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Question about infantry animation files


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Yes, and it does look better and has that FOG effect.

This Mod is something that I will use on a permanent basis (and play test on a long term basis ) against the AI and take out against Human Opponents ( unless that Opponent also has the Mod )...

 

Thanks again, Harry, for discovering this Mod.

Edited by JoMc67
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  • 3 years later...

maybe a good time for revival with the ani mods currently beeing tested in H2H. Final evaluations are to follow in next weeks coming I think.

To something different: another animation sequence I personally find somewhat...errm....too sportingly.. is the "jump" (fences, walls, trenches) animation sequence. Considering usual combat loads and such I could imagine something more appropiate maybe. I´m just about testing the "hunt level short" sequence as substitute for "jump" and while also not that perfect I find it somewhat more convincing.

What do you think?

Before I upload anything you can try yourselves. Unbrz "Normandy V100a" then in "a/animations/kar98" take "kar98k-hunt-level-short.ani" and put it into "data/z". Rename this to "kar98k-jump.ani". Done.

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Just found another good "jump" animation file substitute (unarmed-vehicle-crew-exit). As said I find the stock games "jump" animation  looking bits too athletic, considering usual combat loads, late war physical fitness (lots of less well trained and physically fit draftees, conscripts ect.) and all that. Also it makes more sense to me if using crawl or hunt mode and then our pixeltroopers beeing required to cross an obstacle (fences, low wall, trench), that they do in more cautious and less conspicuous ways. They also might have kicked out boards  from a fence or slip between wires and such. The substitute ani file sequence might not look that appealing as the original, but still does the purpose appropiately well IMO.

Download straight into data/z (file is unpacked). Do not like? Just delete from folder again. :)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3mnkmx9tm8miz0p/kar98k-jump.ani?dl=0

Edited by RockinHarry
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5 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Not sure how many people are reading this forum @RockinHarry, have you tried to upload it to the new CMMODS? I think there this may be more visible.

 

I might do once it´s all properly tested, particularly in H2H games and such. Also like to wait for oncoming patches first and then see if it still all works. :)

Edited by RockinHarry
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17 hours ago, Falaise said:

I have try both, I prefer the stock one
I remember going over obstacles like that with all my packs during 50 km marches, this is the movement we had been taught !!!

looks like you were beeing properly trained as well as quite some fit person! B) From that POV I´d choose the stock one as well.

I was never in military so I can´t properly judge. I´d likely not jump over walls and such with all gear on. :D

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I am not particularly athletic🙄 even though I was 27 years younger
and I was doing this as part of the conscription
 I was in a regiment of transmission which is not considered the elite!
But I did a lot of walking, including a 50km raid at Valdahon camp, which is a low hilly area where we moved as much as we could through the field, in the creek bed, to avoid truck patrols whose mission was to bring us back in case of interception. When we used the roads and that we heard a vehicle I guarantee you that despite the equipment and 20 or 30km in the legs we cross all the fences or walls with a lightness remarkable:lol:

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1 hour ago, Falaise said:

When we used the roads and that we heard a vehicle I guarantee you that despite the equipment and 20 or 30km in the legs we cross all the fences or walls with a lightness remarkable:lol:

I can well imagine. :D If you´re required to or have a CO in the neck, you´re surely be able exceeding your personal limits without much hesitation.

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5 hours ago, para said:

Rockinharry

 Any chance of a video clip showing these new animations? I am not technically minded and before i mess around with game files. I wouldn't seeing the new animation first.

cheers 

to make it clear, it´s actually not "new" animations. It´s stock game animation files reused for different purposes. The single "jump" animation is universally used for all forces in the game and what I did as said is I´d taken the "unarmed vehicle-crew-exit" (used for dismounting personal obviously) animation and through renaming the file, made it the new jump animation sequence instead.

Testing the files is just a matter of dropping into data/z and play! It doesn´t mess anything with your game. Just watch any pixeltrooper going across fences etc. and see the different animation. If you don´t like it, just delete file from data/z again. :)

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  • 2 months later...
12 minutes ago, Kaunitz said:

@RockinHarry Very interesting experiment! :) Is the file (not just the "jumps", but the "covering" and "reloading") still available somewhere? I bought CM:BN (but the wrong extra modules, so I still can't test your map .. d'oh!)

 

I´d repackaged it for use in HeirloomTomatoes and mine latest PBEM DAR. After unpacking to data/z just delete anything not related to the animation file changes.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3iwm3oaqelh7m7r/z_RHZ_Realism_Pack.rar?dl=0

Edit: Works in CMFB as well. Don´t know if CMFI or CMRT, since I can´t test them (no purchase yet).

