Updated "Konokö Payne" version

Pierre · 05/07/07 03:05

Hi guys,

Here's a small update again:
http://www.codercorner.com/KonokoPayne_WIP_May_2007.rar

Nothing really new but once again a lot of bug fixes, optimizations, small features, etc, etc, etc, etc.

- Pierre

Tosh · 05/07/07 15:05

Hmm~ new developer modes I see.
Cool level 10 redo, for some reason I think the textures look better.. higher resolution I suppose.

Also in the bat, I noticed the Command Prompt stayed there when it opened Flexine so instead, do this line next time.

start Flexine SystemPlugs.dll KonokoPayne.dll

Soul · 05/08/07 07:05

Alway great to see updates to this supercool project. I cant thank you enough,keep it up mate!

Pierre · 05/09/07 03:05

Cool level 10 redo, for some reason I think the textures look better.. higher resolution I suppose.

No, the textures are exactly the same as in Oni. It's interesting that you think it looks better, because I had the same feeling and I wasn't sure why! I think it's a combination of things:
- the smoother framerate
- the "mouse filter" to smooth the camera motion
- the wider field-of-view
- maybe the bloom filter in some parts

In any case the textures didn't change.

Also in the bat, I noticed the Command Prompt stayed there when it opened Flexine so instead, do this line next time.

Sweet! I didn't know that "start" command.

- Pierre

geyser · 05/09/07 19:05

Textures look better because of how Oni renders them, mainly: it doesn't do anything to "save" them
First, Oni doesn't seem to interpolate texels at all at close range, so you get dithering and such at their ugliest.
Second, MIP mapping starts way too close, and the switching from one gen to the next is far from perfect.

Various filters sure fix the dithering. The FOV is actually narrower in KP by default (I might be wrong though)...

How long until we're able to play that ACC (interior) part? You had me drooling with that screenshot and I so hoped it was part of this release...

Not much to complain about. Not much new to complain about, that is Sorry in advance for the "constructive criticism".

Still hate the uncontrollably fast "sONIc" effects. Nothing I can't slow down with scripting, of course, but I just want to tell you what I view as NOT COOL. Pressing LEFT/RIGHT/FORWARD two times in a row a wee bit too fast - that happens all the time in melee. Well, Oni is quite forgiving about that, while KP sends me dashing through the room and through the door and the next thing I know, the turret is blasting me and AAAAARGGGHHHH.

I still hate the death effect. Note sure what I hate most: the blooming slowmo or the screams. If we can CONTINUE, let us not really DIE. Please?

And I hate the smart cam more than ever. In Easy it doesn't pose many problems, but in challenging situations one ends up close to the wall (or otherwise crowded) very easily. And how the smart camera behaves then... shrinking FOV, weird angles, Konoko's features hiding most of the scene... OMG

Among the new stuff:
I found it very nice how the AI jumped over obstacles: that's the big new AI feature with respect to Oni and it does very well so far.
The melee patterns are mostly OK (maybe Oni's AI have fewer "unappropriate" moves, but mostly KP's are fine).
With more animation variety (Mukade, Muro, SWAT, droids), I can imagine this thing being really fun. A bit of a button-masher, though

A few things I don't like, however. The tolerance on melee impacts seems way too large to me. Both in time and space, probably. As for the time interval over which bones are supposed to deal damage, it's documented. Dunno for the hitboxes, but KP's are definitely huge. Being hit by a high kick or a jump kick while crouching... no comment.
Also, maybe it's just me, but I haven't been able to deal damage with a jump-flip so far... It just so happens that I'm using it rather often in Oni: feels cool Oh, and I miss the sliding, too.
Characters can't retreat properly in combat mode and that sucks. Together with slightly unfamiliar dodging controls, excessive impact tolerance and ridiculous dashing happening when not needed, that makes it difficult to fight KP in regular ways.
So traditional melee is still not as enjoyable as in Oni (of course some of it, like impact tolerance, is a matter of taste... and other things like the lack-of-retreat could be easily fixed). As for the specials, they're mostly enjoyable (in slowmo, that is).
On another note, the specials are a bit unfair towards the AI, since they're not gauged in any way. Those Daodan slides are a safe and lazy way to defeat weaker enemies. Which is why I'd like to think of them as a dev-stage bonus (not supposed to be available all the time)... but then again the infamous dashing is there to remind me of Konoko's permanent superduperness
Hm, what else? The hit flashes are maybe a bit too flashy on one hand, and too monotonous on the other (no indication of the opponent's health). Barabas being completely "unstoppable" when regenerating: that sucks; it makes him really annoying on Hard.

