New Player Abilities
by Daniel Buckmaster · 12/08/2009 (1:14 am) · 46 comments
I've finally made it to a point in my 'advanced' Player class where I feel I can show people the stuff I've been working on with a reasonable amount of pride. Cue video!
So what exactly have I been working on? To make this short and sweet, here are the bullet points of features implemented and shown in the video:
All that is a bit better explained in my voice-over (hopefully).
You'll probably recognise a few resources in there – I want to shout out to Jacob Dankovchik, Orion Elenzil, Anthony Lovell, Derk Adams and Erik Madison for their great contributions (and that's by no means an exhaustive list). Though in a lot of cases, I implemented a resource, then just ripped that out and did the same thing in my own way (particularly with stances).
Anyway... here's the video. Enjoy.
Update: leg spring animations are now working! Had to put a breakpoint on every spot where I changed the leg data, and realised I hadn't updated a method to include the data parameter which defaults to 0 :P.
So what exactly have I been working on? To make this short and sweet, here are the bullet points of features implemented and shown in the video:
- Torso-twisting
- Arm animations
- Free-looking, separation of head and torso
- Leg springs for foot placement
- Stand-and-turn animations
- Charge-up jumping (need an animation)
- Leg springs used to provide force
- More complicated arm animations (still not fully tested)
- Stances (again, animations)
- Surface conforming and attachment (have a look for my earlier blogs – it's basically like that)
- Freedom of movement stuff
- IK for limbs
- Hitboxes
- Climbing ladders and such
- Movement speeds (walk, run, sprint)
- Stamina and accuracy
All that is a bit better explained in my voice-over (hopefully).
You'll probably recognise a few resources in there – I want to shout out to Jacob Dankovchik, Orion Elenzil, Anthony Lovell, Derk Adams and Erik Madison for their great contributions (and that's by no means an exhaustive list). Though in a lot of cases, I implemented a resource, then just ripped that out and did the same thing in my own way (particularly with stances).
Anyway... here's the video. Enjoy.
Update: leg spring animations are now working! Had to put a breakpoint on every spot where I changed the leg data, and realised I hadn't updated a method to include the data parameter which defaults to 0 :P.
About the author
Studying mechatronic engineering and computer science at the University of Sydney. Game development is probably my most time-consuming hobby!
#3
12/08/2009 (4:55 am)
Great work! Good to see Susanne being put to good use =D 
#4
12/08/2009 (5:01 am)
Very nice! I especially like the leg animation when you rotate the torso. 
#5
12/08/2009 (7:35 am)
Looking good Daniel. 
#6
12/08/2009 (8:12 am)
Excellent work! 
#7
12/08/2009 (8:29 am)
Well done... Daniel... well done. - Do you expect any issues with multiplayer?
- Did you modify the player-class or is your player-class inherited?
- I had some problems with the ArmThread and minLookAngle/maxLookAngle because i don't know exactly how to create the animation in my modeling package. Can you say something about that?
#8
12/08/2009 (9:36 am)
This looks awesome! I would pay for that! :D Is this based upon the More Realistic First Person View Resource where the player view is displaying all animations in first person? 
#9
Also Orange Guy for the win!
12/08/2009 (12:10 pm)
Very cool Mr Buckmaster, very cool. The look round then turn animations look great.Also Orange Guy for the win!
#10
You mention hitboxes, are you planning to use one of the current ressources or do you have something cooked up yourself?
12/08/2009 (12:17 pm)
Impressive work ^^You mention hitboxes, are you planning to use one of the current ressources or do you have something cooked up yourself?
#11
From the ground crawl position standing to prone position the legs drop into the snow, I am curious if you've tried bounding boxes for each leg to prevent that?
I like your method to make the character seem to stand correctly on a slope, and I am wondering if each leg had a 2 part bounding box, one above and one below the knee, with the bounding box just above the foot height.. then use ray cast for the effect... Would that work ?
I am asking as a learning experience from your efforts there.
