Primal Fears

[Psychomorph]

Reason I post that is because of the similarities to SG. The isometric view. The character looks where you point he cursor, movement seems WASD. Looks really good. Movement speeds are slick, you jog and sprint forward and walk backward. Of course I hope in SG you can also walk forward (stealthy).
The isometric view is far from being an old relic. I was skeptical about the WASD controls, but it seems to work just fine.

Also, somewhere around 8:50, he is blocked by the beds. This is the moment where I'd like to see climbing in SG. No such ridiculous blockades that the in-game character cannot maneuver through, which in real life are a no-brainer.

 

[Brendan]

Good find. You're right, the control system does actually look very similar, yes it does work just fine and fair enough, I might have been skeptical too, had I not tried it

Ridiculous blockades are infuriating, we all agree with that. Whether it's climbing, jumping, the ability to move large objects, being able blast them out the way, or, hopefully, all of the above; I can assure you it won't be a frustration you experience in SG!

 

[Algea]

Ridiculous blockades are infuriating, we all agree with that. Whether it's climbing, jumping, the ability to move large objects, being able blast them out the way, or, hopefully, all of the above; I can assure you it won't be a frustration you experience in SG!

That would be really amazing! Though I must admit - the way you jump on beds in TES series looks hilarious. But I understand the possible limitations.

Thinking of jumping - it's not often we jump up on something in real life.

Climbing on beds (if it's not hard to implement) would be awesome. The more natural the better.

 

[Rob]

Yeah, nice find!

Looks like a reasonable attempt. Graphics don't seem bad - wire mesh was done better than most. I like the lighting, specifically the flashlight. But then, what happened with the shadows?!!! Real immersion breaker. Why are all the shadows from dynamic objects pointing in the same direction, and originating from an invisible light source??? Outside, they might have gotten away by saying it's the moon... but it was the same indoors!!! Plus the animations and combat are ropey to say the least...

I think that SG has some better technologies in place, given the stuff we've seen to date.

 

[Rob]

Thinking about climbing on things in SG...

Would it be possible to do it purely based on physics and object interactions, combined with a couple of predefined motions?

E.g. climb on a bed could be achieved by this preset motion:

1. Lift knee;
2. Move foot forward onto object;
3. Lean forward to put weight onto object;
4. Continue leaning forward whilst extending front leg, resulting in the back leg being raised off the ground;
5. End in standing motion, on top of the object.

Getting it working smoothly and naturally may take some tweaking, but it could be possible with a bit of skill.

In order to maintain balance, you may have to play with artificially lowering the character's centre of gravity... probably smoothly throughout the duration of the motion (imagine a cosine wave).

And there's no reason why this motion couldn't be combined with running, with some potentially interesting, hopefully natural results... (you could end up on an object, or you could end up on your bum...)

Have you experimented with this sort of thing already?

 

[Algea]

Basically it'll be like going up the stairs with 'steps' being higher.

How would it look if it's a waist-high obstacle?

 

[Rob]

Basically it'll be like going up the stairs with 'steps' being higher.

How would it look if it's a waist-high obstacle?

Exactly!!! Stairs, or objects up to knee-height could be dealt with like this. Taller objects would require other pre-programmed motion sequences. E.g. ones that used hands - put your hands on the waist-high objects, and crawl onto it. Similar sequences could be developed to help you climb walls, and all sorts of things. Of course, the difficulty with this would be the sword and shield (or whatever) in your hands... I suppose it makes sense that you'd have to sheath your weapons (or throw them over the object) before you attempted to climb onto the object, anyway.

 

[Algea]

E.g. ones that used hands - put your hands on the waist-high objects, and crawl onto it. Similar sequences could be developed to help you climb walls, and all sorts of things. Of course, the difficulty with this would be the sword and shield (or whatever) in your hands... I suppose it makes sense that you'd have to sheath your weapons (or throw them over the object) before you attempted to climb onto the object, anyway.

I think I'll have to check some Mass Effect 2-3 gameplay videos out. I think I've seen something there regarding jumping over obstacles using hands (and it looked really natural) but I don't remember if the weapon was sheathed or in hands. I don't have Youtube access while I'm at work though so it'll have to wait till evening.

 

[Rob]

I think I'll have to check some Mass Effect 2-3 gameplay videos out. I think I've seen something there regarding jumping over obstacles using hands (and it looked really natural) but I don't remember if the weapon was sheathed or in hands. I don't have Youtube access while I'm at work though so it'll have to wait till evening.

Yes, I agree that ME2-3 did it well, better than others I've seen, apart from perhaps Assassin's Creed. However, I'm pretty sure that they were 100% pre-programmed animations... it would be really nice to add a stochastic element by using 'real' physics and object interactions. This would really personalise it, adding realism/immersion, and adding an element of skill (i.e. you'll have to learn what your character can and cannot climb) rather than it being triggered with 100% success rate from a simple button press.

It could be possible in Sui Generis... I can image it would be tricky to get right, but it would be possible. It would be brilliant if SG pulls it off.

 

[Madoc]

We've got the knee bending thing you describe mostly working already, in the combat explained video you can see this when the character is negotiating some very rough terrain in combat. This also works for walking up stairs etc.

Not sure how climbing would work. Usually in games there's special artificial climbing elements and perfect fit animations.

