Project Stealth

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.

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

As I said, the Spy has a spine protector. See the images at here (http://projectstealthgame.com/public/renders/spymodel/spyfrontback1.jpg) and here (http://projectstealthgame.com/public/renders/basic%20spy%20model/basemesh6.jpg). 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.

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.

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.

QuoteWe 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.

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.

Quote
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.

QuoteAs 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'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.

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.

Quote from: Spekkio on June 14, 2009, 06:14:13 PM

Quote

QuoteAs 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.

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.

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.

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

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...

Agent, I would advise you to think twice before opening such shitty thread next time.

Let's assume animator who did this roll animation reads the topic and gets frustrated that his work is being called "shitty" although he does it for free. I wonder who is going to do the animations after he decides to leave because of the lack of basic respect.
We're gonna wait another 6 months before we find another animator while you will keep saying that the game is never going to be released.
I mean, this isn't even beta. I now see the reason why things, before being done completely, shouldn't be showed to the public.
Be patient. Spekkio, your inability to understand simple things is appalling. Stop being ignorant fag and give some support instead of complaining all the fucking time.

And for fuck sake, stop starting such gay topics...

yeah, it's totally unproductive and respectless to call them "shitty". my apologies to the animation guy for this flamer-community.

You have to take into consideration that we got people sleeping 5hrs a night,  working on weekends or vacation time, during lunch break at work,  etc et so they can work on this project.  The developers are the ones making sacrifices to get this thing out, and if the community is not going to respect that....the cold reality is that people on the development team are going to quit.  When that happens,  the mod will never finish.

Quote from: goodkebab on June 15, 2009, 11:43:10 AM
You have to take into consideration that we got people sleeping 5hrs a night,  working on weekends or vacation time, during lunch break at work,  etc et so they can work on this project.  The developers are the ones making sacrifices to get this thing out, and if the community is not going to respect that....the cold reality is that people on the development team are going to quit.  When that happens,  the mod will never finish.

ok I feel now very terrible for making this thread ,ive just been going on based upon what feedback ive been seeing , to every individual I inspire hope to by showing this wonderful mod, I don't want people to quit.

it's just that , well some people out of  645 people on my xfire , all tell me  the same thing of , its great but it needs work, so that's why well, frvge said it's staying and what not but to make a poll to vote on it. ....... like me myself, after watching videos on a real dive and roll, like all the motion is there but ud have to view it frame by frame, well which i did of course when I was bored one day.


To david i sincerely applogize  as well. , delete this if you want =/ , but at the same time I know unlike others yes its only alpha and anything can change then, and I totally do respect the time and dedication
unlike some people ive ran into in the past who have that negative , skeptical mind set.

QuoteI 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.

QuoteSpekkio, your inability to understand simple things is appalling. Stop being ignorant fag and give some support instead of complaining all the fucking time.

Have you idiots checked the poll? Half the people think the animations need to be improved. That's not just me being egocentric.

I understand that you want to finish this project, but you also want people to play the game when you're done. The FIRST thing they're going to see is the graphics and presentation. If the animations suck, you're already fighting an uphill battle.

QuoteYou have to take into consideration that we got people sleeping 5hrs a night,  working on weekends or vacation time, during lunch break at work,  etc et so they can work on this project.  The developers are the ones making sacrifices to get this thing out, and if the community is not going to respect that....the cold reality is that people on the development team are going to quit.  When that happens,  the mod will never finish.

And the devs need to accept the fact that 1) you all chose to undertake this project and 2) working on it on your spare time or not, people are going to hold you to standards.

You think the current animation is shit then? I think it surpasses the CT one by far. Sure, it might not be 100% realistic, but if you take into account armor/spine protectors, it's still good.

Our standards are high, FFS a PROF doing the anims, but we aren't risking the process of the mod to make everything up to your way-too-high standards.

I can tell David to stop making anims, and then we'll see PS finished in 2015. Do you want that?
I can of course ask David to spend some time finetuning the dive after the rest of the animations are done.

As always: constructive criticism is good, nitpicking on details, especially when the team thinks its good already, is NOT and is annoying as a mother-in-law ("omg fishnets, omg las0r eyez, omg his left pinkie is too big, omg the breathing animation is not 100% accurate with the breathing of a real human").

oh... it was pre-alpha footage too... How funny that you nitpicking people didn't see the lower leg intersecting the upper leg in the crouch-pose. That has been fixed already FYI ;). (the low-res on ModDB is a bit shitty, but still it's visible if you watch closely)

I'm a bit disappointed in your limited point of view Spekkio, especially when we emphasize everything can and most likely will be improved later. Just dont expect a new dive until we're past the beta-stage (= around november maybe). That is, if David still wants to help after this.

