No legs and no feet make wodsoa go something...something...

[wodsoa]

Crazy? Don't mind if I do!

Tried searching but didn't find anything on this matter. However, what bugs me the most about the source engine and Half-Life 2 is when you look down, you can't see your legs or feet. I remember Valve stating that they wanted to make the most realistic, immersive game ever; but when I look down, I'm instantly asking myself how I'm able to move forward without the use of these very important appendages.

Does Gordon float through the air? Using some hidden psychic ability that has yet to be mentioned? Maybe we'll find out in HL3. :monkee:

 

[Seagull]

imagine...

You're on top of a tower. Shooting combine soldiers left and right, blood spraying everywhere, as they are firing back, you duck behind cover to reload. You then grab the manipulator, and turn a table right-side up to use as extra cover. You then get up out of your cover, to attack some more combine coming from below you, in a swarm.

You look down to shoot some more...and instead..

YOU SEE A LEG.

That would ruin the game for me.

 

[Hazar]

could you grab your own leg with the super GG? :O

 

[Dan]

It would be very tough to model the view appropriately I think because you don't have fine motor control of your neck, rather you must move your entire upper body to look anywhere. Being able to see the rest of your body would make the akwardness of this more obvious.

 

[Milkman]

Well Halo 2 did it pretty smoothly, but not many other games have done it. Only other ones I know use 3rd person model as 1st person, so you see the exact same thing.

 

[gabriel]

the only game i've seen it in is halo 2. and halo 2 is terrible.
it doesn't bother me at all not being able to see your legs. it actually bothers me when you can see your legs because they just get in the way and they are unnessecary.
also, on the topic of not seeing legs, you also can't see your hands driving the vehicles or picking things up. i think both those aspects are just kind of half-life trademark things and i wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[Flyingdebris]

i'd like to see my own legs. the thing is that you have to put them just below the crosshairs when you are aiming straight down to avoid foot shooting.

I can understand not hearing gordon because "you" are supposed to be gordon, but not seeing his metal pants? we all know he's wearing an hev suit, we can all agree on what it looks like, what's the problem?

 

[Jintor]

What do you need legs for?

 

[Flyingdebris]

seeing how close you are to falling off a edge for starters

 

[Jintor]

Screw that, i fall off ledges all the time without legs. I don't need them to fall off ledges!

 

[Teta_Bonita]

I can understand why the didn't give you legs, what I don't understand is why you can't see your own reflection. o_0 Gordon's face is on the box already.... why can't we see it ingame? And why can't you see your hands when you drive vehicles? You can already see them when your holding a gun. It confuzzles meh.

 

[JellyWorld]

I can understand why the didn't give you legs, what I don't understand is why you can't see your own reflection. o_0 Gordon's face is on the box already.... why can't we see it ingame? And why can't you see your hands when you drive vehicles? You can already see them when your holding a gun. It confuzzles meh.

Yeah, I mean if they insisted on hiding Gordon's secret identity they wouldn't have splashed his face on the box.

 

[Foebane]

It's almost a PC FPS tradition not to show any part of the player except his gun arm and hands, and certainly not legs or feet.

Every such game has been like this since you were ABLE to look up and down, say, Quake.

Even Doom 3 doesn't feature it. Apparently they turn player shadows off as standard, as otherwise it would be too unnerving. I mean, you walk up to a wall past an overhanging light, and BOOM, you see your shadow suddenly rush up to you. It would give most people a heart attack.

Especially Mesh! :naughty:

 

[Greatgat]

It might be nice so that you could shoot yourself in your own foot so everyone would stop expecting you to save their sorry asses everytime.

..or maybe not. Down with feet!

 

[Dekstar]

Hitman 3 is a good example of 3rd person/first person feet view. I think it works very well.

 

[jondy]

I can understand why the didn't give you legs, what I don't understand is why you can't see your own reflection. o_0 Gordon's face is on the box already.... why can't we see it ingame? And why can't you see your hands when you drive vehicles? You can already see them when your holding a gun. It confuzzles meh.

Because the face of the in game Gordon wouldn't display the same emotions you felt. Having a static face while looking the mirror after an adrenaline rush of pasting a couple CP's or coming through the citadel and wondering what the **** is going on, would shatter any suspension of disbelief.