Are the WASD controls in that game the same as SG's? Looks like the movement is relative to the screen, in SG it's relative to the cursor.

 

[Rob]

That sounds great, Madoc!

For climbing, the first step would be making sure that there are no items in your hands (...although I suppose you could climb with a sword in your hands...).

There would have to be at least two classes of problems:

1. Steep gradual slopes/terrain;
2. Big objects to get over (e.g. walls).

The first one would be realised by getting on your hands and feet, allowing better stability.

There would be more options as to how to do the second one. Perhaps you could imagine a swimmer getting out of a pool. A really strong two-handed push up, before getting the legs into position, leaning forward to hopefully maintain balance.

...although I'm sure you've thought about this already!

At some point, if it doesn't really take any of your time to produce, I'm sure we'd all love to see some attempts to do such 'animations' as and when you work on them. I'm sure we'd like to see them whether they're reasonable attempts or complete fails!!!

 

[Psychomorph]

Ridiculous blockades are infuriating, we all agree with that. Whether it's climbing, jumping, the ability to move large objects, being able blast them out the way, or, hopefully, all of the above; I can assure you it won't be a frustration you experience in SG!

That's good to hear! Interesting that you also mention using thaumaturgy to deal with obstacles. Also, imagine there is a barrier to high to overcome and you have not the thaumaturgic skills to deal with it, but an angry "troll" could smash through it. Room for a variety of interesting gameplay situations.

Thinking about climbing on things in SG...

Would it be possible to do it purely based on physics and object interactions, combined with a couple of predefined motions?

E.g. climb on a bed could be achieved by this preset motion:

1. Lift knee;
2. Move foot forward onto object;
3. Lean forward to put weight onto object;
4. Continue leaning forward whilst extending front leg, resulting in the back leg being raised off the ground;
5. End in standing motion, on top of the object.

Getting it working smoothly and naturally may take some tweaking, but it could be possible with a bit of skill.


In order to maintain balance, you may have to play with artificially lowering the character's centre of gravity... probably smoothly throughout the duration of the motion (imagine a cosine wave).

And there's no reason why this motion couldn't be combined with running, with some potentially interesting, hopefully natural results... (you could end up on an object, or you could end up on your bum...)

Have you experimented with this sort of thing already?

Good observation. Often games use very quality animations, but are not very flexible, so the objects in the game have a limited number of variety in order to correspond with these animations. In SG it would be cool if there was a broad variety of objects and the characters animations would be flexible enough to adjust, but hopefully still look alright.
I'm afraid a purely physics based climbing process would be flawed. Very hard to make it look right. Perhaps BM can blend in animations with physics to have the best of the two worlds.

We've got the knee bending thing you describe mostly working already, in the combat explained video you can see this when the character is negotiating some very rough terrain in combat. This also works for walking up stairs etc.

Don't forget to make them move slower when running up a hill (and through sand and water and mud).

Are the WASD controls in that game the same as SG's? Looks like the movement is relative to the screen, in SG it's relative to the cursor.

I think I'm not sure what cursor/screen relative exactly means. Can you explain?

 

[Tony]

I think I'm not sure what cursor/screen relative exactly means. Can you explain?

He means that when you press one of the WASD keys to move in a certain direction most games make you move up/down/left/right based upon your screens orientation. In Sui Generis you will move in a direction based upon where you have the mouse cursor when you press WASD to move. So if W is the move forward key and your cursor is below you, pressing W will make you walk towards the cursor (or towards the bottom of your screen).

 

[Psychomorph]

He means that when you press one of the WASD keys to move in a certain direction most games make you move up/down/left/right based upon your screens orientation. In Sui Generis you will move in a direction based upon where you have the mouse cursor when you press WASD to move. So if W is the move forward key and your cursor is below you, pressing W will make you walk towards the cursor (or towards the bottom of your screen).

I see. At first I thought it was relative to the cursor in SG, but then I thought it was relative to the screen. In Primal Fears it indeed looks as if like it is relative to the screen.

That brings me to my old problem. If looking down (screen bottom) and moving toward the looking direction with W, than while you press A, the left strafe key, on screen the character moves to the opposite direction, to the right. Does this really work without problems? I cannot really imagine this to be intuitive. Inverted controls, which are suddenly not inverted if you look in the opposing direction, doesn't seem to be a really good feature.
Of course, movement relative to the screen is limited also, so as a 1st person gamer I am of course leaning toward relative to looking direction / cursor, but I still am skeptical.

 

[Omenov]

I see. At first I thought it was relative to the cursor in SG, but then I thought it was relative to the screen. In Primal Fears it indeed looks as if like it is relative to the screen.

That brings me to my old problem. If looking down (screen bottom) and moving toward the looking direction with W, than while you press A, the left strafe key, on screen the character moves to the opposite direction, to the right. Does this really work without problems? I cannot really imagine this to be intuitive. Inverted controls, which are suddenly not inverted if you look in the opposing direction, doesn't seem to be a really good feature.
Of course, movement relative to the screen is limited also, so as a 1st person gamer I am of course leaning toward relative to looking direction / cursor, but I still am skeptical.

You can always rotate the view so your not looking down. I know might be tough during combat but might be hard too if you get confused by the reversed controls. My bet is with some practice we will all get comfortable with it.