Chade on 3/1/2014 at 11:37
Quote Posted by Platinumoxicity
Can you back that [contextual movement calculated by geometry?] up with something?
I thought b1skit said something along those lines here some time ago. IIRC this has been confirmed?
Quote Posted by Platinumoxicity
I'm pretty sure that the only reason to have fully contextual movement is because of those movements being static sequences that can only work in very specific, standardized situations ... Contexual movement being "calculated from geometry" makes no sense. Why not have free movement if your game is capable of adjusting the movement animations dynamically based on arbitrary geometry?
There's other possible reasons. The obvious one to me, as I said before, is simply to make alternative routes easier. It may also have been about consistency with contextual climbing spots (which themselves may have been introduced to advertise alternative routes around the level). They've said before that it's about having the last say as to where the player can go to keep costs down (which seems wierd to me and I hope it's just an excuse, but nonetheless it is an alternative reason to the animation limitations you seem to believe in). I'm sure other people can think of other reasons too ... there's lots of possibilities out there.
Quote Posted by Platinumoxicity
I think the most logical explanation is that Thief 4 is incapable of doing that [contextual animation], so any jumps or other environment interactions are standardized to work with a limited amount of static sequences ... In other words, Thief 4 will only have gaps to jump over that are as long as the animations for the jumps, and only ladders that are as long as the number of climbing animation loops it takes to climb the ladder.
But Thief 4 does have free movement around ground, soThief 4 can't control how long the gaps are, because you could be starting from any spot. Static sequences aren't powerfull enough to handle this.
Unless, of course, the "dynamic animation" part of it consists of running to the designated spot and then starting the animation ... which would be insanely terrible. Imagine being half a meter to the right of a window, facing the window, and jumping towards it, only to see your character jump half a meter to the left, turn to face the window directly, and then jump to reach it. Imagine running at a 45 degree angle towards an edge, pressing the jump button, only to see your character continue for half a meter, turn 45 degrees, and jump to a position you had never wanted to jump to. See my reply to Springheel for the reasons I don't believe the animation system can be
that bad.
Quote Posted by Platinumoxicity
Even the "Garrett feels stuff" -hands that EM kept talking about is not dynamic. Garrett grabs walls when you enter "cover mode" -not when the player character is in sufficient close proximity to wall colliders in the level
Do you have evidence for that?
Quote Posted by Platinumoxicity
Just like how the level design in the entire Assassin's Creed series is built out of static nodes that cause the player character to lock onto specific animation modes. Instead of there being a complex system to make the character move realistically by analyzing the geometry, there's a simple proximity-based system that sacrifices control freedom to make more limited animations match a standardized set of level design details that are repeated.
This has nothing to do with our argument, but you've made me curious. Is that actually true? Do you have a source?
Quote Posted by Springheel
Are you sure about that? What makes it different from opening doors or takedowns, where an animation takes over as soon as you press the button? You press the awesome button, the computer decides if you can jump there and the corresponding spot you can jump
to, and the animation takes over.
No, I'm not sure about anything. But the systems Platinumoxicity outlines are so terrible, they're just crazy. I don't see any reason to believe they would implement such a terrible system. I think it would be obvious when playing and we would have heard about it already.
Put another way: it would be sufficiently bad that, if I have to eat my hat over the whole affair, eating my hat would be the least of my worries. :p
Esme on 3/1/2014 at 12:27
Quote Posted by Chade
...Unless, of course, the "dynamic animation" part of it consists of running to the designated spot and then starting the animation ... which would be insanely terrible. Imagine being half a meter to the right of a window, facing the window, and jumping towards it, only to see your character jump half a meter to the left, turn to face the window directly, and then jump to reach it. Imagine running at a 45 degree angle towards an edge, pressing the jump button, only to see your character continue for half a meter, turn 45 degrees, and jump to a position you had never wanted to jump to. See my reply to Springheel for the reasons I don't believe the animation system can be
that bad...
#shudders#
Reminds me of lock picking and ladders in deadly shadows
Platinumoxicity on 3/1/2014 at 14:17
Quote Posted by Chade
Unless, of course, the "dynamic animation" part of it consists of running to the designated spot and then starting the animation ... which would be insanely terrible. Imagine being half a meter to the right of a window, facing the window, and jumping towards it, only to see your character jump half a meter to the left, turn to face the window directly, and then jump to reach it. Imagine running at a 45 degree angle towards an edge, pressing the jump button, only to see your character continue for half a meter, turn 45 degrees, and jump to a position you had never wanted to jump to. See my reply to Springheel for the reasons I don't believe the animation system can be
that bad.
From what I've seen, that's exactly how everything in Thief 4 is. In TDP, if you want to open a door, you select it and click it, and it opens. From any angle and any distance within range. In Thief 4, if you want to open a door, you select it, click, and then the game positions Garrett in a correct spot in front of the door, aligns his angle accordingly, and plays a static door opening sequence. Same thing with jumping, climbing, picking up objects, pressing buttons, leaning, everything. You don't even need to get to play the game yourself, it's obvious when you observe the gameplay footage. There are clear "cuts" where the free movement stops and an animation takes over, and then the animation cuts and starts the free movement again from the end state of the animation sequence.
