Want to improve next-gen realism? ~_~

[EvilTaru]

Better hand articulation. As much as walls are painted with parallax maps, we have normal-mapped characters with full self-shadowing, the characters still have very stiff hands. MGS4 is the right direction.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/EvilTaru/gladtomeetya.gif

[SuperLuigiBros]

I havnt played RE4 on ps2, but on Gamecube the facial expressions made it really amazing. Leons anxiety was shown through his quick darting eyes and such. I spose its all the small things that make it all the more real.

[masteratt]

MGS games are ALWAYS the way :D
I imagine this is going to get locked? No offence EvilTaru. I don't see the point in this thread but I just wanted to boast about MGS games. :)

[EvilTaru]

I havnt played RE4 on ps2, but on Gamecube the facial expressions made it really amazing. Leons anxiety was shown through his quick darting eyes and such. I spose its all the small things that make it all the more real.

I'm not talking about facial expressions, which developers have been concentrating on, with everything from RE4, MGS3, FFXII and DMC3, but hand gestures tend to receive less attention, particularly the amount of articulation in the fingers.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/EvilTaru/gladtomeetya.gif

[LaLiLuLeLo]

...you started a new thread for this?
I hate to be a backseat mod, but damn, see if there's somewhere you can put this kind of stuff.

[EvilTaru]

...you started a new thread for this?
I hate to be a backseat mod, but damn, see if there's somewhere you can put this kind of stuff.

I guess my thread isn't worthy, oh well. T_T

I didn't start the thread for MGS4, it's just something I noticed that even with more detailed character models, hand articulation is something that tends to be neglected, even with tools like Natural Motion's Endorphin and Eurphoria, or using motion-capturing, hands are often treated as a block, and it's something that tends to stick out and ruin the realism.

[Z]

I havnt played RE4 on ps2, but on Gamecube the facial expressions made it really amazing
it is good, like DMC and others. but the best facial animation ever is in three games:
MGS
FF
Silent Hill

with the latter having simply the best lip-sync/animation ever.
EvilTaru
I'm not talking about facial expressions, which developers have been concentrating on, with everything from RE4, MGS3, FFXII and DMC3, but hand gestures tend to receive less attention, particularly the amount of articulation in the fingers.
I see where you are coming from. like many of us, you don't want to see the 'glove effect' in hands. this is something that Kojima has referred to early on as being one of the examples of how game making becomes more challenging as technology advances. he said in the past, hands were only a lump. now, you have five fingures in a hand that need to be animated independantly.

this actually goes with having more details like moving eyes, teeth, gum and tongue shows while talking. hair strands moving along with pieces of cloth and clothes.

in this generation, some games made use of hand fingures being more detailed like in wrestling games and the AAA titles some mentioned here. with next gen, it will be harder to avoid due to the Uncanny Valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley) effect.
:)

[xbdestroya]

I agree, hand animation - just the looks of hands in general - tend to botch things up compared to other character model aspects. But a lot of that just has to do with the inconvenience of the 'digits' themselves. Easier to spend some time/power making a face look realistic than spend the polygons on what fingers would require (an outsized amount).

Hopefully this gen will see more ability to flesh out those details.

A topic on hands is a little narrow overall, so anyone feel free to post whatever they would like to see change this gen to improve realism. I don't think EvilTaru was purposefully trying to limit it to hand-discussion though.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

Yeah, s'aight. I did notice in the mgs4 trailer (for example) the hands were realllly natural looking, and it makes a difference. can't they just use mo-cap sensors (i've seen small ones for faces and smaller digits) for hands? Hands are a very complex part of the body (one of the hardest to draw, that and feet), and I bet they're hard as hell to animate properly too. But the more realistic things look, and the further away they get from symbols, the more the inadequacies of motion stand out.

this applies to a lot of things actually. A professor of mine explained it simply... talking about having a drawing style. You can't be middle of the road, you either have to go very realist, or very stylized. If you have any kind of inconsistencies because you didn't commit one way or the other, it's going to be jarring to the eye. Same thing applies here with uncanny valley; robots, games, whathaveyou.

