Sacrifice of Vehicle Interior Animations & Enter/Exit:

[Calumhm]

Originally Posted by Olivier

I seriously hope that they tweak the code so that the modders don't have to make the whole interior/texture the whole interior/make dozens of animations/code the animations. Personaly, I don't have the time to learn how to animate characters. If they don't place a limit on your field of view inside the tank/replace the switching seats animation by something like a black screen, I'm just gonna leave and mod on an other UE3 game, simple as that. And for the heck of it, just visit the modding forum. You'll see how many people are still interested in making custom content.

Are you sure you actually have to do the animations even now? If so, cant you do a rubbish placeholder animation? (also a rubbish interior)

[Olivier]

Originally Posted by Calumhm

Are you sure you actually have to do the animations even now? If so, cant you do a rubbish placeholder animation? (also a rubbish interior)

Each vehicle is different so yeah, you will most likely end up in making custom animations (when switching seats) for every tank/halftrack/apc. On top of that, I'm personally not interested in releasing something that doesn't live up to my standards so if the final result doesn't look good to me, I'm not going to release it.

[Rudo]

To be honest, I could care less about having a fully detailed interior that I can look all around at. The game may be going for realism, but we in no way need to have EVERY little thing inside of it modeled. That's rediculous and costs an unnecessary amount of time and money, and nobody apart from a tankaholic, nobody is going to even notice. Now I would rather have animations because vehicle teleporting is obnoxious as shown in Battlefield 3, even if they were in third person I would be happy. At least just make the game go into third person or something if the lack of detail is what's causing it to take so long to pop out the vehicles.

[wake_up]

Last week, while driving a tank, i remebered the RO2 screenshoots and
turned my head backwards - that was the first time i did look there.
Its nice, but the interior has no effect to the gameplay.
The animation when the gunner reloads the coaxial MG is nice too,
but when they dont model it, i would not care about.

[gazur92]

Why 110 people want sacrifice this great rarity in the virtual world??
Show me next one game where you moveing in tank like in some presentation? Be glad that TWI want to make the game different from others.

[The Beast (nl)]

Originally Posted by gazur92

Why 110 people want sacrifice this great rarity in the virtual world??
Show me next one game where you moveing in tank like in some presentation? Be glad that TWI want to make the game different from others.

I do agree..

Last year when i was in the warmuseum overloon and i took a look inside a T34 you really think wow twi did a great job.

[Major_Day]

Originally Posted by gazur92

Why 110 people want sacrifice this great rarity in the virtual world??
Show me next one game where you moveing in tank like in some presentation? Be glad that TWI want to make the game different from others.

I don't think many of the 110 people would disagree that the interiors look great. What they are saying is that they could do without the great interiors if it would speed up the release of new vehicles,if indeed it would do that.

[Mike_Nomad]

Originally Posted by Major_Day

I don't think many of the 110 people would disagree that the interiors look great. What they are saying is that they could do without the great interiors if it would speed up the release of new vehicles,if indeed it would do that.

I doubt it would speed up anything. At this point in time, they've already invested countless hours into the interior animations. Many of those can and will be used in other tank models so, it would be foolish to abandon such a marvelous addition to our favorite game.

I believe changes are coming soon.

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by Calumhm

You and Prax are seriously kidding yourselves if you think TWI are gonna cut corners like that, having already done it the hard way. It wouldn't be consistent, and people would scorn it as shoddy work.

I too, would rather have that kind of Arma 2-style corner cutting than less content, but its too late. (Also as Yoshi says, animations aren't the big issue)

Never said I was expecting them to change things based on a forum poll.... I wanted to see the community's view.

However, Oliver makes a point, in that if modders are expected to put that much work into vehicles they work on, just so they match up with the other two vehicles in the game, then chances are you're not going to see much coming from the modders.

