Dayz going to inherite animation nightmares of Flashpoint.

[grinya 3]

Hello.

Write this letter (as game developer) with urgent, personally to Rocket.

I really disappoint that you declare going to rework animation system, but really will be rework only animation(not animation system). This's clearly see from last Dev-Video, where team take MoCap at studio.

I not understand why you still trying to keep old animation system and show it like something new instead of develop brand new existing great ideas. As you said before "Arma 2 still has Flashpoint animation system",but you trying to build nothing like same with new animation sequencies. Take look at Valve Left4Dead 1/2. It has revolutionary and genius animation system basic on blending keyframed sequencies on skeleton core. They capture all simple movements with MoCap and made it simple as possible, then get two sequencies depends on game event and blends them from first to second. So it able to make smooth animation transitions like in real life: run-fall, run-jump, run-attack, run-turn(with lean) and so on. It's best and most realistic NPC animation I ever see in gamedev, especially for zombies hordes or infected(after "28 DAYS LATER").

As Flashpoint-Arma 2 veteran, I have many questions about promises given DayZ team like: "Look, they going to make brand new game!" I say: "I want to thinks so. All stuff i saw was same Arma 2 with redone stuff. What it should be on Arma 2 Engine?" I hope you understand what i mean. Take look to such suggestion, because you risk to upset many players, which wait for brand new game instead of just DayZ Standalone Mod.

Thanks.

ps: dev-heaven.net/projects/dayz/

[joe_mcentire 2074]

i just watched L4D videos on youtube...hmm and i kinda like the animations there...

[Argamore (DayZ) 110]

Even though your grammar is out of sync, I see what you mean, but I trust the DayZ SA team to work their magic and release the full potential of the engine, animations, and other little stuff that will count in the end game.

So, yeah, we must wait and see :)

[Private Evans 1303]

I notice more and more people doing drama posts telling us that Rocket will fuck it up because he does not include npc's and quests, does not know how to use a camera properly, does not use a new engine..does not cerate a complete new anim system bla bla bla....

PS: if you are a game developer and want to tell Rocket something important or to offer your help..send him an E-mail or give him a call at BI

[grinya 3]

I notice more and more people doing drama posts telling us that Rocket will fuck it up because he does not include npc's and quests, does not know how to use a camera properly, does not use a new engine..does not cerate a complete new anim system bla bla bla....

PS: if you are a game developer and want to tell Rocket something important or to offer your help..send him an E-mail or give him a call at BI

i don't understand why some people think that developer is God and everyone should pray for him. If he promises something, he should pay attention on critics and what other people think about each idea he said. Biggest part of DayZ users I met just wait some new stuff and scream from joy like "He add new can. Yeah. Lets go play!" and ready to suffocate anyone who say something wrong. I worry about future of DayZ and those who will play later. I not so young and I know game history from ZX Spectrum and Amiga very good to say that 99 percent of tousands of games is crap. I don't want it to Dayz and I worry how free DayZ with thousands of addicted palyer may transform into pay game with same content. It will be good if I wrong. But my post about animation and I think it's just new mocap sequences. Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 is best I saw in zombie animation and want see such animation in DayZ. That is I want.

Thanks.

PS: letter was to Rocket. I don't have his email.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Grinya

[Target Practice (DayZ) 1335]

and I worry how free DayZ with thousands of addicted palyer may transform into pay game with same content.

And do you have a shred of evidence to support that 'worry'? Because everything I've seen has been indicating that this will not be the case. If you've got some kind of valid reasons for those concerns, please share them, but without anything to support your 'worry', it's just scaremongering and naysaying.

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

i don't understand why some people think that developer is God and everyone should pray for him. If he promises something, he should pay attention on critics and what other people think about each idea he said. Biggest part of DayZ users I met just wait some new stuff and scream from joy like "He add new can. Yeah. Lets go play!" and ready to suffocate anyone who say something wrong. I worry about future of DayZ and those who will play later. I not so young and I know game history from ZX Spectrum and Amiga very good to say that 99 percent of tousands of games is crap. I don't want it to Dayz and I worry how free DayZ with thousands of addicted palyer may transform into pay game with same content. It will be good if I wrong. But my post about animation and I think it's just new mocap sequences. Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 is best I saw in zombie animation and want see such animation in DayZ. That is I want.

Thanks.

