ECSTASY: Finally, a motion synthesis tool for the indie developer!

#21 Ok I've got another question for you that is really simple, and may even sound stupid because it's more than likely an existing function, but thought I'd throw a scenario out and ask it.

So first here's my question which is actually two fold I guess:

Assuming that you can have more than 2 models (.dts?) on screen at a time interacting with each other, is there an ability to lock certain objects in place so that they don't move when an outside force is applied to the other models that will ragdoll?

Here's a scenario to help explain what I'm asking and it's use:

So say you have an action intense story scene pop up in your game that you cut to cut scene to handle the action and this cut scene you want to make in Ecstasy so it looks awesome and relieves a lot of the manual work that would go into the death animations.

Well in this cut scene you have the main character run down the street then a giant monster steps on a car with innocent by standers in close range to the car. The car explodes causing the by standers to go flying ragdoll style, but here's the catch you'll have buildings in the scene, perhaps other parked cars, and maybe even perhaps the monster's foot that the by standers will go flying into.

Catch my drift? The by standers would react ragdoll style from the explosion, and with assuming you can have multiple models in the scene to use as places holders for the buildings and other cars, etc. would those place holder models be able to be locked so they didn't react to the explosion?

#22 Cool stuff Chris!

#23 Haha, awesome production. The animations made me laugh, they looked so real. Nice.

#24 Sounds great! Please keep me informed.

#25 Very cool, time to say goodby to character studio? I hope so! Put me on your list!

#26

Quote:Very cool, time to say goodby to character studio? I hope so! Put me on your list!

I dont think it does skinning. so you still have to use character studio in max but then once you export out you can import it in and create animations.

As he said in an earlier post they are pretty much trying to emulate the endorphin workflow.


BTW will there be standard animation as well? I would think so. or will you have to create new keyed animation clips in our existing packages and import them.

#27 Sounds cool, I'm also interested in more info on this :-)

#28 Please put me on the list, Chris! Thanks!

#29 @Scott: Yes, what you're describing is called static or "kinematic" objects in the physics world, and it's totally simple to do. Anything you want locked in place permanently can just be declared kinematic, and then any of the dynamic objects in the scene can collide against it, but it will never move.

@James: It comes with an interface for tweaking joint rotations, so theoretically you could do all your animation in Ecstasy, I guess, but it was really intended more as a supplement to your existing animation tools. Read: experienced artists will almost certainly complain that it doesn't do everything they're used to in terms of setting up animations by hand. That being said, I want this to be as useful as possible, and during the early adopter period and beyond I'm going to be open to suggestions regarding the animation workflow.

#30 Does look pretty cool guys, will be interesting to see how it works with a hands on demo with existing characters.

#31 I'm definately curious about this, but before I sign up for anything I want to know what kind of price we're talking about and more detail about the program.

(Sorry if I missed this info already... kind of tired at the moment)

#32 If this runs right in TGEA, doesn't that mean you could make a tool that allows dynamic, non baked in animations to be simulated in the game?

Because that would allow a whole new dimension to fighting games and the like.

#33 Yes, you are right Dan, Dynamic Motion Synthesis would be very interesting as the industry is already moving past the classic baked animation.
If it's already working on TGEA, why not include it as a pack ?

#34 Damnit this is nice.

My Question is, you write to contact you if one needs a Torque physics plugin, would that be Euforia style interaction, like GTA, where there actually are no animations and everything character wise is simulated (walk cycle, death anim, etc.)

Could Ecstasy be used in the same way?
oh yeah and put me on the list! :)

NICE WORK!

#35 I keep imagining a VR type animation where the player equips a "suit" (it can just be straps attached to gloves or whatever - doesn't have to be form fitting) that connects to hot points (joints) on the avatar so they can literally control their character's movements. Of course you still need baked animations for the NPCs and animals and such. But that has been something I've wanted for a long time. How far away is that level of interactive experience from the indie community? Do you think Ecstasy could someday achieve that? Because it sure sounds close, and with it already connected to the game engine, seems like we are almost there. Maybe not quite yet, but close? Or am I still dreaming? hehe

#36 Sparkling, it's not as far off as it might seem at first glance.

I ran the company New Reality Company that focused entierly on VR, we had some projects in the background that had to do with things similar to what you're talking about.

I won't go into too much details, but it's not as hard to do something like that as one might think, it actually comes down to cost.

The more accurate trackers/sensors you use, the higher the cost, the more joints you have on the "suit" the more accuracy and realism you get, but again at a higher cost.

A pro MoCap suit is expensive, I mean REALLY not in the reach for Indie developers, but that doesn't mean it can't be made.

One project we had in the works was a "suit" using cheap sensors, buttons, etc. thus getting lower resolution compared to a pro MoCap solution but still not very bad and at a way lower price.

I'm about to move and will start up the business again later on and get back into hardware development. Maybe Ecstasy will prove interesting to incorporate in some of our projects?

Hmm... seems I went rambling on, sorry folks, VR is a subject I like..

#37 That sounds very interesting Marcus. I would love to see your VR work incorporated with Ecstasy. I've seen low grade motion tape for sale at Frys and wondered how hard it was to make it work. But I really don't know the mechanics. I would think that even low grade animations would be more interesting when they are the players OWN movements than canned animations. But then there is the other side of the argument, that for fighting games, when you get your body involved, it becomes "too real" and even hard core gamers start feeling like they've crossed that conscience barrier. So the VR experience might be better suited to sports, exploration/nature, and Sim games than fighting games. I'm not sure if it would be suited to Visions or not, as there is some fighting in Visions. Still, it is a fascinating subject, and everytime I see the ulta-realistic animations that MoCap can produce it makes me think about a VR suit. Sure sounds like fun. :) Way back when I was playing EverQuest I always thought that if I ran as much as my character did I might look as good as her too! That's really when this idea started for me... fun stuff. Can't wait to see what Ecstasy CAN do out of the box. I know it won't do VR, but until I get to touch it and feel it I can only day dream. I'm a hands-on visual kind of person. Describing it doesn't help me as much. But I'm excited that this is in the works.

#38 Hey Chris, nice to see the ragdoll stuff finally being used for something... I seem to remember you showing me this at some IGC or another, a pretty good number of years ago. hehe. =)

Anyway, good luck. Looking good.

#39 Hey Magnus! Yeah, been camping on this stuff for _quite_ a while... >:-| Fun to have it getting exposed at last. It's a little more advanced than it was when you saw it though!

@marcus: sounds great, man! Please keep us informed on any and all hardware developments, if you can pull that together we'd love to talk.

@everybody else: sorry to have to float on your questions right now, I'm getting ready for the big drive home this morning, but I'll try to get back to everybody tomorrow. Happy devving!

#40 Hey that sounds really nice, I'm interested in seeing what the app can do!