And I got a Blam the first time I fought Barabas. No Blam the second time around.

As for the music: The main menu theme was a nice surprise. I'll put a few tunes together (Beyond Good & Evil rips, shorter Appleseed cut) and let you have them. Soon(TM). I have Audacity now...

EDIT: After an umpteenth slowmo session, I'm almost certain that the lateral motion of the pelvis is uniform for running anims, i.e., you do not seem to fully use the XZ track of the TRAM.
That would explain why they look less natural than in Oni, and it's details like that one that make the whole thing seem less lifelike. I'm positive there's a problem, so please check/fix.
Every running anim has a few (short) lapses when the lateral speed is about 20% higher (the moment when either foot is pushing against the ground). In KP that definitely doesn't happen.
What happens in KP is that the foot slides forwards before and after contact, and backwards during contact: typical of a pelvis position that should have forward bursts but doesn't have any.

Last edited by geyser (05/09/07 20:05)

Pierre · 05/10/07 03:05

The FOV is actually narrower in KP by default (I might be wrong though)...

What I meant was that in KP it's "70" while in Oni it's more like ~45.

How long until we're able to play that ACC (interior) part? You had me drooling with that screenshot and I so hoped it was part of this release...

Well, the main thing missing for the "level 10 redux" is the pathfinding data. I have to recreate it manually, takes a while. For the screenshot I just went to the big room at the end of the level, spawned a bunch of sentinels ("sentinel" command in the console) and that was it

Still hate the uncontrollably fast "sONIc" effects.

Yeah, I know. I'm starting to agree. I wanted a "fast" game, but it's clear that this part doesn't work well. I'll eventually just leave it as a bonus move, only available in very specific situations. I don't know, I don't really have a "game" yet anyway. In any case it's not going to stay like this.

I still hate the death effect.

Then don't die I'm not going to change that for a while, I kind of like it. Notice that, on the other hand, I stopped playing it for each NPC's death. Now it only starts when the "last" NPC dies.

And I hate the smart cam more than ever.

Yeah, I know, same old story as before. This one is painful to fix though. Not much time for this.

I found it very nice how the AI jumped over obstacles

...and it was just a hack to avoid properly finishing the pathfinding mesh

A bit of a button-masher, though

Yup, "blocking" is on the TODO list. A lot of things to tweak & fine-tune here, until I get a good balance. Right now this is not really "final" or anything.

The tolerance on melee impacts seems way too large to me. Both in time and space, probably. As for the time interval over which bones are supposed to deal damage, it's documented. Dunno for the hitboxes, but KP's are definitely huge. Being hit by a high kick or a jump kick while crouching... no comment.

I use oriented bounding boxes around each bone, so it's almost as good as you can get I'm afraid. Going down to mesh-mesh (i.e. triangle-to-triangle collisions using the real mesh) would be a lot slower and wouldn't buy you much more accuracy I think... Maybe I could artificially shrink the boxes, but at the moment they are a tight fit for each bone - they're not "huge" in that respect.

The time interval is indeed encoded in the script files, so feel free to tweak this (it's definitely possible that some moves are not correctly defined, I might very well have copy-pasted one line from another move without updating the "impact interval" values).

There is no rule saying that the high-kick (or any other move) shouldn't have an effect on a crouched character. If it registers an impact, then somehow the hitboxes touched, and, well, why not? It would be possible to add some rules to filter out the collisions, and have only some particular attack moves compatible with the crouch pose. This would be a completely fine gameplay choice. But it's logic-driven, it has little to do with the huge hit-boxes. Reducing the hit-boxes has bad side-effects BTW: if your move is too fast the box can go through the character undetected (because I use discrete collision tests instead of a more expensive "continuous collision detection" for this).

Characters can't retreat properly in combat mode

Not sure what you mean. "Properly"? Characters do retreat sometimes, what's wrong with it exactly?

On another note, the specials are a bit unfair towards the AI, since they're not gauged in any way.

They will be (gauged). There is absolutely no balance right now, I didn't spend a single minute trying to make it fair. So, yeah, I know. "Work in progress".

The hit flashes are maybe a bit too flashy on one hand, and too monotonous on the other (no indication of the opponent's health).

Now I don't get this one. There's a colored flash indicating the opponent's health, as in Oni. There *should* be one ?!? I agree they're too monotonous however, but that's just because creating different, good-looking ones, takes a long time. It was also low-priority in the grand scheme of things...

