Doug Beman Posted June 21, 1999 Share Posted June 21, 1999 Is there an animation for infantry passing over walls, or do they sorta "phase through" them? Also, does their motion change when they go up/down hills (ie they sorta "lean" to show they're on a hillside)? Or do they always maintain a vertical orientation, and move up hills as if they were stairs? As one of the graphics wargames to show infantry, I'm just curious about this stuff. DjB ------------------ A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion. remove the caps letters in my address to email me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted June 21, 1999 Share Posted June 21, 1999 Unfortunately, unit animations are not as varried as we would like. This is a time consideration first and foremost. we would LOVE to have guys vaulting over walls, but that isn't as easy to do as you might think. And we have the added problem of needing to hand code each animation since 3D software out there sucks eggs in terms of exporting data. As we have said many times before, the game comes first, graphics second. We understand that there must be a certain level of graphical realism to make the game work, and we feel that we have already done this. Later, in future releases, we do hope to go back and add things like a wider range of unit animations. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest KwazyDog Posted June 22, 1999 Share Posted June 22, 1999 Is it easy to get the guys to take cover behind the wall though? Ive been wondering how easy it is to get your units in excatly the position you want them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted June 22, 1999 Share Posted June 22, 1999 A remark on infantry: If they are enlarged then their animation will not correspond to their spatial movement, will it ? I do not think that this is a problem though, because the information that they are e. g. running is what has to be transported. Regards, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Beman Posted June 22, 1999 Author Share Posted June 22, 1999 BTS, I never assumed a "vaulting over the wall" animation would be easy. I used to work with a computer wizard who learned 3D Studio MAX (I believe that's its name) for FUN, over a 2 week period. He's currently working on 1)Elle McPherson snap-kicking, and 2)a Lady Jedi doing lightsaber drills. Just looking over his shoulder while he worked convinced me of the sheer, tedious, whack-head-on-desk, repititious nature of 3D stuff. [On an aside, you know how stuff in those 3D construction wirediagrams is color-coded to show locked vs unlocked points, etc etc? He's colorblind. I once asked him 3 times "What do the yellow tracers mean?" Each time he answered "what yellow tracers?" I thought he was irritated with me and wanted me to buzz off. I had just forgotten his colorblindness; he was asking me to point out some yellow tracers!] He reports to me now that he is able to use stuff called SoftImage on a SGI machine. I dunno exactly what it is, but I know SGi machines are nothing to sneeze at. Unfortunately he has to move into a completely different office building. Oh well, nobody ever said the world would be perfect. Later all DjB ------------------ A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion. remove the caps letters in my address to email me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted June 22, 1999 Share Posted June 22, 1999 Thomm points out another problem with finely detailed animations. When units are scaled up (and 99% of the people will pay the game 100% of the time will ) the spacial relations to the terrain will change. This can be coded around, of course, but it is time we don't have. KwazyDog, actually it is easier to get your guys to be where you want them than most games (CC in particular). The unit display tells you exactly where the unit is, like "Heavy Woods", "Swamp", etc. While plotting the cursor tells you what terrain it is over so when you put down your waypoint you know exactly where the unit intends to go. You can also use the LOS line to figure out where stuff like woods becomes safe. The one major exception is walls as your protection only comes from being behind it. However, this is easy to do too. Just park the unit Xm away (variable depending on slop) from the wall as you would in real life. Even with enlarged graphics I haven't found this to be a problem. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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