You don't have the freedom to jump before the game has determined that you are in the correct spot for the jumping animation to accomplish some pre-determined transition in the level.
Quote Posted by Chade
But Thief 4 does have free movement around ground, soThief 4 can't control how long the gaps are, because you could be starting from any spot. Static sequences aren't powerfull enough to handle this.
...That literally cannot happen, and it has been confirmed by the devs ages ago.
Quote Posted by Chade
Quote Posted by Platinumoxicity
Even the "Garrett feels stuff" -hands that EM kept talking about is not dynamic. Garrett grabs walls when you enter "cover mode" -not when the player character is in sufficient close proximity to wall colliders in the level.
Do you have evidence for that?
It has been confirmed in the very fisrt gameplay video. Garrett's hands are there for decoration during standard walking around, but they do not dynamically interact with anything. If you want Garrett to put his hand on a wall when peeking around a corner, you will need to press Square to enter cover mode. The hands only interact in a static way, when you activate sequences, like pressing buttons, climbing, picking up objects or picking pockets. Everything that isn't just Garrett holding out his hands in front of him, is something where the player's freedom has been compromised to lazily implement enhanced visual quality. EM didn't even try to do the hard thing and actually visually improve on the standard that the previous games set. They went straight for the easy compromise. They didn't try to create a complex system that accurately visualizes the movements that are under the player's control, which previously were unanimated. They created a simple system that easily visualizes the movements that were previously unanimated, by taking the player's control away.
Springheel on 3/1/2014 at 14:27
I'm pretty sure one of the journalist reviews said something about a prompt appearing telling him to "press x to jump".
But so much has been said about jumping that I'm a bit fuzzy on the details now.
dbailey on 19/1/2014 at 06:08
It's a shame the hands don't touch walls dynamically. Mirror's Edge handled it well.
Platinumoxicity on 19/1/2014 at 10:09
Quote Posted by dbailey
It's a shame the hands don't touch walls dynamically. Mirror's Edge handled it well.
That would require effort put into creating a dynamic physical animation system, caused by focus on gameplay and control quality rather than visuals by all means necessary. Thief 1 and 4 are polar opposites. There are no player body animations in Thief 1, because it focuses solely on precise, uncompromised gameplay. There is no precise, uncompromised gameplay in Thief 4, because it focuses solely on player body animations. TDS is a good effort at trying to make those things meet halfway. Mirror's Edge is the ideal case that other games should aspire to emulate.
SubJeff on 19/1/2014 at 10:25
Quote Posted by Platinumoxicity
Thief 4... ...focuses solely on player body animations.
Does it?
How do you know this?
retractingblinds on 19/1/2014 at 17:44
This is the true thief 4.
Platinumoxicity on 19/1/2014 at 20:22
Quote Posted by NuEffect
Does it?
How do you know this?
It has been confirmed. For every system of body awareness in Thief 4, some part of player's freedom of control has been compromised to some extent. Free jumping has been removed for better animation sychronicity in the jumps. Leaning happens in a mode where the player locks onto a static place on a corner. TDS lock-on lockpicking returns. Even opening doors, pressing buttons and picking up items has been made into sequences that pause the control to allow an animation sequence to run. Can't have that pesky freedom get in the way of graphics.
Basically, Eidos Montréal didn't even try to implement body awareness into the basic functionalities in the Thief games. That would have required an assortment of dynamic animation mechanics, that still probably wouldn't have produced visual perfection, but wouldn't have compromised anything that actually matters. Instead, they made the easiest blend of actions and animations, which is where the actions are restricted by the animations. Less variables to consider. Sometimes just one, like with the takedowns. It's very easy to make an animation where a hand opens a door. It's hard to make a dynamic animation that makes the player's hand seek out the door handle in range, despite the player standing in an arbitrary position.
...And I'd be very surprised if the player is actually allowed to aim and swing the blackjack instead of simply going into
"blackjack swings and hits head" -first person cutscene.
So when someone says "Rope arrows are back!" -It's a lie. Rope arrows are not back. Basic Thief movement mechanics are not back. They have been replaced by static animations. The only reason why rope arrows are now static is that with static placement of attachment points, static lengths can be used, to regulate static climbing animation loops and static attachment and detachment sequences in the bottom and top of ropes. Because that's incredibly easy to do compared to dynamically animating the completely free rope interaction in the earlier games and TDM.
I don't think that Thief 4 is even AAA anymore, because there doesn't seem to be anything that isn't actually going backwards from standards set 15 years ago. Graphics don't matter. And when everything else in your game is compromised for the sake of graphics, well... that's pretty much zero score then.