Barabas being completely "unstoppable" when regenerating: that sucks; it makes him really annoying on Hard.

Hard mode is supposed to be hard, yes I actually like Barabas a lot in hard mode, because it's a real challenge. There is a way to defeat him "easily" nonetheless, you just have to find it... At least now he doesn't do N earthquakers in a row (*that* was annoying).

And I got a Blam the first time I fought Barabas

...

As for the music: The main menu theme was a nice surprise.

From GITS-SAC's soundtrack... I actually have a lot of other musics for the game, but including all of them would make the ZIP file a loooooot bigger So I usually remove them. I kind of forgot to remove the menu music this time ...rushed release, as always...

After an umpteenth slowmo session, I'm almost certain that the lateral motion of the pelvis is uniform for running anims, i.e., you do not seem to fully use the XZ track of the TRAM.

Already looked into that last time. I am definitely using it. Maybe not "correctly", but I don't know what to change / how to use it better.

- Pierre

Last edited by Pierre (05/10/07 03:05)

Pierre · 05/10/07 03:05

To visualize the hit-boxes:

- enable developer mode ("developer" in console)
- disable post process ("postprocess" in console)
- visualize touched body parts while you're at it ("drawtouchedbodyparts" in console)
- press F5 to access the menu bar
- select "Scene->Attributes rendering" in the menu bar
- enable "Helpers" in the dialog box
- go back to game with F12

Now, when you perform an attack the hit-boxes should appear in blue. A red bone indicates the bone is valid for the attack (you can change which bones are valid for each attack, in the script files). When you hit a character, touched bone appears in white.

- Pierre

geyser · 05/10/07 05:05

FOV: yeah, yours could be wider,. Konoko being closer to the cam got me confused.

sONIc: I'd just script them down to normal dashing speed, maybe oh, 50% faster. Maybe leave the DASH/JUMP and DASH/KICK as they are (specials). Same for the SIDESTEP/LOCK/PUNCH (sidestep at normal speed, home in at super-speed)

Smart cam: Oni's Jell'O is quite a good "solution", when you think of it. The only purpose of the 3rd person camera is to offer a clear view of Konoko and everything and everyone around her, in the most uniform and reliable way. So it makes little to no sense to keep that immaterial/omniscient camera from going through walls. If Konoko is cornered for some reason, then any camera but the Jell'O will make her situation much worse, and nothing short of unplayable.

Blam while fighting Barabas: that was when I was firing a stun gun at him as he was standing up. Maybe some invalid transition there (wild guess).

Priorities & WIP: acknowledged

Pathfinding: it sure would speed things up if you were able to use Oni's pathfinding data to some extent. The grids, at least... See HERE

TRAMs: I remember monitoring XYZ positions for static anims (standing, knocked down), and character distances varied, so yes, you are using non-uniform XZ tracks for those.
Maybe it's just that you haven't re-ripped the running TRAMs in a long time? and that you had averaged the motion speed the last time you ripped them? Could be...
Point is, the running anims have all the symptoms of a uniform pelvis speed (of course I should monitor that, too, to see if it's actually uniform). Is it or is it not?

Hitboxes: I'll check. Shrinking them is not an option, especially if you say their size is reasonable. The time window could/should be brought closer to Oni's, and that's it.

Color flashes: Actually, I'm colorblind. In Oni I can't tell "locked" and "unlocked" doorlights apart. As for flashes, Oni's somehow work for me, maye because the colors are better-chosen and the flashes are large. In KP, the flashes are a bunch of fine lines, and it's very hard for me to tell colors apart in that case

Retreating: in Oni characters are able to retreat quite fast, in a jogging sort of way (actually, that's just regular backpedaling). In KP, combat mode makes backpedaling impossible: characters only make small backwards steps which look awkward and are completely useless for dodging.

Block key: yeah, it could make the fighting more technical. It would also pave the way for counter attacks and throw reversals (GUNNM: Martian Memory is an interesting game in that respect).

Death: when jumping up the sentinels without slowmo, I often press PUNCH for the last one, and that sends me flying backwards and down to the floor. Makes me die and start all over
Apart from that, yeah, Konoko's screams are a good incentive to stay alive (maybe you could remove/downweight the most frantic screams, leaving only the "sighs"?)

It would be possible to add some rules to filter out the collisions, and have only some particular attack moves compatible with the crouch pose. This would be a completely fine gameplay choice. But it's logic-driven, it has little to do with the huge hit-boxes.