TWI might have the manpower, resources and possible time to develop vehicles at such a level (though I'm not sure on that due to the time it takes)..... but regular people who have jobs and lives of their own, whom do modding in their own spare time do not have that amount of time or resources.

Besides a couple of mutators and a couple of old RO maps being ported to RO2, there's not much coming.

Originally Posted by gazur92

Why 110 people want sacrifice this great rarity in the virtual world??

It has been already explained.

Show me next one game where you moveing in tank like in some presentation? Be glad that TWI want to make the game different from others.

Yeah and while other game devs don't work on such detail, they're getting more stuff added into their games, and considering their population of players who keep coming back to play their games, interior animations and such don't seem to be making any real impact for RO2.

It'd be nice if it did and everybody said "Wow, cool, look at all that, gemmie some of that game"..... but it's not happening and the player counts for RO2 are not very good at present.

[Olivier]

Originally Posted by gazur92

Why 110 people want sacrifice this great rarity in the virtual world??
Show me next one game where you moveing in tank like in some presentation? Be glad that TWI want to make the game different from others.

Do you know why RO2 is the only game apart from simulators where you see the interior of a tank? Because other developers think it's a waste of time and a feature that is totally unnecessary. It's not about stepping things up to be above the competition. The competitors will release dozens of vehicles in the same time that it would take you to release 1 single vehicle.

Originally Posted by The Beast (nl)

I do agree..

Last year when i was in the warmuseum overloon and i took a look inside a T34 you really think wow twi did a great job.

Yeah, they did a great job at wasting a lot of cash on something that doesn't affect the gameplay at all.

Originally Posted by Mike_Nomad

I doubt it would speed up anything. At this point in time, they've already invested countless hours into the interior animations. Many of those can and will be used in other tank models so, it would be foolish to abandon such a marvelous addition to our favorite game.

I believe changes are coming soon.

That' like someone who bought an 98 Honda Civic for 1k but that decided to spend 60k on the interior for gimmicks. That said person heads to the garage for the annual inspection and he's told to change his car because it is considered as not safe enough to ride on the streets. The guy is pretty much ****ed in both case because he needs to change his car but by doing so, he needs to scrap his 60k investment on the interior.

TWI better make a move fast because I'm losing my patience :l

[Nikita]

Originally Posted by Olivier

Do you know why RO2 is the only game apart from simulators where you see the interior of a tank? Because other developers think it's a waste of time and a feature that is totally unnecessary. It's not about stepping things up to be above the competition. The competitors will release dozens of vehicles in the same time that it would take you to release 1 single vehicle.

TWI better make a move fast because I'm losing my patience :l

Pardon me for asking, but what multiplayer FPS do you know of has "dozens" of vehicles with even the same basic functionality of Ostfront's? Call of Duty 3 had only the Panzer IV and the M4 Sherman and World at War featured the Panzer IV and the T34/85, all driven from a third-person view with [sarcasm] such wonderful realistic touches like perks that make your turret traverse faster [/sarcasm] . Most shooters these days have one tank, maybe two, per faction.

Here's Battlefield 3, as an example. Just so we're clear, their art team alone is several times larger than Tripwire's entire employee base:

Tanks
M1A2 Abrams
T-90

That's two tanks. TWO! You can't unhatch, the tank "armor" system is a joke, your tank's hitpoints regenerate, you can bail out instantaneously, you control the whole tank from a fixed camera view, you can't zero your sights... some "competition". Give Tripwire the same money, manpower and resources and they'd blow Battlefield 3 out of the water any day.
APCs / Infantry Fighting Vehicles
LAV-25
BMP-2

Anti-air vehiclesLAV-AD
Tunguska

Transport vehiclesHumvee
Vodnik
Growler
VDV
RHIB boat
AAV Amphibious Assault Vehicle

Between the tanks, APCs, AA vehicles, and the AAV, that makes a total of just seven dedicated frontline armored vehicles, none of which has anything even close to the complexity of an RO2 tank.
On the other side of the spectrum, Steel Fury: Kharkov has 30 tanks... using last-generation graphics. Ostfront and DH were comparable (once the modders got to work) in terms of the sheer number of vehicles, but UE3 is just a whole new ball game even if we did cut out animations, etc... especially given the new complexity of the armor calculations and the improved graphics.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I understand you were working on an Sdkfz. 222 and that you found that between researching the interiors and having to code all the animations and vehicle behavior, you had to put the project on hold because you didn't know enough to continue.

