31 replies to this topic

[Tennex]

Currently ravens walk. like humanoid do. The heel of its foot is the first to contact the ground. followed by the toes.
But birds don't have heel bones. they don't have an calcaneus.


In the picture above, the raven prepares to make contact heel first with toes pointed upwards. (the raven in the SS is running with a recently updated animation, IMO it looks good enough. But during walking, the problem is much more pronounced.)

But in birds, the toes contact the ground first. Every motion of the swinging foot, the direction of the toes point to set up so that contact is made by the toes first (toes point towards the ground, during swing. Unlike humans, where toes point toward sky during swing)




In both of the above figures, there is no moment in which the wingless bird(or any bird)'s toes point towrads the sky, because it is always pointing down to prepare to touch ground first.

Millions of years of evolution and probably some physics have said that this is the most practical and efficient way to use those joints.

Edited by Tennex, 13 January 2013 - 09:13 AM.

[Tennex]

Edited by Tennex, 12 January 2013 - 11:18 AM.

[Ashnod]

sure why not

[dF0X]

I support your argument, but all two legged creatures are bipeds. So, the raven is a biped.

[Duncan Fisher]

Right now your argument is missing one key piece: Is the Raven mech supposed to walk like a bird?

Yea sure, it's called the "Raven," but that doesn't present any legitimate obligation for its movement to actually be modeled after that of a raven... I suppose we should fix the Cicada animations as well, since real cicadas have six legs?

[Tennex]

Duncan Fisher, on 12 January 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

Right now your argument is missing one key piece: Is the Raven mech supposed to walk like a bird?

Yea sure, it's called the "Raven," but that doesn't present any legitimate obligation for its movement to actually be modeled after that of a raven... I suppose we should fix the Cicada animations as well, since real cicadas have six legs?

lol i guess the raven couldl walk like a insect as well. But with legs designed like a bird's why would it? Heck it could walk like a man.

i guess what your saying is the developers designed the raven with joints like a bird. but wanted it to walk like a pseudo bird

Edited by Tennex, 12 January 2013 - 11:25 AM.

[p4r4g0n]

Mechs with chicken legs should walk like chickens, just don't play them like one

[Adridos]

Duncan Fisher, on 12 January 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

Right now your argument is missing one key piece: Is the Raven mech supposed to walk like a bird?

It is a "bird walker" design.

Catapult, Timber Wolf, Cataphract, and others also fit into this category, because their legs have their design derived from bird legs for greater speed.

Now mechs like Jenner, Comando, Atlas, Awesome, etc. are humanoid and they have legs formed the same way as humans.

[Duncan Fisher]

Tennex, on 12 January 2013 - 11:24 AM, said:

lol i guess the raven couldl walk like a insect as well. But with legs designed like a bird's why would it? Heck it could walk like a man.

i guess what your saying is the developers designed the raven with joints like a bird. but wanted it to walk like a pseudo bird

What I'm saying is there is no reason why the Raven should walk exactly like a bird.

If the "Raven" had a different name, say, "Catapult" or "Stalker" instead (if those respective mechs themselves had other names), would you still have made this post?

[Tennex]

Duncan Fisher, on 12 January 2013 - 11:32 AM, said:

If the "Raven" had a different name, say, "Catapult" or "Stalker" instead (if those respective mechs themselves had other names), would you still have made this post?

i mean its not really about the name of the mech. The catapault and cataphract walk with the toes pointed down. Its just the raven that isn't animated that way.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Duncan Fisher, on 12 January 2013 - 11:32 AM, said:

What I'm saying is there is no reason why the Raven should walk exactly like a bird.

If the "Raven" had a different name, say, "Catapult" or "Stalker" instead (if those respective mechs themselves had other names), would you still have made this post?

Doesn't matter what the NAME of the Mech is, how it walks is determined by it's leg structure, and the Raven clearly has the bird leg structure, so it should walk accordingly. Previous MW games got it right, it's not hard to do, so why doesn't MWO get it right as well?

[Adridos]

Tennex, on 12 January 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

i mean its not really about the name of the mech. The catapault and cataphract walk with the toes pointed down. Its just the raven that isn't animated that way.

It may have something to do with it's leg design. While it is also backwards angled, the whole leg seems to opertae like a single entitiy with no separation of parts.

[Garnish]

This post is full of Win.

Yes the Raven is in the Chicken Walker family due to the backward canted knee joint. It should therefore have foot/ankle animations similar in nature to those of other Chicken Walkers (ie Cataphract).

[Tennex]

Adridos, on 12 January 2013 - 11:39 AM, said:

It may have something to do with it's leg design. While it is also backwards angled, the whole leg seems to opertae like a single entitiy with no separation of parts.

seems like the ankles don't bend far down enough

[MoonUnitBeta]

Popping in to agree. Cicada and Raven have always looked "off" when they walk. I suppose this might be that unnatural bit I'm noticing. That flick of the foot as the leg is coming to touch the ground to set it's heel down has always looked weird. Whether it's true to a bird design or not, it's looks weird and should be tweaked for the better.

However, this goes without saying that the animations are good already on a lot of mechs, but if we're aiming for perfection this would be a good change to make.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 12 January 2013 - 12:25 PM.

[Machazareel]

That picture only made me think of one thing tbh.

[Sug]

Garnish, on 12 January 2013 - 11:42 AM, said:

Yes the Raven is in the Chicken Walker family due to the backward canted knee joint.

No such thing as backwards knees.

[Oy of MidWorld]

Funny, but yeah, the OP is right.

[stjobe]

Quote

A chicken walker is a fictional type of bipedal robot or mecha, distinguished by its rear-facing knee joint. This type of articulation resembles a bird's legs, hence the name. However, birds actually have forward-facing knees; they are digitigrade, and what most call the "knee" is actually the ankle.

- wikipedia

Edited by stjobe, 12 January 2013 - 12:59 PM.

[Genghis Black Death Khan]

Agree with op.