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Fluidity of Movement
Eichenkatze
Member Posts: 340
I know this has been talked about before, but i haven't seen any really recent topics about it and I'm curious to know other people's opinions, as I'm really torn with mine.
The topic, Fluidity of movement.
One thing thats big for me in games, is the smoothness of how the character(s) move in the environment. In Age of Conan, they just don't seem... natural.. when they run and fight sometimes.
Running/Walking
Maybe its just me, but when i watch the videos and see the characters moving, it looks horrible to me... I see this character running and he's hardly moving his upper body at all. All that is moving are his legs going almost 90mph. Don't get me wrong but i think that violates state/local law. (har har.. Ok i fail.. sue me.) In one video on IGN ( media.pc.ign.com/media/743/743392/vids_1.html ) entitled "Baldy but Goody" I watch the main character stroll through the forest surroundings holding a good sized sword. I know that when holding something that big, you don't exactly have a wide range of motion unless swinging.. but he's holding it so.. stiffly.. i know from experience that running with a large, long sword like that takes an effort and you tend to allow it motion, otherwise it becomes impossible to move. In reality it would be bobbing up and down more... swinging-ly...ish than it is in the video.. and when he's running with it in both hands? Very jerky movement for running with a sword. In my eyes this is just distracting! he'd more likely be bent over forward a little more, his shoulders taking longer swings back and forth while his arms shift the *spear* sorry not a sword.. more from side to side with longer strides from left to right.
Oh, and is it just me or does the 'pitter-patter' of the feet seem a little annoying as its so fast "pit-pit-pit-pit-pit-pit" Oh Wow! He only took three steps! (you'll notice what i'm talking about more in the video "Attack of the Yeti, referred to below in Spell/Caster animations)
Combat Actions
Please tell me its not me, but when watching the characters fight, the animations seem to "Jump" into one another.. I'll watch them swing an axe or sword, and just at the end of the animation.. *WOOSH* they're suddenly standing up right or swinging a different move. The animation didn't even try to blend into the next by bringing the sword back up into an idle stance or around for another swing. It just... restarts.. makes the whole animation a little ugly.
I can understand this happening for the sake of how the combat system works for reoccuring swings, but for say your final animation.. shouldn't the character bring the weapon back up to him into the idle position instead of just having the animation end and suddenly appearing standing upright with the sword at *idle* in both hands?
Spell/Cast animations
Another video on IGN ( media.pc.ign.com/media/743/743392/vids_1.html ) entitled 'Attack of the Yeti' you watch a player with.. we'll call them "magical" abilities for now... even though the developers would scold me for such.. cast off a few *ahem* spells.. towards the giant yeti being battled in the video. The animations? Suck... I apologize.. but they really do. I've seen far better in my MMO travels, and no i can't do any better as i don't do animation in 3D.. i've only dabbled with modeling and texturing... but i'll still be paying for this game, and i know they can put more into this animation. Usually when i see someone cast a spell or enhancement.. or whatever you want to call it.. theres a good animation to go with it. They fiddle with their hands and throw them forward, palms exposed to show they just shot an effect onto the character infront of them. They flash their arm up in the air and a visual effect consumes them or their target.
While AoC has the visual effect... the animations seem... lacking.. very limited motions accompanied by a cool little fire or symbol effect... thats all well and great.. but just like the running, its distracting when the animation is noticeably incomplete.. To those of you that will no doubt point it out, in some cases, the caster does include a good animation with an effect. In the case where he swings his dagger and throws out a bolt, but he also swings into mid-air as if the creature was standing within an inch or few of him..
which i'll rant about below 
Distance vs Animation
This has been something i know has been well discussed before, at least on the official forums.. but it still irks me. One of the few things that impressed me about our generi-MMOs like World of Warcraft.. was distance to the attacker. They required you to be close to your target for melee attacks and not standing half a map away.. afterall.. how unrealistic and fluid-looking is a meelee attacker standing fifty meters away swinging and kicking (or swinging and slashing for weapons) at thin air.. only to have the creature those fifty meters away taking a pounding from an invisible player. That, personally drives me nuts. With a game that delves so deeply on what the AoC world really was and striving for a sense of "Darker" realism to the world of Conan.. i don't remember any stories of conan beating down his foes a mile away.
Well, those are my thoughts... care to join in and share?
Oh and please try to keep the intense flames at bay, i know its hard... but try not to for me..., this was intended to be a civil thread conversation on your thoughts concerning animation in AoC.. not how much you dislike <name here>'s post or what they said. Thoughtfull disagree... not mindlessly attack.
