New EQ2 run animations incomming

[Andric d'Regor]

females only though at least its a start http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/e...d=64184#M64184

Hi everyone,

I thought this would be a good time to explain why we decided to introduce new run animations for most female races with Game Update 28.

As most of you are aware, we are adding cloaks with the release of Echoes of Faydwer. We decided to animate the cloaks instead of relying on cloth simulation, which requires us to sync the cloak animations with those of player characters. This process allowed us to take another look at our character animations and address certain issues with them.

The original female run animation is one of our oldest animation assets. It was actually made from a motion-capture session of a man jogging. Frankly, this run animation has always been one of my least-favorite animations in EverQuest II. Since we needed to re-export the female run animation to work with cloaks, this presented the opportunity to improve this animation to give female characters a run that is more athletic and heroic.

The goal of the new run animation was that it had to remain feminine while conveying strength and power. The run should look graceful while in a robe but heroic when wearing full plate. I believe that this new animation has all of these qualities.

It's always a challenge to change something that is familiar to the inhabitants of Norrath, especially when it comes to our character models. These characters are more than just an avatar to players, myself included. In the original EverQuest my main character was a female wood elf, and I really loved feeling of grace and power she conveyed. My main in EverQuest II is a female dark elf, and I feel this new run animation helps bring out those same qualities. Please take a good long look at the animations in game and let us know what you think of them.

Change is something that will continue to occur in EverQuest II as the game evolves. We have some really exciting changes planned for our character models this upcoming year, and we look forward to bringing them to you.

Thanks again for playing EverQuest II, and please keep the constructive feedback coming.

_________
Chad Haley
Character Art Lead, EverQuest II

[Zuuljin]

Change is something that will continue to occur in EverQuest II as the game evolves. We have some really exciting changes planned for our character models this upcoming year, and we look forward to bringing them to you.

More info Gallenite! More INFO!!!

[Jait]

Really looking forward to the cloaks, esp Guild ones.


Token: Fix Troubadours!

[Jabberwhacky]

Originally Posted by GAYq2

We decided to animate the cloaks instead of relying on cloth simulation, which requires us to sync the cloak animations with those of player characters.

This is lame. Back in the heyday EQ2 was all "we have kickass graphics, look at us" and now they cop-out by going with shittily animated cloaks. Why can't they use the cloth simulation already in game? I think that shit looks cool, and sets EQ2 apart from, oh I don't know, WOW.

[Zuuljin]

I'm guessing its probably because adding yet another complicated item to the player model would furthur take your FPS into the dirt.

[Jabberwhacky]

That ain't valid though, computers have upgraded plenty enough to get really good FPS out of EQ2. I'm playing on a 2 year old video card and ran the game really smooth (without shadows lol). You can max everything on a high-end computer and get great FPS, so I dunno why they wouldn't want to keep the graphics on the cutting edge as a marketing tool.

[Gallenite]

Originally Posted by Jabberwhacky

Why can't they use the cloth simulation already in game?

Perfectly reasonable question. Equally reasonable answer, inc.

1) The cloth sim is CPU intensive. When everyone on your screen starts wearing one, it would end up being even more expensive than it is today.

2) Subjective opinion disclaimer: I think it looks better than our current cloth sim.


For the future: We'd like to continute to improve our cloth sim, then it'd also look good with cloaks, and also possibly move it off to another core (for those with dual core machines) to handle the problem of "Uh oh. Now everything I see is wearing a cloth sim."

For EoF, however, the cloaks need to work and be cool for everyone.

I think we've done well both in terms of customization (guild reservations, colors, heraldry, logos, trims, etc) and the interactions that affect how the animations blend (wind makes them move, as do character motions at the bone level).

Rest assured, this isn't "staple a texture to your shoulders, give the tail a wiggle when ya run, and call 'er good."

- Scott

[Zuuljin]

I dunno, IMO the graphics are one thing keeping people away. Sure newer machines can play it just fine, but for the amount of people they want to bring in, the people with new hardware are the minority. I would much rather them attempt to redo the shadow code so I can play with shadows on instead of add more things to drop my FPS.

IIRC they also said they were going to redo the facial structure of the races to add even more performance when multiple people are on the screen.

[Gallenite]

Originally Posted by Jabberwhacky

I dunno why they wouldn't want to keep the graphics on the cutting edge as a marketing tool.

Equally reasonable question.

Because the kinds of improvements to gameplay, feature set, and performance that our players care about are a hell of a lot more important to us as devs than being buzzword compliant.

- S.

[Zuuljin]

Originally Posted by Gallenite

Perfectly reasonable question. Equally reasonable answer, inc.

1) The cloth sim is CPU intensive. When everyone on your screen starts wearing one, it would end up being even more expensive than it is today.

2) Subjective opinion disclaimer: I think it looks better than our current cloth sim.

For the future: We'd like to continute to improve our cloth sim, then it'd also look good with cloaks, and also possibly move it off to another core (for those with dual core machines) to handle the problem of "Uh oh. Now everything I see is wearing a cloth sim."


- Scott

Hooray for multiple cores! Any other plans to offload stuff to other cores for better performance/look?

[Lyenae]

TLTL~

[Utnayan]

Good news. I am glad this became more of a priority as time went along, as it is going to directly effect your bottom line here. Animations must be fixed. I am glad you are making a start and I hope it continues to move forward not only into character run animations, but all character animations and NPC animations.


Vanguard: Take note.

[...]

Originally Posted by Gallenite

Because the kinds of improvements to gameplay, feature set, and performance that our players care about are a hell of a lot more important to us as devs than being buzzword compliant.

kickass answer.

[Abalieno]

Originally Posted by Andric d'Regor

We decided to animate the cloaks instead of relying on cloth simulation

Great choice. I support this.

Cloth simulation is a huge client hog and handcrafted animations can be of a much superior quality.

In general, for optimal results, you run the cloth animation on a render program and then finely tune it by hand. When it's perfect you export it and hardcode it. You cannot miss. It would look great and run great without relying on fancy technology to do the work for you.

[Abalieno]

By the way, one of the things that are broken with the animations is the "pacing".

Running animations are awkward because it's like they play at 3x speed instead of flowing naturally and consistently. I hope they don't just look better, but that are also paced better. That's the real problem. Even before you go redoing the single animations.

Btw, have you tried go in a combat stance and then move sideways or backwards? If you don't know what I'm talking about try to log in, target something and go in combat stance, then move. That's what looks absolutely HIDEOUS in EQ2.

That's the kind of stuff you need fixing before the rest. Then the rest.