Animations in HL2

[zEphyr]

I wonder if the 3rd-person crouching animation will still be HL1 style (Single movement from standing to crouched). I guess this kind of applies to all animations, but mainly only the crouching one in HL1 has kind of bothered me for a while.

Do any of you people think that it's a important to have nice smooth animations in HL2's gameplay, or is it mostly just unneeded eye candy?

 

[Guest]

Player animations is like the most important thing. Because if they are shit I can't take the game seriously. Like that Unreal tournament 1 mod, Tactical Ops. The player anims were so goofy I couldn't take the game seriously. CS I'm sorry to say has like the best player animations ever.

 

[The Mullinator]

I wouldn't worry about that, HL was older and crappy animations like that were the norm.

If youve ever seen the animation (or lack of) in Goldeneye for the N64 when someone moves while crouched you would understand how bad it could get.

 

[NiteStalker]

Originally posted by THUGENSTE1N
CS I'm sorry to say has like the best player animations ever.

Play DoD for a while, the animations are better.

 

[Lifthz]

Halo has the best player animations i've seen in a FPS game up to this day. It actually has weighted points on the characters that make them seem to move realistically, even when they're in the jeep their weight movements are very realistic even when they go over bumps, make huge jumps from hills or other high levels , crash into stones or walls etc. I haven't seen this in other FPS games yet...

 

[ValVed RaY]

::cough:: jedi outcast ::cough::

 

[Lifthz]

I've played Jedi Outcast, the player animations are not Halo's quality.

 

[Anthraxxx]

Originally posted by NiteStalker
Play DoD for a while, the animations are better.

Originally posted by THUGENSTE1N
The player anims were so goofy I couldn't take the game seriously. CS I'm sorry to say has like the best player animations ever.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! That's soooo funny!!!!! CS has good animations!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!! DoD has good animations!!!!


Obviously, neither of you has played Raven Shield. Player animaitons in RVS are better than any game out there so far.

 

[smwScott]

NOLF2 had damn good animations too.

 

[Anthraxxx]

NOLF2 had good animations, but still nothing compared to RavenShield. :thumbs:

RVS has some good multiplay.

 

[vann7]

i have no doubt that Hl2 will be the next Big game and maybe surpass in sales Doom3 or Stalker together.and that will set new standars in gameplay.

but .. the animations (character body animations) in half-life2 ,still have a lot of room for improvement. (same with STALKER) is you watch the BIg video of Hl2 ,you will see that the characters movements doesnt look natural ,but the opposite ,semi-automatic. this can be easily seen in the trailer ,when the girl give the weapon to main character gordon?. another but strange thing was the face of the girl ,was too rigid ,(without emotions) the only animations there was in her eyes,lips and mouth.

you can see witness this too ,in the streets fights ,when the characters are running. they movements doesnt look natural. however i think Mods will improve even more Hl2 character animations ,since Hl2 have a good skeletal system.

just for the sake of comparisons...
if you want to see really good character animations ,look at many console games ,specially SPort games ,which their characters animations looks at times too realistic that even distract you from playing the game. it happened to me with a dreamcast tennis game. :cheese:
most of the best character (body) animations done in games ,are made using MOtion capture data ,recording the movements of real actors and people. many games use MOCAP for character animations i think Hl2 use it but only for the facial animations,but not all have the same results ,you need a also a good skeletal system to re-create the complex animations HUmans can do ,and talented people to do the job.
RAinbowsix games like - Roguespear- GHostrecon.. games was on top on my list in PCgames,with character animations ,i just loved the diferent way people died . and now Doom3 fans will be pleased to know that id-software is using MOCAP for the human characters in the latest version of the game.

and by what i have seen in the trailer ,i was very impressed with the results. not only with the marine body animations ,but also with his facial expressions. specially the scene of the zombie turning on the chaingun vs the marine. very cool..

 

[LoneDeranger]

Originally posted by vann7
another but strange thing was the face of the girl ,was too rigid ,(without emotions) the only animations there was in her eyes,lips and mouth.

That's interesting, considering a while ago we had a thread saying that she had TOO MUCH emotion. This leads me to believe that it's just right

 

[xtekian]

as far as i remember, enter the matrix had motion capture but the animations sucked, especially running.

 

[FortisVir]

Originally posted by The Mullinator
I wouldn't worry about that, HL was older and crappy animations like that were the norm.