Everquest - 2000 - '02
Anarchy Online - '01-'02
Earth and Beyond - '02-'04
Star Wars Galaxies - '03-'06('07)
World of Warcraft - '04-'07
Age of Conan - '08 - shelved.
-Waiting on-
Star Trek Online
SW: The Old Republic
Comments
have you seen one of the latest videos? there's a link in this thread:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/137634
and it DOES look pretty smooth and fluid in my opinion, they're still only in technical beta and changes and adjustments are being made all the time.
Watching the ads now, if these are the ones i watched earlier.. they are the same new ones you're refering to... but give me a minute to watch through the interview crap lol.
*edit*
Alright, i skimmed through one so far and it was one i'd seen earlier today. They still seem a little.. klunky.. but they're no longer ugly now, thats true.. i'll give you that and probably should have swung through the new videos for consideration, not just the older ones.. but i also figured the videos i had watched and included were closer and easily observed than the more "Distant' views from the new videos now..
It has certainly gotten better though.. Which brings up another model of mine..
Anyone kinda tormented by the camera movement? or is it just me?
Everquest - 2000 - '02
Anarchy Online - '01-'02
Earth and Beyond - '02-'04
Star Wars Galaxies - '03-'06('07)
World of Warcraft - '04-'07
Age of Conan - '08 - shelved.
-Waiting on-
Star Trek Online
SW: The Old Republic
I guess I can partially agree with you. Yes, the animations are not exactly what most of us were probobly expecting. Disapointing? Not in my book it's not. Although I agree that the combat animations seem to always be the same, from what I have seem they also look very fluid and constant. In other words, it actually looks like if a human was swinging that axe or what not. Some games you feel like you're watching a robot do funny gestures. I found this to be quite appealing. As for movement... Ok, the character does look like he has something up his behind but it's not all that bad. I'd like my post to be much more detailed and well thought-out but I'm in a bit of a hurry but I can assure you that I will come and edit it when I come back. All-in-all, the animations weren't really as nice as we were expecting, I'll give you that. But I feel it gives some kind of a nice dimmension to the game. You really feel like the character might just well be some kind of a "caveman". I think I'd be more puzzled if he walked like an olympic runner with perfect modern-man style. Although it's not as nice as we had wished for, I feel like it's pretty darn good anyways, and it will surely not stop me from buying the game.
Well that was the 2 cents of a very late guy with really no time to post an elaborate answer
well first off I'd like to mention that in "baldy but goody" (I think that was the name) he was not actually holding a two-handed sword but rather a big tree branch. This may clear up some of the combat stuff because some of his motions make a bit more sense but I'm with you on when he was running while holding it in two hands. That was way too jerky but I guess they still have time to touch up things like that.
As for the caster, I would like to see the spells look a bit more extravagent than a little dagger flick and out comes a firebolt but I think AoC is going for a bit more of a realistic look so they might not want to overdo the spells or things might look a little too busy.
I'm defineatley with you on the combat distance stuff, I hate it when I see a game where you atack a guy but your enemy is still moving or something so you end up swinging and doing damage but your enemy has already walked well past your reach. In the "baldy but goody" video when he kills one of the guys his final atack isn't actually swung until after his enemy has already died and done his death animation. That to me looks really bad and should be fixed up.
For the most part I agree with your points but I think you might be being a little too cynical considering every player is going to not only have a character with diferent facial features but diferent proportions and such. Getting the heft and proper run mechanics right for everyone is possible but perhaps a little too difficult to meet your standards.
-Snowman <- this name was taken.....but I like it more
He are a few dev comments about the video from game trailers:
From Athelan:
"Pivots (which is the technical term for the spin) isn't a matter of energy being wasted, its a matter of you would not turn your back to your opponent ever in a real situation.
It takes less energy to continue the motion of the weapon than it does to stop it and change direction.
It was me playing that bear shaman, sadly all the casting animations are not in and you could not see the absolutely WICKED bear shaman effect on my combo's very well
I used the combo that had the pivot a lot is all ;p I don't have all the bear shaman ones memorized when jumping to that high of level. We had some caster's with us but I don't know where they were so I was just smashing mobs with the guardian."
"Yes it is, because the pure cut fighting move only stuff doesn't leave a lot of variation when you have thousands of moves to mocap.
The Elk will actually run away from you, some of the press were chasing them down like kids chasing a kitten.. well.. but they didn't want to just pet it =/"
"Well Combos are kind of flourish extras"
"It was bugged when I was dying. My combo's were doing normal melee damage ;p"
"
I liked the look of everything otherwise though. The hammer really felt heavy watching, I liked that.