With regard to my mission, think you should be able to open in editor though. Don´t know if it´ll crash, particularly when the tagged mods are not installed as well, but you can try. :)

Edited by RockinHarry
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@RockinHarry

Your animation experiment is really interesting. And apart from the lack of "transition" between kneeling/standing fire tasks and prone mag-reloading, I did not encounter any issues at all.

Currently, I'm testing whether you can go even more extreme to provide infantry with some desperately needed help (in my opinion, at least). I've changed the whole fire/bolt-action/aim process so it occurs one stance-level lower. While firing out of buildings doesn't seem to be any problem, I found that it does interfer with area fires though (area fire against an uphill target falls "short", so to speak). So I think it might be a good idea to keep the "fire" animation at the original level while lowering the "aim" and "bolt-action" (also shown as "reloading" in the individual soldiers' task info) by a level. The fire animation is very short, while the bolt-action and the aim (here depending on range to target) take quite a lot of time. Even though this experiment might not look as good as the vanilla game, I think I'd prefer the gameplay effects over the looks in this case. So, soldiers stay relatively low whenever they auto-chamber a new round and also when they aim, and then pop up only for a split second to fire. The bad thing about the "popping up", as mentioned, is that it happens without any transitional animation. 

I will upload a file sometime this week in case anyone is interested (right now, I'm just working with the Kar98k files; once I have tested it a bit, I will apply it to the other affected animations and then upload). 

Edited by Kaunitz
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23 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

@RockinHarry

Your animation experiment is really interesting. And apart from the lack of "transition" between kneeling/standing fire tasks and prone mag-reloading, I did not encounter any issues at all.

Currently, I'm testing whether you can go even more extreme to provide infantry with some desperately needed help (in my opinion, at least). I've changed the whole fire/bolt-action/aim process so it occurs one stance-level lower. While firing out of buildings doesn't seem to be any problem, I found that it does interfer with area fires though (area fire against an uphill target falls "short", so to speak). So I think it might be a good idea to keep the "fire" animation at the original level while lowering the "aim" and "bolt-action" (also shown as "reloading" in the individual soldiers' task info) by a level. The fire animation is very short, while the bolt-action and the aim (here depending on range to target) take quite a lot of time. Even though this experiment might not look as good as the vanilla game, I think I'd prefer the gameplay effects over the looks in this case. So, soldiers stay relatively low whenever they auto-chamber a new round and also when they aim, and then pop up only for a split second to fire. The bad thing about the "popping up", as mentioned, is that it happens without any transitional animation. 

I will upload a file sometime this week in case anyone is interested (right now, I'm just working with the Kar98k files; once I have tested it a bit, I will apply it to the other affected animations and then upload). 

Glad you like the sample of the animation mod. The stuff I created some years back inludes a bit more, but there were also some more problematic cases with transitions. So I´d focused just on the to me important ones included in the dropbox file. If I understand you correctly the changes between reload single rounds and pop up for shooting might lead to a very unsteady and IMO more unrealistic animation. It´ll look more like taking "snap shots" when in fact the ptrooper does his "normal" aim and follow up shooting sequence which IMO reflects proper aiming times related to experience and maybe leader stats. But off course you can make your experiments and see if it suits your imaginations better. I´m more or less done with this mod and keep using just the ones from the Realism Pack file. :)

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50 minutes ago, RockinHarry said:

Glad you like the sample of the animation mod. The stuff I created some years back inludes a bit more, but there were also some more problematic cases with transitions. So I´d focused just on the to me important ones included in the dropbox file. If I understand you correctly the changes between reload single rounds and pop up for shooting might lead to a very unsteady and IMO more unrealistic animation. It´ll look more like taking "snap shots" when in fact the ptrooper does his "normal" aim and follow up shooting sequence which IMO reflects proper aiming times related to experience and maybe leader stats. But off course you can make your experiments and see if it suits your imaginations better. I´m more or less done with this mod and keep using just the ones from the Realism Pack file. :)

You're certainly right that it looks ugly. I'm not denying this. If you want to make infantry survive a bit longer (which I personally want), it is still an interesting option though. By reducing the silhouettes of pixeltroopers while they're reloading and aiming, they are  harder to hit and make better use of cover. Especially when going over a ridge.