-----------------------edit-----
Another thing that no one seems to have mentioned or thought about with the next gen-
COLLISION DETECTION.
Now,with these nice shiny new physics engines coming out of the woodwork, that may end up being a thing of the past? But man, if there's something that totally killed a game with good graphics, it was poor collision detection; polygons, however bump mapped or shiny or normal mapped they were, lacking any true weight or solidity, and passing through one another. Man....kills it every time.

[LiquidEagle]

it is good, like DMC and others. but the best facial animation ever is in three games:
MGS
FF
Silent Hill

with the latter having simply the best lip-sync/animation ever.




Yeah um...I'm gonna have to go ahead and...disagree with ya there, Z :-p

I don't think Silent Hill is the best lip-sync/animation ever. Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank both pop into my mind for simply incredible facial animations and really good looking lip-synching. I never played it, but I'm pretty sure Half-Life 2 had some pretty powerful facial animation technology backing it as well.

I also hope you aren't talking about MGS1 when you talk about facial animation :laugh: I'm kidding...

I thought about typing a long spiel here about making games more realistic, but it wasn't really making sense, and it only makes sense to me because I'm not very good at translating something like that into a cohesive paragraph somebody else can read and understand :-p My bottom line though was that I'd like to be able to interact with the environment the way we can interact in real life, as in using our hands to do any number of improvised acts.

btw Cube, your sig made me pick up my copy of Psychonauts and play through it again :-D Goggalor!!

[Voidler]

I never really thought about it, but articulated hands that create realistic gestures would really add alot of immersion. In games you see alot of people just standing and talking, even if they're mouths and faces are realistically expressed, the hands are left out and that's one of the most characteristic things a person does when talking.

Things like hands not realistically touching things bugs me aswell, sometimes you see a hand with about two joints holding a gun or picking up something and then theres a large empty space between the hand and the gun/object. I agree hands should be given more attention, for the more immersive games

It's kinda like what Kojima was saying, you need to move beyond the set. You wouldn't notice it at first but there'd be something a whole lot more realistic if for instance a character had his arms crossed and instead of his fingers being still they were rhythmically making a typing motion on his arm. And game characters always seem to avoid putting their hands on ANYTHING inanimate, unlike real life. If I'm near a wall I mioght lean against it.

Just small details like that will make next gen games

[EvilTaru]

Another thing that no one seems to have mentioned or thought about with the next gen-
COLLISION DETECTION.
Now,with these nice shiny new physics engines coming out of the woodwork, that may end up being a thing of the past? But man, if there's something that totally killed a game with good graphics, it was poor collision detection; polygons, however bump mapped or shiny or normal mapped they were, lacking any true weight or solidity, and passing through one another. Man....kills it every time.

Or just the extent of collision-mapping, even a big game like God of War, we're seeing a TON of invisible walls, the idea that if one sees something that one can walk on, one should be able to walk on it, or jump off of it, or climb it, if I see a flat ledge that I can jump over to, I shouldn't just slide off of it. And much more physically realized levels, like a whole environment and not just a fake set with pretty scenary. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/EvilTaru/gladtomeetya.gif

[Z]

It's kinda like what Kojima was saying, you need to move beyond the set. You wouldn't notice it at first[...]
Just small details like that will make next gen games
that is the thing. it is so natural that you wouldn't notice it- like the moving tongue inside the mouth I mentioned. but if a game doesn't use it, you'll immediately notice it and be bothered by not having these detailes.
but there'd be something a whole lot more realistic if for instance a character had his arms crossed and instead of his fingers being still they were rhythmically making a typing motion on his arm. And game characters always seem to avoid putting their hands on ANYTHING inanimate, unlike real life. If I'm near a wall I mioght lean against it.