Quote from: frvge on June 15, 2009, 07:20:04 PM
You think the current animation is shit then? I think it surpasses the CT one by far. Sure, it might not be 100% realistic, but if you take into account armor/spine protectors, it's still good.

Our standards are high, FFS a PROF doing the anims, but we aren't risking the process of the mod to make everything up to your way-too-high standards.

I can tell David to stop making anims, and then we'll see PS finished in 2015. Do you want that?
I can of course ask David to spend some time finetuning the dive after the rest of the animations are done.

As always: constructive criticism is good, nitpicking on details, especially when the team thinks its good already, is NOT and is annoying as a mother-in-law ("omg fishnets, omg las0r eyez, omg his left pinkie is too big, omg the breathing animation is not 100% accurate with the breathing of a real human").

oh... it was pre-alpha footage too... How funny that you nitpicking people didn't see the lower leg intersecting the upper leg in the crouch-pose. That has been fixed already FYI ;). (the low-res on ModDB is a bit shitty, but still it's visible if you watch closely)

I'm a bit disappointed in your limited point of view Spekkio, especially when we emphasize everything can and most likely will be improved later. Just dont expect a new dive until we're past the beta-stage (= around november maybe). That is, if David still wants to help after this.

ok with what your sayin thus far, your expressing that david is gunna leave because of this thread :/ ?

well I really don't want such good talent to leave this team, and once again i feel bad and i do sincerly appologize to david

Ugh... More realism debates.

QuoteYou think the current animation is shit then? I think it surpasses the CT one by far. Sure, it might not be 100% realistic, but if you take into account armor/spine protectors, it's still good.

I disagree. I think it's plainly obvious that the animator made the animations so that people would say "wow, look how cool that is." Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Animations should be so natural that the untrained eye (ie, me) doesn't even notice them.

And honestly, you all need to stop threatening the people who visit this forum that people will leave the project if they say anything negative about the work you present. I really couldn't care less if "David" leaves the project, considering he hasn't done a good job so far, and if he's going to go cry because someone on a forum didn't like his work then he needs to grow a pair of balls.

Put it this way: Kebab likes to play a martyr so much about how he's devoting his free time to this project. You think it hurts because people on a forum criticize work; how do you think they'll feel if they release the mod and nobody plays it?

Well, I think we'll have to agree to disagree then. I hope we'll have another dive animation later, which would suit your ideas better, but I can't predict the future. Let's just wait and hope we can nail that one too ;) For now the current one will have to do.

I agree with spekkio. You are making this mod because Ubi didn't listen. So now when the community adds input you get defensive and say that it hurts feelings. Get over it. I am not saying change it now or change it later. Do whatever you want. Just remember that this is made because we were sick of the Ubi support system.

I guess you are right though. I can't make a better animation so I shouldn't have any input. My bad.

You aren't reading my post ffs, you're only seeing what you WANT to see. READ IT. geez.

Locked till everyone has read my post. Which means 1 day.

You need to understand the creative process, which all artists and game studios experience.

UBI postponed convictions a couple years just to improve on the product.

This is no different for us,  we create assets and dont know what the final product looks like till much later in the production.

First priority is getting things done, first.  Blocking things in,  regardless of how good they are.  At this stage, its enough for the rest of the pipeline to progress.  An animation may be bad, but its enough for the programmer to work with in order to integrate into the engine.

Once we see how the things look in the engine, we can better judge on what to tweak.

The vids you saw,  are the first time even I saw them integrated into the engine.  

We do take the criticisms seriously,  but its like whipping a horse that cant run any faster.  We already know what needs to be improved.

Finish the raw product first, then polish it. As soon as you have the basics done you have all the time to concentrate on the small things to fine tune.

Whoever comes up with the idea that an alpha footage is final has no clue whatsoever. The footage is a teaser, like a hot chick showing some skin to tease. You must be really pro to figure out how she performs in bed just by that. And since you probably can't do it as good as most of the current modders, be happy about what they do.

Perhaps make the next tick tock a joke just to piss all those nitpicks off?

Quote from: goodkebab on June 15, 2009, 11:03:06 PM
You need to understand the creative process, which all artists and game studios experience.

UBI postponed convictions a couple years just to improve on the product.

This is no different for us,  we create assets and dont know what the final product looks like till much later in the production.

First priority is getting things done, first.  Blocking things in,  regardless of how good they are.  At this stage, its enough for the rest of the pipeline to progress.  An animation may be bad, but its enough for the programmer to work with in order to integrate into the engine.

Once we see how the things look in the engine, we can better judge on what to tweak.

The vids you saw,  are the first time even I saw them integrated into the engine.  

We do take the criticisms seriously,  but its like whipping a horse that cant run any faster.  We already know what needs to be improved.