That said, I don't think it's just the learning curve and the bar set by the current tanks that is discouraging modders. It's that learning curve, combined with the small playerbase and a few noticeable bugs in the tanking system. If RO2 had 2000 people online every day, clamoring for new vehicles, I'm sure a good modeler would start looking for a skilled coder and a talented animator to put some custom vehicles together--because the demand, support, and appreciation would be there!

And I'm still optimistic about the future. Once TWI pushes the new content out along with the major bug-fixes and Classic, they might be able to spare a minute here and there to put together some helpful guides and share resources for vehicle creation. Once Rising Storm is complete, we will see some very talented modders, fresh from the mod's completion, looking for something else to take up.

(And for the record, I fundamentally disagree that new content alone will fix RO2's currently lower-than-desired playercounts. Gameplay is the issue--the bugs, the performance issues, and the design of the gameplay itself are. Newcomers entered in September to a bug-riddled release, a chaos-filled community, and were getting shot out of windows left and right by the demanding gameplay. Not many stayed. Poor design choices meant that many Ostfront players were disappointed.)

(New content won't bring back that RO fan who can't get more than 15 fps and who has to lead a target by 5 meters. Neither will it bring back the Ostfront player who got sick of hearing the Mkb's death rattle on every round of every map of every game, nor the newcomer who got frustrated with getting his role invisibly taken, falling through the map on spawn, and getting headshot by a tank 150 yards away without warning. Only gameplay changes and bug fixes will resolve those issues.)

[Olivier]

Originally Posted by Nikita

Pardon me for asking, but what multiplayer FPS do you know of has "dozens" of vehicles with even the same basic functionality of Ostfront's? Call of Duty 3 had only the Panzer IV and the M4 Sherman and World at War featured the Panzer IV and the T34/85, all driven from a third-person view with [sarcasm] such wonderful realistic touches like perks that make your turret traverse faster [/sarcasm] . Most shooters these days have one tank, maybe two, per faction.

Here's Battlefield 3, as an example. Just so we're clear, their art team alone is several times larger than Tripwire's entire employee base:

Tanks
M1A2 Abrams
T-90

That's two tanks. TWO! You can't unhatch, the tank "armor" system is a joke, your tank's hitpoints regenerate, you can bail out instantaneously, you control the whole tank from a fixed camera view, you can't zero your sights... some "competition". Give Tripwire the same money, manpower and resources and they'd blow Battlefield 3 out of the water any day.
APCs / Infantry Fighting Vehicles
LAV-25
BMP-2

Anti-air vehiclesLAV-AD
Tunguska

Transport vehiclesHumvee
Vodnik
Growler
VDV
RHIB boat
AAV Amphibious Assault Vehicle

Between the tanks, APCs, AA vehicles, and the AAV, that makes a total of just seven dedicated frontline armored vehicles, none of which has anything even close to the complexity of an RO2 tank.
On the other side of the spectrum, Steel Fury: Kharkov has 30 tanks... using last-generation graphics. Ostfront and DH were comparable (once the modders got to work) in terms of the sheer number of vehicles, but UE3 is just a whole new ball game even if we did cut out animations, etc... especially given the new complexity of the armor calculations and the improved graphics.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I understand you were working on an Sdkfz. 222 and that you found that between researching the interiors and having to code all the animations and vehicle behavior, you had to put the project on hold because you didn't know enough to continue.