Oni's standing/crouching allows you to block high/low attacks. There are flags for that. Indeed, it's logic that's complementary to the actual impacts.
Every combat TRAM also defines a danger zone used by enemies. I'd recommend you to have a look, but your AI already seem to dodge correctly.

Pierre · 05/10/07 08:05

First, Oni doesn't seem to interpolate texels at all at close range, so you get dithering and such at their ugliest.

Doesn't seem to be the case for my version of Oni??

Second, MIP mapping starts way too close, and the switching from one gen to the next is far from perfect.

Thinking about this.... MIP mapping should be completely automatic, handled by OpenGL / Direct3D. I don't see why "their" mip-mapping would be different from mine.

The visible switch is the lack of "trilinear interpolation", which was quite expensive when Oni was released. But I think I don't use it either

Smart cam: Oni's Jell'O is quite a good "solution", when you think of it.

I think it's what people described in the reviews: a cheap hack that stayed there permanently, while it was supposed to be temporary... I completely agree that the camera in KP has (even worse) issues at the moment. But I think the proper way to fix this is to make the camera really smarter... There is a lot of work involved in this one, but it's certainly possible. A good solution is to switch to fixed camera views, like in God Of War for example. In any case, making the walls transparent looks ugly (I think) and it has serious architectural issues (opaque & transparent meshes don't even use the same pipeline in the engine, and yes, the transparent one is of course slower...)

Pathfinding: it sure would speed things up if you were able to use Oni's pathfinding data to some extent. The grids, at least...

That's unlikely. I didn't write the pathfinder, I use "PathEngine", a 3rd party lib. It only works with carefully created ground meshes, and unless there's a way to convert the Oni grids to PE meshes, I'm stuck.

Actually, I'm colorblind

D'oh! No wonder you didn't see the flashes.... I was thinking about adding a small life-bar nearby each NPC (only visible when you're close to them), in the same style as old 2D beat'em ups like, say, Final Fight.

when jumping up the sentinels without slowmo, I often press PUNCH for the last one,

Well, it's part of the game to master the controls! If the character does everything right automatically, where's the fun?

Last edited by Pierre (05/10/07 08:05)

geyser · 05/10/07 17:05

PathEngine: OK, had a look at it, and it's not too port-friendly indeed. I'd still have a look at Oni's pathfinding graph if I were you (look up AKVA, AKBA and AKAA on OniGalore): there might be a way to generate mesh quads from the floor of every BNV (an AABB), connect them using the "sides" and "adjacencies" (probably a little tesselation as appropriate).
Of course, that would still leave the problem of the obstacles and such: in Oni they're handled with fixed-size grids (probably generated automatically from meshes, but that doesn't help since those meshes aren't there anymore ). Given the fact that youll have to set up the obstacles manually, yeah, maybe you're better off authoring the PE meshes from scratch.
As for the environment export, note that the AGDB let you group the environment quads into sensible "objects" and "files" they originally belonged to. If you use the AGDB, you end up with (named) environment modules, furniture etc, and that should make complex levels much more fun to work with (it actually is fun: there's a recent viewer using this)

Life bars: GUNNM puts them all at the bottom of the screen (there can be half a dozen opponents at the same time, but it's still possible to tell which is which). Another thing that GUNNM does is fixed cam view (it moves around a bit while you fight, but the orientation is roughly set to something good enough that it covers the whole room). And the combat system is actually not bad at all for a PS game

Jell'O: I know your stand on that one, as on all the rest. I also remember the issue with the walls not being transparent (note that Oni, too, handles transparent quads separately, BSP tree and all: however, Jell'O is an additional feature that can affect every quad if needed).
Fixed camera views could look and feel reasonable, but let me tell you that Oni's unrivaled freedom of action comes precisely from how competely universal and controllable the camera is. There's Lugaru's system, too: a fine alternative, but still doesn't beat Jell'O in terms of playability.

Texels: Flexine interpolates them, or makes them appear smoother anyhow. Maybe just an impression (there has to be a reason why the textures don't look too dithery, right?).
MIP: I'm positive that I can see Oni's MIP generations switch, and that in KP I can't. The distance at which the first switch occurs may be higher in KP. Or maybe it's the FOV...

Sentinel jumping: I still don't think the way it reacts to the last PUNCH is tolerant/logical enough (sends me flying backwards and away from the ramp). Might be some leftover overzealous target selection, hmm?