this is what the Indiana Jones game will be using. they merged AI with real time animation. the said falling characters will try to grab on. if you hit them, their feet will move in a way to try to keep the body's balance, etc. read up on the interview they made in IGN (posted here as well). very interesting stuff.
I also hope you aren't talking about MGS1 when you talk about facial animation
what MGS1 had was the best seizure animation of all time. nobody talked in the game. they all used seizures to comunicate. very disturbing, I know. O_o

[Sephiroth_VII]

In KH2, I think that the hands are very used in the cutscenes. Mostly for articulating anger, or other emotions. That's what you're talking about, right, eviltaru?
what MGS1 had was the best seizure animation of all time. nobody talked in the game. they all used seizures to comunicate. very disturbing, I know. O_o
Lol. Playing through it right now, I see what you mean. Snake's head bobs with every word he says. It's actually very well synched with the words.

And yeah. If anyone are going to take some big leaps this gen, it's Kojima-sama.

[CARTIER90]

Ive an idea, why dont we have a sticky for random gaming ideas - what we would like to see in the future, posts such as this , etc...To post in the other threads is sometimes like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the sea.....:)

[VG Aficionado]

Better hand articulation. As much as walls are painted with parallax maps, we have normal-mapped characters with full self-shadowing, the characters still have very stiff hands. MGS4 is the right direction.MGS4... and MGS3. And MGS2. You obviously never played any of these, since if you had, you'd have seen every single character had excellent animations for their hands. Specially Ocelot in MGS3. He used to juggle with one or two guns, and it was not simple juggling actually. Every other character in both MGS2 and MGS3 had natural animation for their hands, with every finger moving individually and accordingly.

Same goes for DMC and other high profile games. And having played RE4, DMC3, MGS3 and many others, I've got to say MGS3 has the very best (most realistic) animations I've ever seen this generation, by far. Although DMC3 has the craziest (almost tied with MGS: TT).

[Freeman_JI]

MGS4... and MGS3. And MGS2. You obviously never played any of these, since if you had, you'd have seen every single character had excellent animations for their hands. Specially Ocelot in MGS3. He used to juggle with one or two guns, and it was not simple juggling actually. Every other character in both MGS2 and MGS3 had natural animation for their hands, with every finger moving individually and accordingly.

Same goes for DMC and other high profile games. And having played RE4, DMC3, MGS3 and many others, I've got to say MGS3 has the very best (most realistic) animations I've ever seen this generation, by far. Although DMC3 has the craziest (almost tied with MGS: TT).

I assume your just talking about in cut scenes because MGS when in motion is far form realistic in movement aspects in fact it's very comical in nature. The most realistic animations certainly would have to go to Fight Night R3, Hand and arm movements are supurb for a boxing game no less. Of course for this gen SC:CC was very very smooth in the movement aspects. But if were talking about cut scenes MGS III was well done, better than any other game, with RE4 close.

[Z]

of course we are talking about cut-scenes since in the actual gameplay, most of the details we are talking about don't show. while they do happen with boss fights and other characters, it is hard to see since the camera is zoomed out and these are very small details.

how come noone mentioned Silent Hill cut-scenes? the facial animations are so good they're scary! especially with SH3.
just look at these faces:

http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/silenthil3_050503_02.jpg

http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/silenthil3_050503_08.jpg

now imagine them talking and expressing emotion with superb quality! *faints*

[LiquidEagle]

Man those graphics are amazing :shocked: That gets me so hyped to see the movie tonight, too! :-D

Ocelot had great, original expressions in his character, like his "salute" he does with his hands when he says things like, "And don't you forget it!" and he just kinda moves his hands at 'em (those who have played the game know what I'm talking about). It's always funny to immitate when you're trying to act badass like Ocelot wished he was at the beginning of the game. Like people mentioned though, MGS had excellent hand animations & such like with people grabbing things or Ocelot juggling his revolvers only to have The Boss snatch it from him at the docks. What amazed me the most was that plastic bag that they put over Snake's face in Groznyj Grad. The way they modeled and animated that made it look so much like a reflective, plastic bag, it was amazing!