If youve ever seen the animation (or lack of) in Goldeneye for the N64 when someone moves while crouched you would understand how bad it could get.

Ah yeah, good old Goldeneye. If I remember correctly the models would get into a crouching position and then just slide around like they were on a big bar of soap. Haha that was hilarious the first time I saw it.

 

[cyborgguineapig]

whats cool is taht mod teams no longer need to make animations for death sequences since the source engine physics does that for you!:cheese:

 

[ShinRa]

But ragdoll physics has it's bad sides.

1. Legs twist around in positions not humanly possible, and arms too.
2. Bodies continue to slide, or move until at a completely flat surface, which is very unrealistic.
3. Bodies with ragdoll physics most of the time just fall, which kind of sucks.

Now having about 20-25 different death animations, WITH ragdoll physics, would make it much better than just watching the guy fall. In real life, just because your dead doesn't mean your body can twist into different forms like a ragdoll.

 

[cyborgguineapig]

for #1. Not necessarily true, you can set bone restraints/restrictions so bone "x" does not rotate past a certain point, i'm pretty sure of this, the havok demo with the skeleton shows how the limbs and specifically the spine cannot just rotate however it wishes, there are limits.

For #3. Thats not true, in the E3 demo remember the antlion movie, some of the soldiers tahtw ere struck flew back a few feet and the big ramming alien flew the soldiers across the ground real hard. Also the city fight scene with barney showed the effect of a grenade exploding beneath the feet of two soldiers, remember?

 

[Apos]

I agree that death animations should be more than just ragdoll. Especially with headcrabs, it's just not good enough to tell you that something is dead. It needs to twitch, crawl over, etc.

Idealy, you should have TWO levels of health loss. Part one level and the creature stops doing normal AI actions and starts dying. Past the next level (you shoot them some more), they die and go limp instantly. That way something can die for a few seconds in an animated way, still moving a bit until it ragdolls completely, but if you shoot it again, it then dies and ragdolls completely.

 

[ValVed RaY]

did you all forget that objects and players in hl2 have "weight"

 

[BWMASTER]

What I hate with charachters animations is when the player looks around...in multiplayer for example, feet don't move with the body...they just stand there......it looks so unnatural...LOL

 

[kelisis]

LOL, I know....But, anyways, right now I think H2 looks good! By the time it comes out.....It will be so better then Doom 3....

 

[Ralphus]

I always liked HL1's animations cause it's the only game where the player stance is just right for someone holding a gun. ALl other games look weird.

 

[Lifthz]

Originally posted by Apos
I agree that death animations should be more than just ragdoll. Especially with headcrabs, it's just not good enough to tell you that something is dead. It needs to twitch, crawl over, etc.

Idealy, you should have TWO levels of health loss. Part one level and the creature stops doing normal AI actions and starts dying. Past the next level (you shoot them some more), they die and go limp instantly. That way something can die for a few seconds in an animated way, still moving a bit until it ragdolls completely, but if you shoot it again, it then dies and ragdolls completely.

Yeah... like how S.T.A.L.K.E.R is starting to show if anyone saw the trailer.

Originally posted by guinny
But ragdoll physics has it's bad sides.

1. Legs twist around in positions not humanly possible, and arms too.
2. Bodies continue to slide, or move until at a completely flat surface, which is very unrealistic.
3. Bodies with ragdoll physics most of the time just fall, which kind of sucks.

Now having about 20-25 different death animations, WITH ragdoll physics, would make it much better than just watching the guy fall. In real life, just because your dead doesn't mean your body can twist into different forms like a ragdoll.

That's why they have to be improved. It's just like A.I., they were once very simple.... now they're more advanced nowadays and will keep getting more realistic. That goes to anything relative to trying to be realistic.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R had many of those issues in the beginning of its rag-dolls, but the developers are working on all of it and fixing it up all the time. Some developers will do the same, others won't give 2 shits. And there are still issues, and they continue working on it until they're happy.

 

[vann7]

Originally posted by guinny
But ragdoll physics has it's bad sides.

1. Legs twist around in positions not humanly possible, and arms too.
2. Bodies continue to slide, or move until at a completely flat surface, which is very unrealistic.
3. Bodies with ragdoll physics most of the time just fall, which kind of sucks.

Now having about 20-25 different death animations, WITH ragdoll physics, would make it much better than just watching the guy fall. In real life, just because your dead doesn't mean your body can twist into different forms like a ragdoll.

exactly..

