Off Topic Productions

Hey i'm no animator so please don't quote me.

I'm just a programmer - what do I know about the fine ligatures of art

Ok, frame by frame was the wrong term. Gunther was animated the correct way, with curves and everything, but it was time consuming and extremely difficult to get right so now we use the original animations.

No, frame by frame is 'essentially' how you do it.

What you might not realise, DeadEye, is that it's ALREADY massively simplified. The hideous frame-by-frame animation we have at our disposal IS the simplified version.

Essentially, what the engine does is a process called 'tweening': you provide it with a series of keyframes (which might be, say: "gun static, gun moved forward slightly, gun displaying muzzleflash, gun moved back a lot to simulate recoil, gun still moved back (again for recoil), gun half way back to original position) the engine then generates a smooth interpolation of the mesh between those keyframes: tweening.

But still, you've had to set up 6 frames for a single firing animation. Guns alone have firing, reloading, 2 or 3 idle anims, bring up, put down, and so on. That's a lot of frames for just a gun. And those frames have to be carefully chosen, so the tweening looks like the mesh is actually moving, rather than being actively deformed into the new position. Guns are relatively easy, since they're 'solid': they don't usually bend and stretch.

Characters do, so you want a bit of deformation, but getting the deforming right is tricky.

And characters have HUNDREDS of keyframes. It's a lot easier to just use the keyframes we already have (and that look ok).


Otherwise it's not fun.


EDIT: O Hai, Phas. great minds post at similar times, eh?

Seriously DDL? Jeez Louise that's chronic! That's how basic animations are done in adobe director - using the keyframe player - BUT - even director has a bones player!

It's pretty shocking how basic (in terms of functionality) and construed animation is in UT1.

To be fair, Deus Ex uses another model system than UT1. I don't know how that affects animation though, it may be exactly the same in UT1.

Well, it's not all bad: you can use bones and skeletal animation schemes to GET those keyframes, but the keyframes are what the engine wants, so you'll still have to export them as individual meshes. And you still have to check those meshes all look the way they should: fixing stuff that "done got broke" involves going right back to the start.

A DX mesh (pre import) is actually "insert number of frames here" meshes that happen to be in a single file and sequentially numbered (this is why the first release HDTPCharacters.u was enormous, despite only containing..well, gunther).

In conclusion, and perhaps unsurprisingly, from a technical perspective, Deus Ex is balls.

*Unreal Engine 1

...and by extension, Deus Ex.

However, Deus Ex had potential, because they were extending the engine. But they didn't. So I claim Deus Ex is ballsier then Unreal Engine 1.

Oh come on, DX was massively more cerebral than Unreal or UT1.

NPCs would RUN AWAY from you if you were scary or they were injured. They'd even HIDE.

In UT they just do fucking backflips and then grunt.

Animation-wise (which is what we're allegedly talking about), DX was under a lot more constraints to make things look believably human, which I'd say they did a pretty damn good job of. Unreal or UT, by contrast...well, I challenge you to find me a living Skaaarj trooper for comparison. It's just easier when you're working with aliens.

I should have used a smilie there, my bad

Phasmatis wrote:Ok, frame by frame was the wrong term. Gunther was animated the correct way, with curves and everything, but it was time consuming and extremely difficult to get right so now we use the original animations.

Well it sounds like setting up new animations is something for DX:R, because it's easyer to add animations in that engine without needing to redo all the animations.

I havent done project 3 in the 3ds Max fundy class so maybe I will know more when I get there.

Look DDL, I'm not saying DX wasn't more ambitious. I'm just saying that technically, it's balls. Maybe that's because they aimed too high, maybe it's simply because it's 8 years old, but that doesn't change the fact that technically. DX. Is balls.

Jonas wrote:Look DDL, I'm not saying DX wasn't more ambitious. I'm just saying that technically, it's balls. Maybe that's because they aimed too high, maybe it's simply because it's 8 years old, but that doesn't change the fact that technically. DX. Is balls.

Speaking of balls, will there be a new higher poly basketball model with a texture with high enough resolution to see the little dimples on it?