Either way, a lot of things you guys are talking about shouldn't have been a problem this gen, either. Invisible walls aren't a matter of hardware, it's just a matter of people taking time to making them work right, y'know?

[Handycrap101]

Hmmmm as far as realism goes and animation realism... there seems to be quite a difference. I'll use MGS as an example. The enemies all move and the cutscenes (never in-game from what i recall) have amazing animation. But when they responded to situations they (as enemies) weren't realistic at all. What I'm getting at is you can have amazing animations that move, talk, express emotion, and wiggle their fingers realistically but without a decent AI to compliment that there is no point. This is what MGS has... all of the characters where realistic but when they actually had to use their 'brain' they looked like a bunch of retards. This was just silly to have great looking characters act so dumb.

[Smokey]

yeah in mgs2 i remember going into the hanger section i think where there was a speech & you had to take photos from different angles. and doing it in stealth outfit & youd punch a couple & all the !!!!!!!! would come up i used to laugh me arse off. but you would get slow down sometimes when they were all !!!!!! & wondering what was going on LOL :)

[satriales]

The first thng I noticed when I first went from PS1 to PS2 was "wow, the characters have fingers now!". If you play any PS1 game you will see the characters hands are just cubes, they've come along way since then, and I expect there will loads of new small details in next-gen games.

[Z]

yeah, all of us noticed the jump. in fact, what was the first thing they showed when they zoomed in on Snakes face in the original E3 2000 debut trailer? it was his eyes moving and his bandana flying with the wind.

I was knocked down when I first saw the fisr pics of Tekken Tag. the waist string in Jin's pants weren't 'painted' on him. they wre actually made and they moved with his body! in the same pics, it was the first time I say the water spots reflecting the environment like a mirror. lights, fire and dust looked superb and didn't have that mosaic effect of the previous generation.

another small detail that I still appreciate is that the torso was used to be made of one block. only arms and legs moved. with PS2, the torso had two or three moving parts. we could now see the upper and lower torso moving in opposite directions when running, standing up, etc.

abd we finally can read signs and writings on the walls!

[yoshaw]

I was knocked down when I first saw the fisr pics of Tekken Tag. the waist string in Jin's pants weren't 'painted' on him. they wre actually made and they moved with his body! in the same pics, it was the first time I say the water spots reflecting the environment like a mirror. lights, fire and dust looked superb and didn't have that mosaic effect of the previous generation.

I could relate to Tekken Tag's graphical improvement that really bowled me over from seeing the jump of PS1 to PS2. It was a picture of Hworang and Eddy in it. Where in it Eddy doing a low kick and Hworang was in the midst of delivering an aerial roundhouse kick to Eddy's face. THAT knocked me over for next-gen. Another pic with Paul and Law fighting in the Lei-Wulong stage totally redone at nighttime with puddles of water reflecting neon lights. It was truly mind blowing at that time for me who was coming from PS1 Tekken3. Simply amazing.

Same for MGS2. That 9min E3 trailer, I was on a 56k and I tried and waited for like many days to finish that 90+mb file(it kept messing up aroung 50% through at times). It felt like a true accomplishment after done watching it. Instantly sold on PS2 after that.

[EvilTaru]

I could relate to Tekken Tag's graphical improvement that really bowled me over from seeing the jump of PS1 to PS2. It was a picture of Hworang and Eddy in it. Where in it Eddy doing a low kick and Hworang was in the midst of delivering an aerial roundhouse kick to Eddy's face. THAT knocked me over for next-gen. Another pic with Paul and Law fighting in the Lei-Wulong stage totally redone at nighttime with puddles of water reflecting neon lights. It was truly mind blowing at that time for me who was coming from PS1 Tekken3. Simply amazing.

Same for MGS2. That 9min E3 trailer, I was on a 56k and I tried and waited for like many days to finish that 90+mb file(it kept messing up aroung 50% through at times). It felt like a true accomplishment after done watching it. Instantly sold on PS2 after that.