PS: letter was to Rocket. I don't have his email.

I'm not young either and also remember the good old ZX Spectrum and have been a gamer for many years.

If you follow the forums you'll know that over the past few months the devs have encouraged criticism and responded to it. That's one of the many reasons that some of us have a lot of confidence in Rocket and the dev team not to follow the same approach as many of the big game companies now days that has slowly turned the gaming industry into an endless conveyor-belt of crap.

Of course only time will tell but i don't really understand what your paranoia is based on? Why are you worried about cash-grab techniques being used when the history of BIS and many interviews with Rocket (he's already said he hates micro transactions and that it will never be a part of DayZ) indicate that the exact opposite is much more likely. Please tell us what you are basing these fears on.

[thesodesa 99]

I'm kinda concerned about this as well, considering how clunky the animations and especially the animation transitions are in arma 2, since they seem to be directly tied to how stiff the character movement feels in game.

Notice I'm not talking about Dayz, but the Real Virtuality Engine and how the animations are handled there. I'm not sure that without modifying the animation system heavily it would allow for the same kind of flexibility and smoothness as Valve's engine, as the OP said.

But then again I'm not an expert on the subject.

Edited February 23, 2013 by TheSodesa

[enforcer1975 1111]

A 15 yo engine sure has it's limitations no matter how often you modify it... ArmA 2 based on ArmA 1 based on OFP based on Dawn of Flashpoint

Edited February 23, 2013 by Enforcer

[m.w. vindicator 880]

Rocket is no God and he has made mistakes. He has done a great job at being open though.

[BoaDrago 3]

Honestly, if the animation quality is good and the engine handles it well there shouldnt be any problems, i trust Rocket.

Just my 2 cents

[Uuni 74]

I'm not young either and also remember the good old ZX Spectrum and have been a gamer for many years.

If you follow the forums you'll know that over the past few months the devs have encouraged criticism and responded to it. That's one of the many reasons that some of us have a lot of confidence in Rocket and the dev team not to follow the same approach as many of the big game companies now days that has slowly turned the gaming industry into an endless conveyor-belt of crap.

Of course only time will tell but i don't really understand what your paranoia is based on? Why are you worried about cash-grab techniques being used when the history of BIS and many interviews with Rocket (he's already said he hates micro transactions and that it will never be a part of DayZ) indicate that the exact opposite is much more likely. Please tell us what you are basing these fears on.

I feel like he OP has a point there. If you look at how animations in arma2 work you can clearly see how clunky they are when you transition from one animation to another. You can't run&swap weapon because that's 2 animations conflicting, you can't jump & grab stairs because that's 2 animations conflicting. What the thread starter is trying to imply is how valve makes animations that can be combined with others. What adds a great deal to the clunkiness of the game is exactly the issue with the animations being forced to finish and not fluently shift to oneanother. Now in order to move from standing to crouching and aiming you need to first aim/crouch, wait for the animation to finish and then do the other. If the skeletons weren't fixed to one animation at a time their legs could do the crouching animation and the upper body could do the aiming animation all at the same time. If they do all of the animations in the mocap and add them to the skeleton as a whole they can't mix em like in the corouching & aiming example I gave before

I at least assume this is the case. I'm obviously not in the dayZ dev team so I don't know what's going on behind the scenes but I do understand the concern some people might have

[joe_mcentire 2074]

i like this community! just has to be said at this point...

[GotBeanZ 45]

It seems like you're basing doomsday predictions on the assumption that he hasn't gotten around to redesigning the animation system yet. Anyone else hearing this like I did? To the OP, look at this real quick.

At the beginning of the video, the character in the menu has lots of static animation. That's new. Before, the characters had no static animations.

1:50 in, he says it's a "super duper early version of DayZ". He's already got in the early clothing system, a new island, and a reworked loot-spawn system. Satisfactory?

4:20 in, he makes mention of having disabled some of the extra goodies. He also says that there's alot of stuff that hasn't been finished.

The animations look cleaner though, and I'd be happy with that for now, myself. Why so many drama threads? Are these the same people that predicted the end of the world in late 2012? I'm not even gonna mention the threads where the main point degrades into "Dayz is going to suck because I can't play it because my goldfish downloaded something to help my FPS go up! RAAAAAAGE!!"

/minirant

Edit: Another video to put you at ease.

