYONE then nobody has an advantage over anyone else.

It IS possible to have flash AND function! It just needs to be developed properly and knowing how serious they are about working on Hula Physics™ I am confident that they will get the rest of it right as well.

[Havoc2]

I'd like to see the animations for simple(er) things that can afford the animation lag like startup/shutdown, launching UAVs (as mentioned) even switching to thermal imaging could be as simple as an arm raising and flipping a switch on the cockpit/neurohelmet/whatever and only take a second or 2.

I would not be ok with the system lag this could cause though if there were an animation for every little thing. When I'm in combat I'm not focusing on what the avatar's arms are doing, I'm focusing on my radar or screen or any number of things that would draw my attention away from the animation.

[Dartan]

Nightwish, on 10 January 2012 - 09:35 AM, said:

!!Warning off topic!!
Maybe as part of the xp system, a rookie pilot could somtimes press the wrong button (thus firing the wrong weapon), but the more experienced you get the less likely this is to happen.

I can't believe I forgot about this, I was thinking about it for other games. For example, the higher level you are the more alacrity and efficiency you have in your motions just like in real life, just picture a rookie helicopter pilot vs a veteran who flipps on buttons without a second thought.

[Elizander]

I wouldn't mind it for things like powering up or ejecting but as already stated, waiting for an animation to push a button before my gun actually shoots would be rather bad.

[Dartan]

This doesn't look good, take a look at this picture:



It looks like invisible ghost will be piloting, and that joystick on the right might not even move at all(and if it does invisible ghost will be moving it so it will look pretty crappy). This could really ruin the whole game, I hope developers understand how important this is and how all modern driving simulations and war games have many first person immersive elements, hands being the chief among them.

Edited by Dartan, 15 January 2012 - 12:10 AM.

[Hannes]

The title is "Hunchback Cockpit" and not "Hunchback in live action".
I think they will pull something out of their sleeves.
With the dedication they have shown so far I doubt, that they will just make a MW4 Cockpitstyle.

[JPaagtc]

I feel like i may be alone on this, but I for one prefer the look from the Steel Battalion and Hawken videos where you can see the top of the instruments. I feel like this is more immersive because I can then imagine my own hands controlling my mech. And I would prefer to hve the resources go into improving the gameplay or adding more assets.