You better get ready for E3 because Kojima is going to personally demo MGS4 himself. ~_~

[yoshaw]

You better get ready for E3 because Kojima is going to personally demo MGS4 himself. ~_~

Duh!!!!! :swear:

Who the heck do you think you're talking to son? I've already been anticipating MGS4 since the day I finished MGS3. :swear: Jeez No body tells Yoshaw what to be ready for.... muhahahaha :snooze:

LOL but ofcourse, I AM anxiously anticipating the arrival of MGS4's E3 trailer(MORE THAN anything else like yourself mate :)). Just because I didn't make it obvious to you or you didn't care to measure my gaming nerdiness on the board, please refrain from doing that again. I'm very sensitive over these matters *crysmiley*

[jaxmkii]

um question!

is the silent hill movie a CG movie?

[CARTIER90]

Guys do you think the following vid is what MILR would act like if the PS3 wasnt QUITE next gen enough ? :)

http://www.cybershatter.com/Angrygamer.html

[LiquidEagle]

No Jax, it's live-action. Sean Bean is in it too :-p

I watched it last night and I freakin' loved it. It was so true to the game in every way except for the story doing a little bit of its own thing (unless they were going off of an ending different from the "official" ending of SH1). Almost all the music was straight from the games, the monster designs were great, and it totally had the Silent Hill vibe. If you haven't played one of the first 3 games I can't really recommend it though, since it won't make as much sense & stuff.

Anywaays...back on topic....I'm pretty sure MGS4 will set the bar for next-gen realism and what defines a game as being "next-gen." Much like MGS2 did :-D

[cpiasminc]

Another thing that no one seems to have mentioned or thought about with the next gen-COLLISION DETECTION.
Now,with these nice shiny new physics engines coming out of the woodwork, that may end up being a thing of the past? But man, if there's something that totally killed a game with good graphics, it was poor collision detection; polygons, however bump mapped or shiny or normal mapped they were, lacking any true weight or solidity, and passing through one another. Man....kills it every time.
Ummm... collision detection and physics are two different problems... or at least two intertwined problems. It's actually extremely common to use a commercial physics engine like Havok or NovodeX and not use their collision library. Usually, this is because almost every collision library on the planet is based on OPCODE, which is full of errors to begin with. Then of course, there's the sensitivity aspects -- since single-precision floating point only gives you about 3-4 decimal digits of reliable precision (in the context of collision, anyway, since you're dealing with quadratics all the time)...

Things with falling through the world is rarely a programming/physics engine issue -- 4 times out of 5, it's because the collision geometry itself is setup incorrectly. Collision triangles are generally a Goldilocks problem. Too small and they'll create hairy reactions, too big and collisions may be missed altogether. You have to make every one of them juuuuust right. No amount of console power or "next-gen"-ness can do anything about that.

This is what MGS has... all of the characters where realistic but when they actually had to use their 'brain' they looked like a bunch of retards. This was just silly to have great looking characters act so dumb.
People seem to forget that generality and interactivity are two forces that are at odds against one another. We can make everyone move beautifully all nice and fluid and organic-looking... when it's a canned cinematic. When it's in-game, we have to worry more about making sure control response is more immediate... if you stop pushing the stick, the guy should stop moving on the spot, even though that's not necessarily natural... a particular action should have a predictable response or the controls will just be all the more difficult to follow... A 3D character's fingers are far lower on the totem pole than the player's human fingers.

[cliffbo]

cpiasminc i have question. I've been interested in the evolution of ingame graphics/physics/AI for so many years now and have to say that at every step of the way I've been accurate at predicting what enhancements are necessary for the next step. (sounds conceited but its true). in my opinion there is only one real step devs have to make in order to fulfil my wish list.
devs have to move away from the concept of controlling a character. for realism they need to think in terms of persuading a character to perform a particular task. Gallion held a lot of promise for me until it was released because it seemed to have this philosophy at its heart.