Last edited by geyser (05/10/07 17:05)

Tosh · 05/11/07 04:05

Not sure if geyser mentioned this already cause they're too long and I didn't read them ^^; but I noticed a useful bug.
If you dash and stop, as long as you don't move after, you can still perform nightshade kick just by right-clicking.

Pierre · 05/11/07 09:05

but I noticed a useful bug. If you dash and stop, as long as you don't move after, you can still perform nightshade kick just by right-clicking.

Hmmm, it's not a bug. I enabled the Nightshade kick all the time, no need to run, just lock a target and right-click. I found it was a lot more fun like this...

Life bars: GUNNM puts them all at the bottom of the screen (there can be half a dozen opponents at the same time, but it's still possible to tell which is which).

In old 2D games they had another trick, only displaying one lifebar in the top-left (say) of the screen: the one from the last touched enemy. Worked quite well. I think I'll do that.

And the combat system is actually not bad at all for a PS game

Would it work on a PS2 ? Wouldn't mind trying it but I don't have time to track down the torrents / emulators to do that on PC.

Sentinel jumping: I still don't think the way it reacts to the last PUNCH is tolerant/logical enough (sends me flying backwards and away from the ramp). Might be some leftover overzealous target selection, hmm?

I think it always sends the player backwards after one of those kicks. But you can change this in the script IIRC. In any case I don't find it too bad, it's a "trap" punishing the players who don't master the controls yet, but at the same time with some practice it's really not that difficult to avoid pressing that mouse button again, is it?

Pierre · 05/29/07 04:05

Ok, I released a new version. Same file as above. Quite a few changes this time...

Soul · 05/29/07 08:05

w00t,thanks for making my day^^

Tyr · 05/29/07 09:05

I haven't had a look at it yet, but I will soon .
I read in the FAQ that you needed a title.
Well, as creative as I am (:P), I made a first draft: link
I'm an amateur in Photoshop, just got the program and it's np if you think it's ugly
Because of the big resolution I'll not link it as img here
I also added it as an attachment (its a .gif file)

-Tyr

Last edited by Tyr (05/29/07 09:05)

Pierre · 05/29/07 10:05

I read in the FAQ that you needed a title.

Oh, I didn't mean a logo, but a game title "Konoko Payne" is just a codename, it's a bit lame and I was looking for something better.

But thanks anyway!

- Pierre

Tyr · 05/29/07 11:05

Oh oke, np

geyser · 05/29/07 18:05

Yo, nice to see you getting closer to an actual game! But. As usual. Almost exclusively critique from this man

0) Wow, sister Shinny Loquacious is back... I sure missed her a lot

1) The anims still need an awful lot of fixing, and some of it can not be fixed with scripts.
Please give me the fixed TRAM extractor that doesn't eat frames, or reextract Konoko's TRAMs yourself.
I'm positive Konoko's pelvis moves around at a fixed horizontal velocity (unlike in Oni) so that her feet are scooting around.
Stuff like dashing speed, jumping speed, (lack of) backpedaling in combat mode, etc... I'll get around to fine-tuning those, soon enough.

2) The block key doesn't work, and I seem to suck at KP's melee without it. Not like it would help a lot when surrounded: I have to resort to throws (because unlike in Oni, "heavy" specials such as Rising Fury Punch and Devil Spin Kick can be countered) or over-the-top Daodan specials. I'd probably reduce the health of the enemies that are supposed to fight you in groups.

3) Glad to see my idea for the sextuple console grew on you

4) Barabas is a lot less annoying if you use the "trick", sure. So we could say he's OK on Hard.

5) The AI are OK (maybe they turn around a bit too fast, faster than I can anyway; and the aforementioned blocking issue makes them annoying in large numbers), but I'm still not convinced by the melee collision...
I know the hitboxes are supposed to be tight, but when a Fury stands on a table and spins a Whirl Kick miles above my head, and I get hit... it's one of those examples when I'm 100% sure it will miss, and it just doesn't.
Whatever the reason is; will have to investigate.

6) Smart camera is as frustrating as ever. Death is worse than ever. Not only do you seem to favor the more "gruesome" death sounds, but now there's this music...

7) How long till the sounds (footsteps, vocalizations) are spatial? The footsteps of patrolling guards sounding like they're right next to you are no news, but today I heard a Fury "notice" me from two rooms away...