Of course there might also be some unwanted implications. For example, automatic weapons fire longer bursts and are therefore exposed for longer periods than riflemen who just pop up for single shots. At close ranges, this can be quite important as the suppression effect caused by the automatic weapons takes some time to set in - not sure how fast the game ticks/updates the suppression status of a unit, every 2 seconds perhaps? (The easy "fix" would be to keep the stance of the "boltaction" task untouched)

Here is a short video of close quarter engagements in the woods. It demonstrates well how ugly it looks, but also that soldiers act as if they had a slightly better survivial instinct, ducking a lot and exposing themselves only as briefly as it is absolutely neccessary. Close quarter engagements resemble "whack a mole". The grenade usually wins. ;) I still prefer this frantic ducking over the "I stand here in the open and take aim at the opponent at 2 meters' distance ...  - Oh, bollocks, now I got shot while I was aiming!" I like that feeling that the pixeltroopers seem to react faster somehow. It feels as if there is slightly less "inertia" in their behaviour. 

Just to make sure everyone understands the difference: In these clips, the soldiers only use their ordinary stance (that they would adopt in the vanilla game) when they fire. When they aim or reload, by contrast, their stance is lowered by one level (stand --> kneel --> prone). E.g. given: in the very first clip, the us soldier on the right would be kneeling all the time. Due to the animation changes, he stays prone and just switches to "kneeling" when he's firing. The same is also true for the germans in the foxholes, of course. The ugly bobbing is there because there is no transition animation between the altered stances. This is just my private experimental version. If you download RockinHarry's version, you don't get the ugly bobbing. 

 

 

Edited by Kaunitz
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Erwin, from my understanding, the effect is not just visual but has relatively large ingame implications. I think it's plausible that the soldier models are in fact the actual hitboxes that are used to determine whether a soldier gets hit or not (see the links posted by IanL: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/120405-question-about-infantry-animation-files/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-1625553 ). So the lower silhouette is not just visual, but also reduces the soldiers' chance to get hit. From my understanding, it should have a real ingame-effect. So using it in a H2H without the opponent's consent is cheating. (Actually, I have no clue what would happen if just one player has the change activated. Does it depend on who's the host? Does the game break down? ^^)

The detailed, intuitive-concrete, "what you see is what you get" ballistic model is what makes CM so great. But it also raises some issues when it comes to infantry, who'd make use of every centimeter of cover available.  Naturally, the game cannot portray such a small level of detail: action squares are 8x8m, height intervalls are 1m, infantrymen have three stances, and their positioning is - also quite understandably so - not always optimal. Of course this resolution level, if you will, is still much more sophisticated than what any other game offers. But still I think that if we can help infantry to make better use of cover somehow, then why not? I think that boosting infantry's will to survive is a good and realistic thing. I suppose it also puts slightly more emphasis on suppression/volume of fire (instead of instant elimination) and makes fire fights last a bit longer. I also like that the long exposure caused by aiming are gone. If I had the choice between exposing myself a few seconds for a properly aimed shot and exposing myself only a split second to fire somewhere in the general direction of the enemy (and say I've done my duty), I'd certainly prefer the latter. 

The effect is not easy to test. I have not yet developed a real feeling if there is a difference and how big the effect is. It's hard to gauge as not every round fired has a tracer, and different kinds of props/terrain might behave differently.  

I will upload a file and inform you as soon as I've altered all the relevant weapons' animations. Perhaps we can try a small H2H some time in the future? :)

 

Edited by Kaunitz
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3 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

I think it's plausible that the soldier models are in fact the actual hitboxes that are used to determine whether a soldier gets hit or not (see the links posted by IanL: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/120405-question-about-infantry-animation-files/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-1625553 ). So the lower silhouette is not just visual, but also reduces the soldiers' chance to get hit. From my understanding, it should have a real ingame-effect.

I am certain of it.

 

3 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

So using it in a H2H without the opponent's consent is cheating.

In a PBEM game one computer calculates the turn's action. Then both computers play it back. It is the same computer from the start of the game to the end. You will know if it is your machine becasue you will see the "Calculating" progress bar when you press the BRB. So, if your computer is the one generating the turn's action and you are the only one with the mod then the in game effects will be part of the action. In that case your opponen,t who does not have the mod, will still see the effect of the mod play out in terms of who lives and who dies but they will not see the different animations. If your opponent's computer is calculating the turn's action and only you have the mod then it will have no effect even though you see the different animations.

So, the advantage will *not* be that your soldiers get the advantage and your opponents do not, any unfair advantage would go to the player who's men spend more time in fortification or other cover where they get a larger advantage than your opponent's men.