I totally agree with kebab on that last point   * bows *

no disrespect to the devs, but I never expected any of this to get done and all the work that has been done is so exceptional that it puts any professional developing "powerhouse" to shame. So much good work done with peoples spare time between jobs and family and everything else.

TLDR: it's good

I agree that these things should be done once the game is in a playable state, but if you look at the poll not everybody agrees that the animation is 'fine', so what we're saying is that it would be nice if it were fine-tuned once the game is ready :).

fair enough.   Currently we dont have the resources to start making tweaks.  Spy requires at least a hundred animations,  and each one takes a full day to complete.

Tweaking 1 animation,  can have an exponential effect where a dozen other animations have to be adjusted to the new changes.

On top of that,  they then need to be exported and imported into the engine and tested.  This can take a few hours or more based on the number of animations.

Add the fact that  the people that need to do this work have full times jobs and family,  and it should be easily understandable that making tweaks is the least of our priorities when there is a mountain of other things that need to be done.

There is no whining or defensiveness about that,  and we all want to produce the best we can.  Reality simply forces us to make compromises. 

I fully understand that the player community could care less about the amount of effort and sacrifice involved.  They are only interested in the finished result and will quite brutally toss it aside if its not up to their expectation.

On the development side,  quality requires time and money.  Money we do not have,  and time is very little.  We cannot pay for talent to work for us fulltime.  That would guarantee the success of the Project.

so in the end,  right now moral support will go a lot further  then criticism.

keep up the good work!!!111!thumbs up!!11!everything is totally awesome, you guys are my hero!111!zomgw00t!!!

I honestly don't believe some of you people here. You complain about a FREE mod that people are working on in their SPARE TIME. Like was mentioned already, instead of complaining some of you people should provide something better then you will have a right to complain.

I feel there is nothing wrong with constructive critisism but I don't see any of that here, well very little anyways. All I see is statements like "It looks funny" or "It needs improvment". If I was the PS team I would tell all of you negative assholes to go to hell and provide a map to get there.

The part that really blows me away is the fact that everyone here is waiting for a free product to play and the devs are nice enough to provide you bits and pieces before it's ready. How many devs will show you work in progress? When was the last time you saw a big name dev show you rough animations on an upcoming release? Yeah I thought so. All we get from the UBIs of the world is a polished trailer before release where they had a team on it for weeks or months, full time employees, not spare time programmers.

Another thing you people aren't taking into consideration is alot of the big devs have full motion capture studios. They can have someone do it over and over until they like it and it doesn't take much time. These guys are doing this stuff from "scratch". Now I don't understand about animating but I know the difference in time between doing a motion capture and doing it from scratch must be huge. But nobody here seems to take that into account.

If I was the devs I would say no more Tick Tocks for anyone, you can wait until it's ready like every other developer out there. If you don't like that then you don't deserve to be playing this game. I say this because almost every preview you get is met with negative remarks. If it were me I would tell you all to go fuck yourselves and use my free time to bang my gf instead of creating a free game for you unappreciating people here.

I don't have a gf (:() so I guess we'll keep the Tick Tock's rollin'.

Quote from: Bubbaganoosh on June 17, 2009, 05:28:11 PM
I honestly don't believe some of you people here. You complain about a FREE mod that people are working on in their SPARE TIME. Like was mentioned already, instead of complaining some of you people should provide something better then you will have a right to complain.

I feel there is nothing wrong with constructive critisism but I don't see any of that here, well very little anyways. All I see is statements like "It looks funny" or "It needs improvment". If I was the PS team I would tell all of you negative assholes to go to hell and provide a map to get there.

The part that really blows me away is the fact that everyone here is waiting for a free product to play and the devs are nice enough to provide you bits and pieces before it's ready. How many devs will show you work in progress? When was the last time you saw a big name dev show you rough animations on an upcoming release? Yeah I thought so. All we get from the UBIs of the world is a polished trailer before release where they had a team on it for weeks or months, full time employees, not spare time programmers.

Another thing you people aren't taking into consideration is alot of the big devs have full motion capture studios. They can have someone do it over and over until they like it and it doesn't take much time. These guys are doing this stuff from "scratch". Now I don't understand about animating but I know the difference in time between doing a motion capture and doing it from scratch must be huge. But nobody here seems to take that into account.

If I was the devs I would say no more Tick Tocks for anyone, you can wait until it's ready like every other developer out there. If you don't like that then you don't deserve to be playing this game. I say this because almost every preview you get is met with negative remarks. If it were me I would tell you all to go fuck yourselves and use my free time to bang my gf instead of creating a free game for you unappreciating people here.

All hail Bubbaganoosh! Yes, I'm serious.

