Dive and roll animation

[AgentX_003]

im bored , the topic was put up and well some are saying that the animation is not really fluid,

yes that animation does look semi stiff , kinda like a flip in the air.. but alot of others were complaining so I thought id get some feedback for the dev's from the people of this great community.

Like I myself, for example ive done some martial arts in my time and well ill say to do a dive and roll well with mats, your kinda arching arm motion to the right or left side , depending on the direction followed by your head tucked in to embrace the impact of the roll.

[VaNilla]

Looks odd to me, if it looked a bit more realistic it would be fine.

[frvge]

As I said, the Spy has a spine protector. See the images at here and here. The protective parts of the armor or reinforcement parts (probably not enough to call it an exoskeleton, but you get the point) can clearly be seen.

[Succubus Dryad Of The Undying Comet]

Well, seeing that more animations need to be done, I say you guys leave it as it is for now, and if it doesn't really look good in the end, too bad.
I really prefer having 50 mediocre animations to one good.

[LennardF1989]

Exactly, in the Netherlands we have a saying for that: "Een gegeven paard niet in de bek kijken", the non-literal translation of that is: "Beggars cannot be choosers".

The devs are EXTREMELY (you can't imagine HOW extremely) happy that there IS an animation flow at all. This was very different about 4 months ago.

We do this for fun, so do our animators (David, a professional Hollywood animator FYI, does it for FREE, I don't even want to know his per hour charge). Like us, the community should be damn happy as well, but all you can say: "Meh, the spy breaks his spine in that anim, it sucks" (in the most wide way of reading it).

Inferno hits the nail on the head.

[Spekkio]

We do this for fun, so do our animators (David, a professional Hollywood animator FYI, does it for FREE, I don't even want to know his per hour charge). Like us, the community should be damn happy as well, but all you can say: "Meh, the spy breaks his spine in that anim, it sucks" (in the most wide way of reading it).

Hate to be harsh, but people aren't going to be happy with a shitty product. Interesting approach to your work, though.

[frvge]

As I always say: "dont like it? Give us the resources to make it better" And by resources I mean more good animators. Or get Maya and follow tutorials and make one yourself. If it's better than what we have: great, we'll use it.

We're not going to fine-tune 10 animations and disregard the 90 others that still need to be made. I think that makes sense.

David hasn't seen the animations in-game, so there's still an option we'll change it or improvement. BUT getting the other animations done is more important.

I did comparisons between CTs and this and I would take this one for its coolness factor over CTs anytime.

I do think it's a bit insulting to call the animation shitty... it's done by one of our most experienced dev members who probably has studied movement longer than half the lifetime of most here. But you can think what you think. It's not going to change before we have all the Spy animations done, if at all.

[Spekkio]

I do think it's a bit insulting to call the animation shitty...

Call it what you wish, it's simply a matter of where people's standards lie regarding their work. Obviously, the PS devs standards are not that high.

As I always say: "dont like it? Give us the resources to make it better" And by resources I mean more good animators. Or get Maya and follow tutorials and make one yourself. If it's better than what we have: great, we'll use it.

Faulty line of reasoning. One does not need to be a professional film maker to critique a movie.

[LennardF1989]

I'm a perfectionist, I can tell you that, I have numerous of people that can confirm that, so there's nothing wrong with my standards. I rather take another 3 days to revise the code than just put it in a build to get it up (like the whole team can confirm that, up till an annoying level - Sorry, it's just who I am -).

I'm a huge nitpicker on the smaller things (I bend and broke Unreal's rules to get the animation system smooth, for example, legs not colliding when blending from one to another animation, just because I didn't like it - Look at Unreal Tournament, and you see that the legs DO collide all the time when moving).

As animations is out of my territory (besides making sure the pipeline from Maya to the game is fine), I can't demand anything. If it were me, I would dump like 90% of all the Mercenary animations we have and let them be redone, just because they suck.

It's just not realistic to do that because like 4 months ago we were actually in a crisis as we didn't had any fucking animations at all. As I said, beggars cannot be choosers.

[LennardF1989]

Oh, IMO, there's nothing wrong with the Dive/Roll, in case you didn't figure that yet. If you want to complain about something, check the fucking merc walking around like a fucking chicken, that's something that annoys me.

[frvge]

As I always say: "dont like it? Give us the resources to make it better" And by resources I mean more good animators. Or get Maya and follow tutorials and make one yourself. If it's better than what we have: great, we'll use it.

Faulty line of reasoning. One does not need to be a professional film maker to critique a movie.

I think it's kinda egocentric to always want things done your way, even when it's bad for the whole project. Of course, we'll improve when we have the time. But to spend time on a dive that's more than good enough is nitpicking.

Please answer this question:
1: Would you rather have a 100% perfect dive animation, and 20 other animations which are 95% perfect OR
2: Would you have 95% perfect for 96 animations.

I can say, with option 1, you can't make a game like PS, due to lack of animations. I just checked the list and we have identified 96 Spy animations. Those don't include the 9-direction specific movements either.

[Westfall]

What you have to think about is if you want your product to be noticed and act as a resume builder. Things that don't look the part won't get you anything. Having the "don't like it, don't use it" attitude is anpoor approach.

[frvge]

Lennard means 'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth'. I actually was surprised how much the Dutch proverb resembles the English. Of course if it looks like shit, we wont accept it. The team thinks the current version is good enough, so it stays.

I hate locks, but I'm getting slightly annoyed. Please let it rest. This is our final decision.

[goodkebab]

in short guys,  our priorities are to finish it before making it perfect.

[Gawain]

i think it comes close to a miracle that a project like ps even get's reality. for a small mod it's probably way smarter to go beta asap and start building up a player base instead of polishing the game for some more months.
however, i have to agree with the majority that animations could need some serious tweaking. i think it's really necessary but also less important than getting the game running...