A name for Konoko Payne: iON is still up for grabs. Or "Ion Eyes" or "Ion Flux" or whatever else having to do with ions.
It's hard to come up with a "fitting" title without any plot for it to fit, but if you can tell us more about this HAARP idea, maybe something fitting will indeed shape up.
Have a look through HAARP's glossary for example. Aurora. Corona. Facula. Gradual Commencement. Majorflare. Multipath. Penumbra. X-Mode. Etc.

P.S. Uploading samples of BGE's soundtrack before next week. And I'll probably record a death or two in video, just to show what my idea of a (non-annoyingly) dying heroine is.

Last edited by geyser (05/29/07 18:05)

Pierre · 05/30/07 03:05

The anims still need an awful lot of fixing, and some of it can not be fixed with scripts.

You know, it's useless to report the same problems over and over again, they're already written in my TODO list. They will get fixed when their turn comes. Please realize that there are more than 1000 entries on that TODO list (really), most of them more important than having the anims *exactly* as in Oni. For example I can still play if the anims are a bit off here and there, or if the sound is not 3D.

So, for this particular release I was more motivated by the "game" part indeed. I didn't change anything about the melee code, annoying death, animations, etc. So, all your previous remarks still hold, yes. No need to repeat them.

Please give me the fixed TRAM extractor that doesn't eat frames, or reextract Konoko's TRAMs yourself.

I already re-extracted the correct TRAMs a while back. I also noticed the issues you talked about. I looked at it after your comments on previous release. On further inspection, I think the troubles appear when I interpolate from one motion to another. The TRAM offsets seem ok for each motion, but interpolating one to the other doesn't seem to work well. Once again: I did look at it, I just don't know how to fix it.

The block key doesn't work

I know, it's even written in the readme file. Already on the TODO list:

finir block motion:
    - block for crouch
    - shouldn't block if not in idle combat, right?
    - shouldn't block all moves
    - block & fake death
    - block 1&2 look like left & right versions
    => should be defined per attack motion
    - maybe extra transitions to exit from block quickly
    - block motion should start before the hit?

I definitely need to add some blocking, for KP to be more than a button smasher. I know. But I can't do everything at once.

Glad to see my idea for the sextuple console grew on you

Yep. See, I do listen I just can't do everything at once.

Barabas is a lot less annoying if you use the "trick", sure. So we could say he's OK on Hard.

Yes, I like him like this. It's supposed to be a 2-parts fight in the end. In the second part I'd like him to fly and attack you from above.

I know the hitboxes are supposed to be tight, but when a Fury stands on a table and spins a Whirl Kick miles above my head, and I get hit... it's one of those examples when I'm 100% sure it will miss, and it just doesn't.

Visualize the boxes and check out why they touch If they're obviously wrong I can fix them.

Maybe the hit-boxes shouldn't be handled the same way for AIs. Maybe we want a coarse version for the player (bounding boxes) and a more accurate version for NPCs (triangle collisions). Might work.

Death is worse than ever. Not only do you seem to favor the more "gruesome" death sounds, but now there's this music...

That's the death sound from Metal Gear Solid. Dying is not supposed to be a pleasant experience anyway, right?

How long till the sounds (footsteps, vocalizations) are spatial?

Man, that's like the lowest priority thing ever. "A long time". Unless FMOD already supports it and I just have to send the sound position to the API, otherwise there's just no way I will even try.

but today I heard a Fury "notice" me from two rooms away...

Computing the sound volume is not an easy problem, actually. I already tried a lot of different things to come up with a correct volume. It's not like I didn't care But it's just a problem I don't know how to really fix. At the moment I'm reusing the pathfinding code to compute a path between the sound and the player. Then I take the length of this path to derive the volume. Using the simple distance between 2 points doesn't work, for obvious reasons. So you might complain, but I already tried hard. If you have a better idea, you're welcome. 3D sound doesn't help if it doesn't take obstacles & sound reflections into account. Is there a sound API out there doing that already? Then I'll use it. Otherwise forget it, there's no way I'll find enough time to investigate that myself. I have a game to do

but if you can tell us more about this HAARP idea, maybe something fitting will indeed shape up

I kind of dropped it because I noticed they already use the HAARP in XMen Legends on PS2 !!!!!!!!!!! I was shocked.

- Pierre

geyser · 05/30/07 08:05

So, all your previous remarks still hold, yes. No need to repeat them.

Sorry for that post, it looks like I was more than a little out of touch last night. Blame the beer.
Maybe I could give you more relevant feedback if I could have a sneak peek at the TODO...