 

[Solver]

Because the face of the in game Gordon wouldn't display the same emotions you felt. Having a static face while looking the mirror after an adrenaline rush of pasting a couple CP's or coming through the citadel and wondering what the **** is going on, would shatter any suspension of disbelief.

Yes, that's why you're Gordon and you don't see his face. But Gordon's legs in a HEV look the same way anyway. Heck, anyone's legs would look exactly the same in that suit.

 

[jondy]

Yes, that's why you're Gordon and you don't see his face. But Gordon's legs in a HEV look the same way anyway. Heck, anyone's legs would look exactly the same in that suit.

Mm, see your point. Personally, I don't like legs ingame anyway; all the implementations I've seen (halo2, thief3, riddick) have been clunky and oddlooking

 

[Solver]

Yep, I don't like legs either in games... but I think that saying they're not in HL2 for immersion reasons is wrong. They're not in HL2 for the same reason as every other FPS game which doesn't have legs. Now, reflections are not in for immersion reasons, because seeing Gordon's face in-game would ruin the immersion.

 

[gabriel]

legs would be absolutley pointless. i mean come on, would it really add anything whatsoever to the gameplay? maybe a simple "oh neat" at first but then later it'd be "ahh get these damn legs out of the way!" Besides, showing excess leg and arm movement also contributes body language as a personality factor in a subtle way. the way it is, you are gordon, so the way you walk or drive is left up to you. and that's something i would never change in half-life.

 

[CreamOfetus]

If legs are pointless it shouldnt show arms and hands holding the guns either.
The point is, it feels like you are a flying pair of arms holding a gun.

 

[Cole]

But you do not see yuor hands holding the gun....
Infact you see gloves.
Your hands are in these gloves. You never really see skin, as that would ruin immersion...

 

[Ames]

Arms could easily be modeled in.

With legs, you have all the inverse kinematic calculations and anything that extends past a certain length in a view model would look weird. In order to fix around this, you would have to use the third person player model though you still have to calculate where each limb would go. You would have to deal with low-res textures too.

blah.

 

[ACLeroK212]

Yeah, forget legs. Does anybody remember Jurassic Park Trespasser? Now there's something worth looking down at. :naughty:

 

[Ravioli]

Its just because of the V-W-P model system, you cany see your own V and W model at the same time. As you might have noticed, when spectating others, you can see their own shadow, but when YOU play, you cant see your shadow. Thats because you see his V and W model, the W model cast shadows. To make you see legs you have the re-make that system, and its very dificult. Maybe if you look down, you look inside the model.

 

[operative x]

Halo 2 did it perfectly.

 

[Danimal]

Crazy? Don't mind if I do!

Tried searching but didn't find anything on this matter. However, what bugs me the most about the source engine and Half-Life 2 is when you look down, you can't see your legs or feet. I remember Valve stating that they wanted to make the most realistic, immersive game ever; but when I look down, I'm instantly asking myself how I'm able to move forward without the use of these very important appendages.

Does Gordon float through the air? Using some hidden psychic ability that has yet to be mentioned? Maybe we'll find out in HL3. :monkee:

No. It would not be classed as a bug. Many games don't have legs when you look down, I kinda prefer it this way.

I can understand why the didn't give you legs, what I don't understand is why you can't see your own reflection. o_0 Gordon's face is on the box already.... why can't we see it ingame? And why can't you see your hands when you drive vehicles? You can already see them when your holding a gun. It confuzzles meh.

1) Reflections in mirrors or in water hasn't been perfected yet.

2) VAVLe said they wanted you to feel as if you're in the game, it would not matter who's on the box, because once you start playing it however, you totally forget that.

 

[Cole]

You can already see them when your holding a gun. It confuzzles meh.

No you see gloves
Gloves and hands are diffrent.

 

[BetaMaster]

2) VAVLe said they wanted you to feel as if you're in the game, it would not matter who's on the box, because once you start playing it however, you totally forget that.

I do?
6char

 

[jondy]

1) Reflections in mirrors or in water hasn't been perfected yet.

That's not the reason they didn't include reflections of the player.

