Development idea

[FieldMedic]

- SWAT 3 was a great game that had no 1st person weapon animations at all... the handsup command is totally new to me so I cannot compare the two. OFP was different too. Even Tresspasser had some sort of body you were able to look at while looking down but that is totally different too.

In Swat3 , the handsup command is not comparable to what is achieved in OFP or Trespasser , but it was a nice touch and attempt for your officer to "feel" that you have a "real" virtual body and that you are not just some random virtual ghost floating in the maps with a gun.

Here are some resized screenshots , because they will describe better than my words what is the effect of that " Handsup " commmand.
In the following , all is from the default game , default (ugly) officer models , default (ugly) low poly and low res textures , and default anim for the officer movement.
In other words , no one of all those incredible mods that can be found for S3 are actived

 

[Beppo]

Thanks for the pics of S3, Medic. Nice to know that this really existed

Kaoh... we used an offset already... else the camera would stick to the bones origin and so would not move with the head animations at all. I guess you can read the three lines of code and understand what they do

 

[MunkE]

this is a brilliant idea (duh!). I don't own ut2k3 because there isn't anything inflike being done with it yet...but seeing that this is gonna be a possible feature Inf will use I'm leaning more heavily towards running out and buying a copy.

aside:
A feature like this really covers up the fact that the gameplay mechanic for fps haven't really changed since wolf3d. You run around shoot some things, collect some things and then exit the level. Novel interaction with the eviroment and other players is limited to shooting at them, taking things from them or manipulating them in some other statically defined manners. Perhaps there ought to be something done about this.
:aside

My question is what novel ways can this used to make inf even more immersive? My guesses are things like being able to shoot yourself in the foot, use your knee to stabilize your rifle while crouching, and a bunch of other stuff that isn't really milspec but happens in real life...

 

[Kaoh]

Kaoh... we used an offset already... else the camera would stick to the bones origin and so would not move with the head animations at all. I guess you can read the three lines of code and understand what they do

hehe, sorry, didnt read the class code, some effects gave me the idea the cemra was inside the head

 

[MP_Lord_Kee]

Trespasser screenshot

Didn't have time to check out this in UT2k3 but anyway, here is a screenshot from trespasser....
Basically the player is looking down...(if you didn't figure it out on your own..)

 

[Kaoh]

uhm yeah, may i vote for a female player model in INF then also

 

[LIGHTFIGHTER]

the recoil is unreal with the behindview on........but its so sweet

 

[Los Pescados]

didn't tribes or tribes 2 have something similar?

 

[MP_Duke]

thumbs up

 

[PMPN8EZ]

beppo man, that deserves a star, you know where

 

[b-boy_fuj]

Heh, i suggested this idea to some mods YEARS ago, i even edited .cfg file for rainbow six 1 wich placed camera into head, it looked weird sometimes with clippings. Other game with this implemented is new world order. All in all i love idea but have one question: Is it possible to have weapon animations in 3rd person? (Moving slide when pistol is fired) Im asking because i dont remember seeing that in other games...And whats with this handsup command? Anybody has some screenshots of it?

EDIT: duh, my bad didnt see the screenshots...

 

[Tribunal]

Wow.

I started this up, remembering Tribes 2 and being able to look at your feet (not all that special)....
And then the mod kicked in and a grin popped on my face. Sure, there were clipping issues etc, but I looked past all of that and loved the movements, the feeling of movement, the breathing was there and when I looked around -- wow, such an improvement! If this is what you were beginning to work on a year ago... Great teaser, something to whet our appetites but not make us forget about 2.9 (Every time a FedEx or UPS truck stops at my home I have to wonder -- is it 2.9 or more E-Bay auctions that the wife won?)

Some quick questions -- will this assist with the impelentation of weapons in future (3.0 and up) versions? And could the skeletal system be used for each new weapon -- you select one weapon and one set of amimations kicks in, you download a new weapon and try it out and instead of having to downlaod a new model all you would need would be the weapon and the skeletal movements?

This is really going to be great for throwing grenades, watching yourself give hand gestures to your squad and (possibly) watching yourself draw your pistol etc from their proper holsters! I've always loved the Inf, and I can't wait to see what you guys do with future versions (no matter how long the wait )

 

[Olecram]

Well, I just wanted to share a little idea...

I have asked this millions of thimes for billions of games, in tech forums, in discussion forums, around the world, but could NEVER guess how you could 'hack' the 3rd person view to get my desired effect, by binding it to the head bone.

Beppo, you're t3h man.

 

[Olecram]

*clearing tears from his eyes*: the view bobbing, the recoil, the damage-camera-shaking, the hand gestures, the weapon changes... it wasn't THIS promising even in operation flashpoint.

PS
in ultima IX, it was so badly implemented that you couldnt wear some helmets since the camera was just behind some polys.

PPSS
I just wanted to point out the fact that you can only shoot straight before you, even if the view tilts correctly, the weapon will shoot forward.

 

[Beppo]

...
PPSS
I just wanted to point out the fact that you can only shoot straight before you, even if the view tilts correctly, the weapon will shoot forward.

This mini mutator or whatever you wanna call it ONLY changes the way the 3rd person camera is positioned... nothing more.
Means that UT2k3 is not using your view for the weapon firing at all while in behindview. This has nothing to do with this mutator. UT handles the weapons this way tho.
If we continue with this development idea this will be changed of course, no worries.

 

[/\l!eN[RIP]]

So UT 2003/2004 is the next engine you're shooting for? Sounds like a good follow up, though it's 'aging' already. Oh well, the fact that I still play regular UT is more than enough to take that worry away

kudos to the mutator btw, looks pretty darn promissing!

 

[Keganator]

Aging? Ha, haha, hahahha, the UT Warfare~era engine can scale amazingly, from what I understand. They even have a higher detail level than what is shown because there wern't any video cards that could suppport ~200 megs of textures per map. With the static prefab thingamajigs, you can pull out a ton of detail. With computers and video cards continuously getting faster, you'll continue to be able to push more polies and detail, both in levels and code.

I believe the UT engine will continue to be useful for a long time. Considering UT2k4 uses the exact same engine as UT2k3, and they expect to keep using the same engine for several years, I think mod makers can expect the same engine for several years

 

[w00p]

This feature is a go!

 

[keihaswarrior]

Aging? Ha, haha, hahahha, the UT Warfare~era engine can scale amazingly, from what I understand. They even have a higher detail level than what is shown because there wern't any video cards that could suppport ~200 megs of textures per map. With the static prefab thingamajigs, you can pull out a ton of detail. With computers and video cards continuously getting faster, you'll continue to be able to push more polies and detail, both in levels and code.

I believe the UT engine will continue to be useful for a long time. Considering UT2k4 uses the exact same engine as UT2k3, and they expect to keep using the same engine for several years, I think mod makers can expect the same engine for several years

Not only that, but the makers of UT are realizing how important mods are to the popularity of their games. I am sure they will do their best to make porting mods onto the newer versions of UT as easy as possible.

 

[RAZZ]

The two cool things ut2k3 are ragdolls and the terrain generator.
I think this is a cool idea, altho I wonder how its going to affect the polycount on weapons. (altho even if it did, I'd say thats a worthy sacrifice for accuracy.)