I barely have time for PS (final weeks at school) and could only spend 2 hours today (for the first time in like 3 weeks) doing something else. What did I do? I programmed a simple installer for internal use so all members can easily get PS running without having to jump through hoops (for the time I'm away).

QuoteI honestly don't believe some of you people here. You complain about a FREE mod that people are working on in their SPARE TIME. Like was mentioned already, instead of complaining some of you people should provide something better then you will have a right to complain.

Again with the "don't say anything unless you can do better" nonsense.

Look, the criticism is constructive; the animations need to look more natural. Right now, they look fake. But hey, if you want to construe that as useless complaining, similar to your last post, then go right ahead.

Nitpicking != constructive criticism. You can say you don't like them because of a realism-argument. But people calling them shitty is IMO one bridge too far for a pre-alpha version. If it still sucks 2 months after it's officially gold, you have a point, but not now.

Can we now please stfu all unless you have an interesting, new point of view. You know how I hate locks...

i dont even understand why the poll is on the spie's roll,

in my opinion the most crappy animation was the crouched walking with the right arm lifted backwards and still, and the left arm lifted foward like if the spie were on some slow ass magic carpet.

the roll is passable in my opinion but the crouched walking was not, i think crouched walking is more important  because i would say that im crouched  at least 70% of the time im playing.


the roll is passable cause i only notice imperfections when i see it sideways and in slow motion, when you play you dont really see rolls from the side that often, and never even in slow motion.


in contrast, crouched walking is used all the time and a stiff ass/unatural animation can cost this mod the whole competition haha.
its like the first impression of the game when the testers from the "make something unreal" play the mod.

Left hand is for balancing, right hand is for being fast in grabbing the gun. But again, it might get tweaked :).

QuoteNitpicking != constructive criticism.

Again, it's not nitpicking when the ENTIRE ANIMATION LOOKS BAD.

Quotein my opinion the most crappy animation was the crouched walking with the right arm lifted backwards and still, and the left arm lifted foward like if the spie were on some slow ass magic carpet.

I agree with this as well, and even told this to frvge over xfire when he first showed it to me.

QuoteBut people calling them shitty is IMO one bridge too far for a pre-alpha version.

Uhh, what difference does the version make when all the devs continually post on this thread that the animations are not going to change between now and the final product?

The pre-alpha version is the exact time to criticize things because that's when they're the easiest to change. As kebab already pointed out, once you start building things upon something that is faulty, it takes a lot more work to change it. But the overall reaction to any negative commentary is "stfu, it's only pre-alpha," as if the animations will magically get better by virtue of the game going to beta/final release.

A movie quote you may all know, I don't remember the numbers exactly but:

"We have 783 things to do and we're on number 27".

We're focussing on getting them into the engine now. Then the animators can tweak them.
Spekkio, letting know you don't like the animation can be done like "I dont like the animation because ......", but you and others are like "its shitty and it sucks (because...)". It's just a matter of how you word things.

We're happy you're speaking up for it at this stage. Just the way you do it could have been a bit more with the understanding of schedules/pipeline of game development in mind. We're doing the best we can and we'll try to take away, or at least have a compromise for, your doubts in the Spy's animations. I can't promise a timeframe, nor that you'll be 100% satisfied, for the sole reason that you can't please everyone. The poll currently says that more people like it than those who dont.

As for the slow-crouch: I'm pretty sure this one will be tweaked after the animator has seen it in the engine. I think the overall foot animation will be roughly the same, but hands/arms can maybe change. I dont know.

I changed my mind. This whole project sucks. You guys should start over.

I can't say it looks realistic or human-like or however you phrase that, but I will add that it didn't turn me off that I wouldn't enjoy the game.  I know Spekkio's the same as me that gameplay > effects or graphics, but he's just trying to point out in his way what a few people are thinking.

Bottom line: while I agree that it  could be improved, it doesn't bother me enough for me to say it NEEDS to be changed.  I'd accept it as-is as long as the gameplay is what we all know and love.

I think it looks pretty unrealistic, however I think it works for gameplay for these reasons:

• It's symmetrical
• The spy lies flat in the air, so the collision is more predictable in laser dives since you can go off the actual collision geometry
• The short recovery time allows the spy to maintain the flat position through almost the entire move before giving control back to the player.

Yeah, it can definitely be improved, but I think it works for now.

There is no magic animation button....it takes a lot of talent to get it done right.  Not just anyone can animate something well,  and without the talent its impossible.

The bitch about the mod community is the lack of professional talent because the professionals already have a job.  That leaves a lot of motivated amateurs or the occasional skilled animator that has limited time.


If you want to be of any help,  then find some talented animators that want to spend hundreds of hours working for free.

We're going to change/tweak both animations based on your feedback.

Locked till it falls of the first page :p