 

[Danimal]

It's not the reason, but a reason.

 

[Natty1]

It would be pretty cool to see legs as I think it helps with immersion which leads me to bring up Metal Gear Solid 3 as an example of something I hope first person shooters in the future take advantage of:

I'd like to bring a similar point up with a game that has the right idea, in Metal Gear Solid 3 in the first person view you see the actual 3rd person model for the arms and weapon (so in essense you are truly getting a first person view), when you reload a gun it is the exact same animation in first person as you see in 3rd person view. The only downside is that the arms and weapons look slightly less detailed and lower textured in FPV than a "fake" FPV arm and weapon model with it's own animation (but with character models getting more detailed this shouldn't be a problem), overall though I far prefer this method of doing things and hope first person shooters soon implemet this (maybe Half-Life 3 or Counter-Strike 2).

Hope I was clear explaining that, but it's been something I've been thinking about for a while.

 

[ríomhaire]

Agree with Natty1. It's stupid in Halo where the FP attack and reload animations are completly different from their TP counterparts.

 

[Busithoth]

legs no, reflection yes

I like there being no legs, as they'd probably integrate them into the physics engine to affect how you walk, and in my case, would get me stuck in places in deathmatch (ever respawn on top of clutter? best reason to have GG by default, to clear the crap away.)

But I like seeing my reflection in games. It's just as likely to break the illusion to have nothing facing you in a mirror, when everything else is so true to life. I can deal with Gordon's passive face staring back at me. Also, the facial expressions could vary between a few different presets (excited, panting, stern...)

 

[Kirkburn]

Thief 2 is a good example of legged game. In fact it's the BEST example, as your whole body is modelled properly. Takes a bit of getting used to - but you soon realise that actually your body does do that when you look down or round a corner

Gordon of course is a floating head. Without a nose apparently. Oooh, wouldn't it be cool if he had floppy hair which covered his eyes in windy places. Oh no wait ...

 

[Jintor]

Judging by the thirdperson command, Gordon is a pair of hands with a gun.

Or maybe that was just the old version of Gmod.

 

[Asus]

If you look down at the ground the same way you do in the game your legs are below the screen as far as I can tell. The way legs are shown in games that include them so far has just thrown me off and it looks out of place. To see just your legs and not your chest or gut when you look down? common
Either do it all the way or not at all. And then you get into the issue of blocking your view. Leave em out.

 

[Kirkburn]

If you look down at the ground the same way you do in the game your legs are below the screen as far as I can tell. The way legs are shown in games that include them so far has just thrown me off and it looks out of place. To see just your legs and not your chest or gut when you look down? common
Either do it all the way or not at all. And then you get into the issue of blocking your view. Leave em out.

Generally I work around the problem of having legs in real life my using my patented "invisi-leggings(tm)". Perhaps Gordon stole a pair before he went to work at Black Mesa - the bastard ...

 

[Styloid]

My opinion is that games (just like movies or books) have to omit some details that don't mean anything. Why don't you see Gordon's glasses on your screen the whole time? Because in real life, people who wear glasses don't notice they are always there-- it just slips out of your mind and becomes a little detail that you just omit from attention (the term habituation might fit). Walking is also the same; you don't need to concentrate on your legs to walk- you just do it and take your legs forgranted.

These things that we don't pay attention to in real life can be removed from games because they won't really add to the game (which wants to focus on other stuff). Firing your gun, however, requires hand-eye-coordination; you have to concentrate on your hands to do it. From a developer's stand point, is this a detail that is usually overlooked in real life that could be removed from a game? Not really.

Think of all the details that potentially could be added to make the game more 'realistic' but should be cut out: blinking? shivering? head rushes (from crouching to standing)? sleepiness? getting stuff in your eyes? that constant bit of ringing in your ears? hearing yourself swallow?

As of right now, I don't think seeing legs will add anything to a game like HL2. Worse, the only feeling I get from looking at legs so far is: "if that's my body, why can't I actually control it?" The solution to that problem is: "well, it's only a videogame." That seems like something that devs don't want their players thinking.

 

[Dalamari]

Well, Gordon moves the whole top half of his body when he looks, not just his head