PS: Looked like a lot of fist fighters? A sign there might be fist weapons in game?
Theres only so much of that you can expect in an MMO however. It still has some polishing left but you won't manage to eliminate sliding in all situations."
"Quote:
Unless the mob dies and you have not seen it yet, most the flailing you see would just be finishing the current combo you had already started, you can't queue anything but the next action."
Thread can be found here: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=30710
As mentioned, handling sliding and animation synch in an MMO is much more difficult than a single player game especially when you are seeing someone else. Given the fact we cant preload 2500+ animations as it takes too much memory, sometimes you will get a pop while it loads an animation into memory and catch just the end, the next time you see this animation while it is in memory it will be more smooth.
The casting animations are currently being redone, there are a few classes that have new ones that I think are a lot better. Quite a few classes don't have any animation at all (like my Bear Shaman) yet.
The movement outside of combat, and with a 1h sword is pretty good as we prototyped all the movement stuff with that setup, some of the other weapons are lacking some of the angular animations, and some weapons were missing the running attack animation so you got that "swing" while sliding issue. This is known and being corrected.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
I agree with the OP. Although I do like the combat animations, the running is terrible. It just looks like a plastic He-Man figure running around.
Thats one think I REALLY liked about Star Wars Galaxies: the running and firearm animations.
they still have a lot of beta time left, I would not worry too much at this point
I miss DAoC
along the lines of LoTROs queue system?
I miss DAoC
Alright... here goes to make up for a couple days being gone.. heh..
Well, i do have to agree that the character(s) in combat do act like they probably would in reality for the most part, but my primary problem is it seems the developers kinda... over-did-it.. you know? Like with running around with the "tree branch" (as it was pointed out by Loupster) how his movement was a bit too-fast in the way of how he carried himself and his weapon. Swinging back and forth pretty dang quickly in comparison to movements in reality which would have been alot slower, as swinging a large, dense object takes some good effort and force.. its nothing like running with a cardboard tube while playing knights and ninjas with your cousins or friends.
I do and have taken into consideration the fact that in relation to latency and viewing the many other characters on the screen, it can be difficult for one single machine to render out and portray every action going on in the virtual world, and i understand that to the fullest extent.. nor do i expect that... but i do on my own character, as thats what i'll be staring at for the rest of his/her digital life. When he swings the sword or msc. object i'd kinda like to see him "heave" it towards his opponant.. not swing it around like it was made of hollow plastic.
Oh and thank you for the quote and link AmazingAvery! Its good to know the developers have at least looked at the animations and heard those of the crowd who think similar to myself and are trying to better it for what they haven't already.
Everquest - 2000 - '02
Anarchy Online - '01-'02
Earth and Beyond - '02-'04
Star Wars Galaxies - '03-'06('07)
World of Warcraft - '04-'07
Age of Conan - '08 - shelved.
-Waiting on-
Star Trek Online
SW: The Old Republic
I really don't quite know what you're really trying to get across with this thread. Is it that the animations aren't perfect? Because I've never seen a game where such things were perfect. I remember killing people in SWG and watching their bodies slide 20 feet in one direction afterwards. I thought it was funny.
However, I think the kind of realism you want here is not only unreasonable, but not possible, at least with current levels of technology. Maybe if everyone had the most advanced PC you could buy, there could be a few smoother character movements, but from what I can tell, Funcom has done everything they can to make this game awesome.
I suppose until the game is released, or at least until the NDA is released and the game goes into open beta we really don't have much else to be talking about, but I don't plan on focusing too hard on the upper body movements of my avatar.
+1 one for this post, I would go more indepth about my opinion but its off to COV in a few..
All I can say is that you hit the nail right on the head.. The more I see from this game the less I want to play it.. Those spell animations are horrible, absolutly horrible IMO.
Its sad because for me Anarchy Online (Funcoms other title) was really my first MMO and will always hold a speical place in my heart. Perhaps I was expecting to much from them this time around?...
While I know AOC will have one of the most indepth MMO's on the market(cause lets face it thats what Funcom is really good at), I cannot say that it will have one of the most entertaining games on the market.. With titles like WAR, Tabula Rasa, TCOS, Huxley, comming out and all looking, well just more FUN then AOC, I just don't see them keeping their player base very long.
People bash games like WOW, COH/COV, Planetside, etc, but they are appear to be 10x more exciting and FUN to play then this game.
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
And some extra combos to be added .
But is this possible (a bit animation fixing ,some more skill for usage,) for the time being of development?