when i push the joypad forward i want to feel as if what I've done is suggest to the character that i want him/her/it to move foreword. it seems a pedantic point but there is a subtle difference. for instance i push against a wall, immediately the character attempts to jump up and grab the top of the wall, if that isn't possible then he should attempt to find purchases and climb. if neither can be fulfilled there is an animation of frustration. if however there is a door to left or right he automatically moves there and opens it, realising that your objective is to get to the other side. when a character runs through a smoke filled room, he should stagger and knock things over, not necessarily walk in a straight line which would pass to the player the real sense of disorientation. if there is a fire, he should automatically guard his face from the flames etc....when i take my hand of the joypad the character should begin to move around the environment, maybe light a cigarette or take food out of backpack and sit cross legged as if waiting for his next instruction, maybe if you left him for too long he could walk up to the screen and tap on it. if i push him toward any obstacle he should do what is necessary to avoid, climb, or move it. my question: when will it happen. procedural animation will lead the way. :)

[cpiasminc]

devs have to move away from the concept of controlling a character. for realism they need to think in terms of persuading a character to perform a particular task. Gallion held a lot of promise for me until it was released because it seemed to have this philosophy at its heart.
For the vast majority of genres, that really won't work at all. There are plenty of types of games where the relationship between controls and actions absolutely must be immediate and 1:1. For most everything else, it'll probably be fine, but fine-tuning the degree of influence on a case-by-case basis is the only way it can ever work. I can certainly see it in an action title to the effect of making things more context-sensitive. But again, you do need to make things straightforward. Do remember that the average gamer doesn't really have enough functioning brain cells to assume that they can get a handle on something that introduces complications.


when i push the joypad forward i want to feel as if what I've done is suggest to the character that i want him/her/it to move foreword. it seems a pedantic point but there is a subtle difference. for instance i push against a wall, immediately the character attempts to jump up and grab the top of the wall, if that isn't possible then he should attempt to find purchases and climb. if neither can be fulfilled there is an animation of frustration. if however there is a door to left or right he automatically moves there and opens it, realising that your objective is to get to the other side. when a character runs through a smoke filled room, he should stagger and knock things over, not necessarily walk in a straight line which would pass to the player the real sense of disorientation. if there is a fire, he should automatically guard his face from the flames etc....when i take my hand of the joypad the character should begin to move around the environment, maybe light a cigarette or take food out of backpack and sit cross legged as if waiting for his next instruction, maybe if you left him for too long he could walk up to the screen and tap on it. if i push him toward any obstacle he should do what is necessary to avoid, climb, or move it. my question: when will it happen.
Everything you've mentioned is pretty easy, really. It's just tedious and makes for a large quantity of work. What you have there is completely achievable by increasing the size and branching factor of the decision tree for your main character animations. There would have to be some extra trigger techniques added into the level, and some things that are going to have to be history-based and time-based. Will it happen? sure... But the fact of the matter is that it's going to require massive fine-tuning and an increased size to the animation library. So that translates back as cost. A handful of those things (like the automatic decision making and such) will probably never happen, and that's largely due to the market's vision of how "gameplay" should be implemented.

I think that's the big thing you're leaving out in all your dreaming is the fact that there is a market out there, and as costs of development go up, the only way to make money is to try and expand the market. That means the casual gamer is going to be more important than anyone else. Games will have to be more "pick up and go" and "put down anytime you want to pick up later" than ever, and putting more abstraction into the controls will probably work out as a big no-no in most cases.

procedural animation will lead the way.
*sigh~~~~* This is so crying out for another editorial. I wish there was a nicer way of putting this, but your idea of what procedural animation really is and how much it will cost and what it is actually capable of... is horrifically over-inflated. Do not confuse blending between multiple process results (e.g. IK'ing feet) with "procedural animation." Granted, it's not just you... it's pretty much everybody out there.