I especially like the separate torso and head control.
Looks like you've poured a lot of effort into getting the effects and looking forward to seeing more! :-)
12/08/2009 (2:05 pm)
Looks as though your on to something there Dan.From the ground crawl position standing to prone position the legs drop into the snow, I am curious if you've tried bounding boxes for each leg to prevent that?
I like your method to make the character seem to stand correctly on a slope, and I am wondering if each leg had a 2 part bounding box, one above and one below the knee, with the bounding box just above the foot height.. then use ray cast for the effect... Would that work ?
I am asking as a learning experience from your efforts there.
I especially like the separate torso and head control.
Looks like you've poured a lot of effort into getting the effects and looking forward to seeing more! :-)
#12
12/08/2009 (2:54 pm)
Very interesting Daniel; Looking foward to seeing this develop out. 
#13
12/08/2009 (4:24 pm)
Daniel! You are my hero! I have been wanting someone to work on Torso twist for the player class. Keep up the good work!
#14
Thomas: I don't expect any network issues, since I've designed with that in mind. However, I'm definitely going to be taking the opportunity to test very thoroughly over a network when I can. Yes, this is just the Player class, not an inherited class. I can't really... my arm animations are similar, except they don't need to be blended.
Christian W: yep, that's the one ;)
Steve: I'm missing Kork, but he just couldn't satisfy my needs...
Christian S: I'm going to start with Davide Archetti's resource, but I'll probably end up modifying large pats of it ;P.
Scott: I've tried to avoid having multiple collision boxes, just because they're quite difficult to work with, and I wouldn't be sure where to start, except by just running through updatePos multiple times :P. The legs going into the snow during transitions is mainly due to my crappy placeholder animations - I'd take a little more care with a final game animation, but at that point I just wanted something to make sure my transition code was working :P.
12/08/2009 (5:36 pm)
Thanks, guys :)Thomas: I don't expect any network issues, since I've designed with that in mind. However, I'm definitely going to be taking the opportunity to test very thoroughly over a network when I can. Yes, this is just the Player class, not an inherited class. I can't really... my arm animations are similar, except they don't need to be blended.
Christian W: yep, that's the one ;)
Steve: I'm missing Kork, but he just couldn't satisfy my needs...
Christian S: I'm going to start with Davide Archetti's resource, but I'll probably end up modifying large pats of it ;P.
Scott: I've tried to avoid having multiple collision boxes, just because they're quite difficult to work with, and I wouldn't be sure where to start, except by just running through updatePos multiple times :P. The legs going into the snow during transitions is mainly due to my crappy placeholder animations - I'd take a little more care with a final game animation, but at that point I just wanted something to make sure my transition code was working :P.
#16
12/08/2009 (7:47 pm)
Looks great Daniel, thats a major set of playerClass upgrades! 
#17
12/08/2009 (10:49 pm)
Did you by any chance make that crouching and proning part yourself? Because I've been trying to implement an old similar resource that doesn't seem to work for me.
#18
Sorry I haven't got around to looking at your code yet! :P :( I think I'll do so this afternoon.
12/08/2009 (11:36 pm)
Yep - I did start with that resource, but eventually the other changes I made meant I had to redo basically everything about that implementation. When you get down to it, a 'stance' system is pretty simple - it just means swapping out movement speeds based on a number. Of course, you need to deal with animations, too, but I made that fairly simple for myself with my scripted animation manager.Sorry I haven't got around to looking at your code yet! :P :( I think I'll do so this afternoon.
#19
12/08/2009 (11:46 pm)
Very cool, Looks like everything is coming along nicely!
#20
Btw I was waiting for stuff like this to make it into Torque, you did a great job!
12/10/2009 (4:34 am)
Ohhh ARMA 2, I love that game myself :) Unfortunately my PC is crap and I can't play it. Been an old time Op Flashpoint fan too!Btw I was waiting for stuff like this to make it into Torque, you did a great job!
Torque 3D Owner Katelan Moye