Edited February 23, 2013 by GotBeanZ

[Uuni 74]

-snip-

They didn't have the new skeleton added in the first clip so it's hard to tell what the final product will be like. We just have to hope for the best

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

I feel like he OP has a point there. If you look at how animations in arma2 work you can clearly see how clunky they are when you transition from one animation to another. You can't run&swap weapon because that's 2 animations conflicting, you can't jump & grab stairs because that's 2 animations conflicting. What the thread starter is trying to imply is how valve makes animations that can be combined with others. What adds a great deal to the clunkiness of the game is exactly the issue with the animations being forced to finish and not fluently shift to oneanother. Now in order to move from standing to crouching and aiming you need to first aim/crouch, wait for the animation to finish and then do the other. If the skeletons weren't fixed to one animation at a time their legs could do the crouching animation and the upper body could do the aiming animation all at the same time. If they do all of the animations in the mocap and add them to the skeleton as a whole they can't mix em like in the corouching & aiming example I gave before

I at least assume this is the case. I'm obviously not in the dayZ dev team so I don't know what's going on behind the scenes but I do understand the concern some people might have

I wasn't really addressing his concerns with the animations. I was wondering why he was so worried that the DayZ guys would suddenly turn into a money hungry bunch when everything about thier track record (and BIS) would suggest otherwise.

[Rekli 995]

i think it was mentioned that animations could be interupted 'n' stuff.....

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

Yup, that's the plan. They've already talked about the issue of having to let a whole animation play out before you do anything else, it's being addressed. As for the other concerns about animations I guess we have to cross our fingers and toes.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Fraggle

[joe_mcentire 2074]

where are "that" drama threads? where are many? No need in being hypercritical, but it is good and important that some stay critical after all.

[GotBeanZ 45]

What?

[OrLoK 16187]

Hello there

OP has a valid point, if put across somewhat angstily.

The avatar control has long been a bugbear of many players and does need to be addressed imho. But how much can it be altered? Are there inherent limits to what the engine can do?

It can be tweaked, as we can see in various mods, but hopefully at some stage it will receive a lot of attention.

It would be lovely to have a whole new system, but if not then a tweaked version of the existing one will help vastly.

Rgds

LoK

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

A 15 yo engine sure has it's limitations no matter how often you modify it... ArmA 2 based on ArmA 1 based on OFP based on Dawn of Flashpoint

Oh god this stupid "old engine" argument again.

THEY MADE THIS ENGINE. They can modify it and improve it as they see fit. They are not modders trying to get the engine they chose to do things it wasn't ment to do. They can change anything in it if they feel that they need it.*

Most of these assumptions come from source engine modders complaining that the engine is limited and that valve isn't really doing anything about it. Newsflash, valve likes to make small enclosed levels, they don't need to change the engine to support huge open worlds that they will not build.

No sane developper in the world starts from scratch when they have OLD AND PROVEN code they can work from. New code need to wistand the test of time.

[thesodesa 99]

Oh god this stupid "old engine" argument again.

THEY MADE THIS ENGINE. They can modify it and improve it as they see fit. They are not modders trying to get the engine they chose to do things it wasn't ment to do. They can change anything in it if they feel that they need it.*

Most of these assumptions come from source engine modders complaining that the engine is limited and that valve isn't really doing anything about it. Newsflash, valve likes to make small enclosed levels, they don't need to change the engine to support huge open worlds that they will not build.

No sane developper in the world starts from scratch when they have OLD AND PROVEN code they can work from. New code need to wistand the test of time.

Fair enough, but Rocket did say that they ended up pretty much redoing the entire engine for DayZ.

http://8th-circuit.com/content/stand-alone-dayz-delayed-creators-rebuild-entire-engine

I found this out only after I had made my original post about being worried about the animations.

[dallas 5195]

Yo gotbeanZ, yo got my beans :)

If you don't pay attention you might miss the good stuff, same video

Anyways Rocket has before mentioned the difference in animation philosophies between him and Marek.

Rocket: "No, We can interrupt the animation... didn't we fix it.. you can interrupt the animation... as long as the response is instant... we can handle a little bit of glitchiness, until we get [unintelligible]"

Edited February 23, 2013 by Dallas

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

"[unintelligable]"

That missing word is ragdoll, but he was referring to death animations at that point and the problems that may arise until ragdoll is implemented.