[cliffbo]

cpiasminc thanks for that indepth if slightly deflating response. perhaps procedural animation was the wrong terminology - my naivity i'm affraid, but i do see this as the way foreward and honestly believe this to be the final touch that will meld film and game into one. thanks :)

[Z]

cliffbo, to some extent, some of the things you mentioned have been done- just not all in one game. some of the little things that make the game slightly feel better are things like a character stop moving when he hits a wall. in a lot of games, a character will still be walking in his place when there is a wall blocking his path. but I have seen these little things being taken care of in games with a bigger budgets. I always like to leave a character to see what he does. I get a laugh seeing it trying to amuse itself, nag at me (the player) or does other silly things. even if it simply moves its head looking around, it gives the feeling 'it's aware'. you kind of feel sorry when you intentionally throw him in a lava pool and here his scream in pain and move frantically. I had a lot of laughs sticking C4 bombs to NPC in games like Half Life 1 and MGS2. they would run around like mad men and I would pull the trigger and here the explosion coming from the other room. lol.

in some games, they even mock the player. I don't remember in names at the moment, but I remember some characters telling me things like "are you crazy!" or "get real" when I ask them to do stupid things.

a very emotional one was in the later part in MGS1 when I was given the choice to fire a Stinger (a missile) to the final boss. the problem is that it will kill someone very dear to me (Grey Fox). of course the first time I couldn't do it. the next time I played, I wanted to see what happens if I did fire. when I pressed the fire button, Snake screamed "I can't do it!". man, that was intense!

as Cpi said, these are simple things to do since they are actually pre-set and just wait for specific triggers to start playing. but since they take time and effort to do, we see them more in high-profile projects rather than your typical mediocre games that come and go with out anybody really noticing them at all.

what my thoughts of the next step in the evolution of game making in general is what the new Indiana Jones game is trying to do. I am happy to these ideas finally being implemented in games in such away. I have asked CPi about them before. what I am talking about is not having all the animations pre-set. give the characters some simple laws and let them move in new ways under specific circumstances. in the game, they said a character about to fall will re-position its legs and move its body to avoid falling. even when you hit it, its body will move realistically to your hits (not canned animations). they will trip and maybe fall if there was an obstacle thrown in its way. these are more like animation demos we see. the rag-doll concept also comes to mind.
what is new in this case (which I thought will be the next step) is already being implemented now, which is great. they are mixing AI with the animations. they explained that a character sliding off a mountain will try to grab the nearest object to save itself. it will reach a hand to try to grab its fellow model from falling. and so on.

this is what I want to see being experimented with. of course, I don't expect these things in every game, but I enjoy the little things the big projects introduce bit by bit. we see noticeable AI here, some good physics there, more fluid animations and so on. you got to love progress :)

[LaLiLuLeLo]

a very emotional one was in the later part in MGS1 when I was given the choice to fire a Stinger (a missile) to the final boss. the problem is that it will kill someone very dear to me (Grey Fox). of course the first time I couldn't do it. the next time I played, I wanted to see what happens if I did fire. when I pressed the fire button, Snake screamed "I can't do it!". man, that was intense!

haha, the first time through I immediately was trying to shoot the stinger missile. I was more concerned with killing liquid than saving grey fox. I was mashing square, 'Kill that fucker! ahh!!!' but then snake's like, 'No! I can't do it!' 'It's no good, I can't do it!' Man that was deep, but disappointing, I was ready to blast that asshole liquid snake into kingdom come.

[Z]

you MONSTER!!

..any relation to Ocelot? O_o'

[L3XO]

i think theres a limit to how realistic graphics can be for a certain console, however, i feel that the way the player interacts and controlls the game can be as realistic as the developers want it. I'd really like to see a FPS game which uses a G-Con gun with a track ball or somthing like that.

[CreativeWriter]

This is a great thread. I agree that improved interactivity between characters will go a long way to improving realism. Fighting games probably won't ever be the same if they can implement these new physics/AI tools. Sports games would stop looking fake/animated. I think maybe for a game like Madden it won't be until PS4 when we see 22 guys on the field all interacting logically without preset animations (besides throwing the ball, spin-moves, etc). I was quite excited over the Indiana Jones tech vids (though I remember something similar being used in Possession or some other game). Marry this tech with the eventual improvements in Eyetoy or Revmote-type features and we're not far from convincing virtual reality... or at least finally realising my dream of having a realistic sword-fighting game where I stab a character in the shoulder, he screams, grabs himself, flops on the ground, tries to stab my foot, and I deliver the coup d'etat. Repeat ad nauseum and you've got a great game.