 

3 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

(Actually, I have no clue what would happen if just one player has the change activated. Does it depend on who's the host? Does the game break down? ^^)

The game will not break down. There is no mod checking done between the two computers. Remember the design intent of the mods is skinning only (not really a mod system by some definitions). There was no design intent by BFC to offer behaviour changing modding ability. The fact that the model and animation resources are loaded using the same mechanism as the skins is what allows this but I do not believe BFC actually intended that.

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6 minutes ago, IanL said:

*snip* The game will not break down. 

Excellent! Thanks for clearing that up! 

12 minutes ago, IanL said:

There was no design intent by BFC to offer behaviour changing modding ability. The fact that the model and animation resources are loaded using the same mechanism as the skins is what allows this but I do not believe BFC actually intended that.

Psst. Don't tell them. 

Bildergebnis für burton agnes hall

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5 hours ago, Kaunitz said:

So the lower silhouette is not just visual, but also reduces the soldiers' chance to get hit.

Ah...  That's impressive.  I thought it was just better/more realistic-looking eye-candy.  Either way I'd use it if the animation looks good as I have only had time to play vs AI.

From what Ian said, there is only an advantage to the player using this mod if his computer is the one doing the calculations - so every alternate turn(?)

Wish one day I'll have more time for H2H as a more cunning oppo would be fun.  (I played always H2H in CM1, but hated waiting a day or two for turns as often had crises erupting.)

Edited by Erwin
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Fascinating to see how you two are de facto modding the TacAI @Kaunitz.

Just two observations:

- I am pretty sure that there is more than just direct hitbox-ray intersections to determine whether pixeltruppen are hit. I would bet money there is in place some fudgy "saving roll" that depends on environmental parameters (like the terrain type of the type where the pixelsoldat stands) and probably behavioural ones (like which is the progress through the sequence of behaviours/animations). The latter would be a way to take into account that the pixelsoldat isn't completely still as it transitions between stances.

- Besides the looks of it, I think that popping like that is a bit unrealistic, it happens too fast. The effect of that, a lesser PK due to reduced silhouette, would be probably stacking with any unseen behavioural components of a hypothetical "saving roll". Have you observed some Hollywoodienne ability to withstand direct fires and stay alive?

Edited by BletchleyGeek
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2 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Fascinating to see how you two are de facto modding the TacAI @Kaunitz.

Just two observations:

- I am pretty sure that there is more than just direct hitbox-ray intersections to determine whether pixeltruppen are hit. I would bet money there is in place some fudgy "saving roll" that depends on environmental parameters (like the terrain type of the type where the pixelsoldat stands) and probably behavioural ones (like which is the progress through the sequence of behaviours/animations). The latter would be a way to take into account that the pixelsoldat isn't completely still as it transitions between stances.

- Besides the looks of it, I think that popping like that is a bit unrealistic, it happens too fast. The effect of that, a lesser PK due to reduced silhouette, would be probably stacking with any unseen behavioural components of a hypothetical "saving roll". Have you observed some Hollywoodienne ability to withstand direct fires and stay alive?

All kudos belongs to RockinHarry. I would never have looked into it without this thread.

These are interesting questions. Regarding your first question, I don't know and I don't know of a good setup to test it. Players have been playing Combat Mission for decades and don't really know with certainty if there is a "saving roll". How should I know? 🤔 Watching recorded scenes in slow motion, it's hard enough to determine if the game is really hitbox-detection based. It's hard to tell because not every bullet comes with a tracer, you can't get the camera down to ground level, and also some props are definitively permeous to bullets (I'm pretty sure that I've seen bullets go through foxhole-models). It's really hard to draw any conclusions here. 

Regarding the second question, I can say is that the troops using the animation exchange are NOT invincible. So no to your second question regarding Hollywoodienne survival powers. They still get hit. Whether they even survive much longer than without the animation exchange, I don't know for certain yet either. In theory yes. In praxis I have not developed a feeling for it yet.  

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Note I said observations rather than questions. The truth is hidden from us and I am not expecting you to backtrack, Leibniz style, all the way from what is seen to the ultimate causes of what is seen.

The probing you have been doing and discussing have greatly illuminated part of the mystery. 

 

CM2 isn't a 100% what you see is what you get game/sim. You noted projectiles going through foxholes and I have seen all kinds of small calibers going through heads, arms, legs and groins of pixeltruppen.

The environmental effects are referred to as "microcover" and were confirmed by Steve.

Edited by BletchleyGeek
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2 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

CM2 isn't a 100% what you see is what you get game/sim

Yes, this is what many folks keep forgetting/ignoring.  However brilliant the game is, it still has many approximations and abstractions.  Despite efforts to make something as realistic as practical, a game is still a game.

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