Ragdoll physics most of the time is more usefull for objects.. since they always react the same way. but human react in diferent ways often can die very quickly or few time later. most of the FUn in the game [rainbowsix games] was to see they way people died.

i have seen in ROgue spear players that when you shoot them in the chest ,they sometime stay 3 seconds motionless ;( ,and later they fall like a tree in the floor. very damn Cool!!! it looks like if they are trying to live but in the end they die. :cheese: just like the real life. red storm developers always always try hard for extra detail in character animations. realism is the first law there ,graphics there is second or third place ,since they focus also alot in gameplay ,i really like all their games ,since they make you feel that you are really inside the game ,animations and realism there is always top priority. the way it should be.

 

[lonefox]

Originally posted by zEphyr
I guess this kind of applies to all animations, but mainly only the crouching one in HL1 has kind of bothered me for a while.

aha, I thought I was the only one.

I think it would have been better if the stationary crouch was like halos where he put one leg down and the other... up.. well yeah. heh

That would be so much better, and you would get more balance for aiming a gun then having both the legs crouched...

like this:

(I love me mspaint!)

 

[Styloid]

Yeah, I was just thinking about how weird it would look to see the new g-man running around with HL1 animations. I think HL2 will have pretty good animations since valve has said that they would like to keep a constant quality and walking animations will look as good as the faces... I think right now animations suffer from clipping and the fact that they are just animations; you can crouch in different ways and for different reasons (taking cover, sneaking, getting under an obstacle) but there's only one crouch animation.

we're talking about moving animations too right? not just death and in game cinematics?

 

[lonefox]

i dont think there is any in game cinematics... unless your talking about when like the stuff happens, like that dr.klieners lab video... I wouldn't call that really a in game cinematic though, more of a ... in-game interactive cinematic.. becuase you always will see though the eyes of gordon, and be able to move around in the cinematics, like in hl1...

I think i read that somewhere....

 

[GLMinorThreat]

Lifthz... Halo sucks. Go back to the IGN boards.

 

[Wesisapie]

owned

 

[ShinRa]

Lifthz, why is it in every thread, all your posts have something to with STALKER. Stop talking about the goddamn game, or go to their forums, it's really annoying. Other than that, you have a valid point.

 

[vann7]

Originally posted by Styloid
Yeah, I was just thinking about how weird it would look to see the new g-man running around with HL1 animations. I think HL2 will have pretty good animations since valve has said that they would like to keep a constant quality and walking animations will look as good as the faces... I think right now animations suffer from clipping and the fact that they are just animations; you can crouch in different ways and for different reasons (taking cover, sneaking, getting under an obstacle) but there's only one crouch animation.

we're talking about moving animations too right? not just death and in game cinematics?

yep.. just everything that is character animations inside game..
download this trailer (20megs)

http://www.gamesdomain.com/movies/192.html

forget the graphics and pay close attention to the diferent death sequences,to the way enemy walk or soldiers crounch.they are never quiet . this trailer is just a small example ,but dont do justice to all the animations that the characters have.. many times while playing the game in single player ,you get the feeling like if the enemy is a real human. by the way he behave. to see the way they climb ladders , i think rainbow six games are the first wich characters can blink their eyes ,and you can see them breathing. in levels with snow you even can see the effect of cold air when they exhale the air. in GHost recon and latest Raven shield games they added many more diferent cool animations sequences like opening doors just slightly or fully and the fluid posture where you can peek left or right at any angle or any position. but droped others.
maybe to improve the internet speed of multiplayer games.
however still there are room for improvements ,nothing is perfect.
REd STORM developers have been using MOtion capture data for many years in their games.

 

[Doobz]

i hope you realize that the latest Rainbow 6 game was handed off to a different developer than who did the previous games, which is why it was not all up to snuff

anyways, what guinny said about sliding, abnormal angles, and limp death, it's all exaggerated

Gabe already said they were addressing the limp death issue

bodies are physically simulated in Source and interact with their objects, which inlcludes properties like friction, so, they'll only slide, roll, tumble when appropriate, like rolling off of a roof or some such

and the joints can be set to have a specific rotation degree, where it can't go past a certain point, limiting how crazy the limb angles can be on death.

 

[Guest]

physics wil make animations seem MUCH less cheesey I cant wait to see the pwnage