[venomv]

a very emotional one was in the later part in MGS1 when I was given the choice to fire a Stinger (a missile) to the final boss. the problem is that it will kill someone very dear to me (Grey Fox). of course the first time I couldn't do it. the next time I played, I wanted to see what happens if I did fire. when I pressed the fire button, Snake screamed "I can't do it!". man, that was intense!

I did the exact same thing too.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

you MONSTER!!

..any relation to Ocelot? O_o'

Grey fox was ready to die for a righteous cause. Sacrifices must be made! It's what he wanted. I'd rather get blown up than stomped on any day. I was like, 'Yeah kill that motherf***er!' (referring to liquid) 'I'll miss you, frank, you were great!':(

actually it's funny. One day I cranked out all these caricatures of forum members on another forum and some guy says, 'dang lolly (my nickname for lalilulelo), you're cranking these out,' and I replied, 'I'm just getting warmed up.'

Then someone immediately posted the screenshot of ocelot from twin snakes saying the exact same line. The scary thing is, I didn't think about that when I said it, I just did. To which I replied, 'you realize MGS has manifested itself in every part of my mind, body and soul, right?
@_@

[cpiasminc]

what my thoughts of the next step in the evolution of game making in general is what the new Indiana Jones game is trying to do. I am happy to these ideas finally being implemented in games in such away. I have asked CPi about them before. what I am talking about is not having all the animations pre-set. give the characters some simple laws and let them move in new ways under specific circumstances. in the game, they said a character about to fall will re-position its legs and move its body to avoid falling. even when you hit it, its body will move realistically to your hits (not canned animations). they will trip and maybe fall if there was an obstacle thrown in its way. these are more like animation demos we see. the rag-doll concept also comes to mind.

what is new in this case (which I thought will be the next step) is already being implemented now, which is great. they are mixing AI with the animations. they explained that a character sliding off a mountain will try to grab the nearest object to save itself. it will reach a hand to try to grab its fellow model from falling. and so on.
This is mostly valid, though you're overextending a tiny bit and assuming a bit much. The way these sorts of systems tend to work is that you still have to create a wide variety of animations for the system to base its work on. Things like reacting to a push -- you still have to create a lot of animations for various directions, and the system will extraploate variations based on that (much of which is precompiled offline into an informed search space).

Things like regaining balance... it's not possible with physics systems to really balance something that has only two legs. When you do it with robots, the way it works is that the robot's weight is balanced in a specific range (by design) and the robot is loaded with sensors that try to bring you back to the balance condition. It's kind of the same idea with animation -- a root condition is said to be "balanced" and the system makes adjustments to try and restore you to that state. If you define "balanced" as floating upside-down in the lotus position, then a tool like Endorphin or Euphoria will constantly be working towards the point of trying to restore you to that position. Bear in mind that it doesn't really know the difference between a head, arm, leg, or finger.

Again, with things like blending AI with animations is kind of a redundant statement. You still have to create animations for the guy reaching out, and also steadying himself on the railing, as well as creating all these triggers for the railings themselves. We might modify the animation such that we IK the arm to the right orientation.

It's not that not all the animations are not preset... it's that every animation is subject to context-specific variations from what is pre-created. It doesn't change the fact that the animation library for every character has to increase.

[Z]

yes. quite true. that is why I am not expecting to see these specific projects being that advanced. but it is nice to see it being worked on and show some progress in real game releases. I am sure that what they talked about and what we want is different from what we will get from the actual finished games do to a number of factors like the ones you mentioned.

but little by little, we are moving forward. I want to be very realistic and reasonable. I sure appreciate every new edition I notice whether in specific projects or in the overall picture being introduced- even if on an experimental fashion.