TRAM interpolation: some animations (e.g., running loops) are not supposed to be interpolated at all.
About the only thing I'd suggest to check (again) is the player's instantaneous velocity when running.
It's highly non-uniform for running anims, and maybe your algorithm smoothed it up somehow...
Anyway, I can't see a reason for you not to give me the updated extractor. It's been a year, man.

Block key : I know too, I just felt like listing all my (negative) impressions as they came...
It might be worth it to replicate Oni's system (high/low blocking, unblockable moves, etc), and then some more.
GUNNM's action is rather slow-paced because it's tailored for a PS controlller... but there are a few nice features.

I'd have the block animation start as soon as you press the key. But the blocking effect would wear off.
If you block at just the right time, the enemy is supposed to get a penalty (knock back or stagger).
You can then counterattack (maybe with some special attacks/throws reserved for that situation).

However, if you block too early, then you're the one penalized, i.e., the blocking is ineffective.
The ultimate penalty for blocking too early is that the enemy's hit puts you in a vulnerable state.
(equivalent to a stagger/stun, i.e. they can chain combos or perform throws, maybe special ones)

Barabas: if he flies around, you cant really use the trick anymore... Maybe that should happen in another room?
BTW, are the sentinels in the secret room meant for practice only, or will there be something up there Soon(TM)?

Melee collision: will check. Together with the lack of backpedaling in combat mode, and the block key, it's one of the top things-to-fix as far as I'm concerned.

Dying is not supposed to be a pleasant experience anyway, right?

Maybe I just haven't played enough games, but I like it when the death sequence helps the players calm down a bit, rather than drive them up the wall

Spatial sounds: Oni uses plain sound spheres (no obstacle/reflection management AFAIK) and it's mostly OK. So does any game engine I've looked at so far.
Your pathfinding approach sounds more accurate, but it seems to be disabled right now: all the sounds are played at full volume no matter who what where.

HAARP: Heh. Yeah, the thing seems quite popular when it comes to movie plots, conspiracy theories and such.
But you can drop HAARP and still use some cool HAARP related term "out of context", so the "glossary" tip holds.
And after all, it's the "atom=individual, ion=daodan" analogy which I find the most inspiring about iON, not HAARP.
If you want to leave the "ion" terminology to "other" Oni-inspired projects, how about "morpho:GENESIS"?

Last edited by geyser (05/30/07 08:05)

Pierre · 05/30/07 11:05

Rushed answer... no time...

>Barabas: if he flies around, you cant really use the trick anymore... Maybe that should happen in another room?

Yes, that would be in another room. And you would have to use the "nightshade kick" to reach him anyway.

>BTW, are the sentinels in the secret room meant for practice only, or will there be something up there Soon(TM)?

I just forgot to remove them, it's a test.

>Maybe I just haven't played enough games, but I like it when the death sequence helps the players calm down a bit, rather than drive them up the wall

I'm a sucker for difficult / frustrating games. That's why I loved Oni and Nightshade Anyway, that game over sequence should be improved at some point, yes.

>Your pathfinding approach sounds more accurate, but it seems to be disabled right now: all the sounds are played at full volume no matter who what where.

???? Shouldn't happen. Are you sure the volume doesn't decrease for, say the patrolling NPC's footsteps? The volume should definitely not be "max" all the time. The "sound sphere" approach is not enough, that's my fallback when the pathfinding code fails. In games like Quake/Doom they reused the PVS information for this, but I don't have a PVS.

>But you can drop HAARP and still use some cool HAARP related term "out of context",

I might use "SHAARP" for a Super-HAARP Don't know yet.

More, later.

Pierre · 06/25/07 03:06

For next release:

http://www.codercorner.com/IK.htm

- Pierre

geyser · 06/25/07 06:06

Impressive. It very nicely compares to the previews of Lugaru 2 and Halo 3. A few remarks.
1) do you plan to adapt the rotation of the ankle joint so that the foot lies flat on the ground?
2) did you try to handle this for fallen/knockdown animations (other contact points than the feet)?
3) won't there be a jerk when the foremost foot of a downhill-running character meets an IK frame?
(when the canned footstep starts, the foot will still be some distance above the actual ground...)
(same effect, and possibly even more visible in rear view, for the end of a footstep, running uphill)
4) have you thought of handling this in another way, with stuff similar to aiming screens?
(for an upright character on a smooth terrain, the local slope is actually the only parameter)
(then you can interpolate between several (canned) animation frames based on that vector)

TR Anniversary not fixing the bugs of TR Legend... just as I thought...
Those guys have been doing remakes of the same game for years...
So you'd think they'd have rock-solid gameplay and by now, but no...

BTW, I wonder if you're happy with the smart cam in the recent issues of TR
And I hope you noticed that crouching makes you un-aim (in Legend at least)

(P.S. I assume you got my PM?)

Last edited by geyser (06/25/07 06:06)

Pierre · 06/25/07 08:06

1) do you plan to adapt the rotation of the ankle joint so that the foot lies flat on the ground?

I already tried but it didn't always look good. For example look at this picture:
http://www.codercorner.com/IK02.jpg
The foot on the left of the picture would end up severely bent to lie flat on the ground.

It is probably possible to make it work with some more tweaks & experiments, but at the moment this is disabled. It has the additional issue that sometimes the surface normal is ambiguous / not correctly computed, and the foot sometimes gets bent in weird ways. Again, might be possible to improve it with some more work. But not working yet.

2) did you try to handle this for fallen/knockdown animations (other contact points than the feet)?

Yes, it looks ok. I might keep it.

3) won't there be a jerk when the foremost foot of a downhill-running character meets an IK frame?
(when the canned footstep starts, the foot will still be some distance above the actual ground...)
(same effect, and possibly even more visible in rear view, for the end of a footstep, running uphill)

Hmm, I think that jerk is what I called the "Tomb Raider bug", no? It is not that bad with motion blending, there's always a smooth blending between the canned & IK poses.

4) have you thought of handling this in another way, with stuff similar to aiming screens?
(for an upright character on a smooth terrain, the local slope is actually the only parameter)
(then you can interpolate between several (canned) animation frames based on that vector)

I think I know what you're talking about (aiming screens). However you know the issue: I only have Oni's data. If "somebody" has to create "several canned animation frames", then the "coder approach" is easier for me... But otherwise yeah, blending multiple poses depending on the aiming vector (for example) is a popular approach.

So you'd think they'd have rock-solid gameplay and by now, but no...

The gameplay is fine for the most part. It's just this IK glitch that was visually weird. But it doesn't affect the gameplay

BTW, I wonder if you're happy with the smart cam in the recent issues of TR

No comment

And I hope you noticed that crouching makes you un-aim (in Legend at least)

Hmmm, no, didn't notice. I actually didn't play them much so far!

(P.S. I assume you got my PM?)

Woah!! Actually no. There was no message box telling me I had no messages, so I missed them. And the previous ones as well!!!!!!

- Pierre

Last edited by Pierre (06/25/07 11:06)

geyser · 06/25/07 09:06

By TR's lousy gameplay I mean mostly the smart cam (zooming in on Lara's ass whenever I look up).
Then there's the crouching feature (shoot at an enemy, duck into cover, hey, I'm not aiming anymore?)
Then there's "minor" stuff like Lara being able to push 2-ton rocks around... and to pull them as well
(walk up to a big rock, start pushing it forwards, and you'll be able to pull it, too... with closed fists...)
And a lot of environment glitches and level logic flaws. And no way to exit a cutscene, just like in Oni
Some old rants of mine on the TR Legend demo here: http://oni.bungie.org/forums/index.php? … =98&page=3
(you'll have to login to the old OCF if you want to see the attached env-glitch screenshot)

The foor on the left of the picture would end up severely bent to lie flat on the ground.

Well, yeah: a human being would rather rotate that foot outwards...
Optimizing on various rotations with joint constraints... that's probably too slow.

Yes, it looks ok. I might keep it.

An alternative is (again, sorry) to use ragdolling with joint constraints at the end of "knockeddowns and "throwns" and such...
...and then use IK to go back from a ragdolled position to the starting frame of a getup animation.

If "somebody" has to create "several canned animation frames", then the "coder approach" is easier for me...

Well, you can always author those keyframes with the IK scheme...
The advantage of "aiming screens for legs" is that the TR bug would be completely absent.
You wouldn't have to rely on blending to smoothen the transition between both regimes.
BTW, if that "motion blending" is the thing that makes your Konoko scoot around... sigh.

About the PM you didn't get (or was that ironic?): I forwarded you a copy per mail.

If you get around to add vehicles, know that I'm more and more keen on the TCTF HQ parking setup.
(cars and APCs and bikes as a complement to melee: vehicles could run out of fuel after some time)

Last edited by geyser (06/25/07 09:06)

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