That said, I don't think it's just the learning curve and the bar set by the current tanks that is discouraging modders. It's that learning curve, combined with the small playerbase and a few noticeable bugs in the tanking system. If RO2 had 2000 people online every day, clamoring for new vehicles, I'm sure a good modeler would start looking for a skilled coder and a talented animator to put some custom vehicles together--because the demand, support, and appreciation would be there!

And I'm still optimistic about the future. Once TWI pushes the new content out along with the major bug-fixes and Classic, they might be able to spare a minute here and there to put together some helpful guides and share resources for vehicle creation. Once Rising Storm is complete, we will see some very talented modders, fresh from the mod's completion, looking for something else to take up.

(And for the record, I fundamentally disagree that new content alone will fix RO2's currently lower-than-desired playercounts. Gameplay is the issue--the bugs, the performance issues, and the design of the gameplay itself are. Newcomers entered in September to a bug-riddled release, a chaos-filled community, and were getting shot out of windows left and right by the demanding gameplay. Not many stayed. Poor design choices meant that many Ostfront players were disappointed.)

(New content won't bring back that RO fan who can't get more than 15 fps and who has to lead a target by 5 meters. Neither will it bring back the Ostfront player who got sick of hearing the Mkb's death rattle on every round of every map of every game, nor the newcomer who got frustrated with getting his role invisibly taken, falling through the map on spawn, and getting headshot by a tank 150 yards away without warning. Only gameplay changes and bug fixes will resolve those issues.)

Sorry, my post wasn't clear enough. My point was that the introduction of the complete interiors of the tanks is not really a step up because the time it takes to produce one single tank is close to producing a "dozen" of other tanks/vehicles that are similar to what you could find in RO1/DH/BF3. If making a ro2 style tank would take twice as much time to release than a bf3 vehicle, sure it is a step-up. It is not when it takes 10 times the amount of time to create 1 vehicle though. Especially when all the extra work could be replaced by a black screen or by putting restriction on what the player is allowed to see.

Concerning BF3, yes the DICE team is bigger than TWI, but I'm quite confident that the budget they spent on the 27 (http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/9581/72349967.png) vehicles is just a little higher than the money TWI spent on 2 vehicles.

You do have a point about about the playerbase though. People won't come back because a bunch of vehicles are made. If they left because Ro2 wasn't their kind of game, the MKB, the horrible framerate they had or other bugs, they clearly won't come back because there's a few more vehicles. Although, if more content is created/released, the rest of the playerbase is more likely to stick with RO2 instead of leaving like pretty much everyone did.

[Leopardi]

All I know is that I enjoyed tanking MUCH more in RO1. It's simply getting too complicated, only view I need is the top hatch view to get immersed that I'm a tank commander.

[Nikita]

Originally Posted by Olivier

Sorry, my post wasn't clear enough. My point was that the introduction of the complete interiors of the tanks is not really a step up because the time it takes to produce one single tank is close to producing a "dozen" of other tanks/vehicles that are similar to what you could find in RO1/DH/BF3. If making a ro2 style tank would take twice as much time to release than a bf3 vehicle, sure it is a step-up. It is not when it takes 10 times the amount of time to create 1 vehicle though. Especially when all the extra work could be replaced by a black screen or by putting restriction on what the player is allowed to see.

Concerning BF3, yes the DICE team is bigger than TWI, but I'm quite confident that the budget they spent on the 27 (<a href="http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/9581/72349967.png" target="_blank">http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/9581/72349967.png) vehicles is just a little higher than the money TWI spent on 2 vehicles.

You do have a point about about the playerbase though. People won't come back because a bunch of vehicles are made. If they left because Ro2 wasn't their kind of game, the MKB, the horrible framerate they had or other bugs, they clearly won't come back because there's a few more vehicles. Although, if more content is created/released, the rest of the playerbase is more likely to stick with RO2 instead of leaving like pretty much everyone did.

Right, I intentionally did not count aircraft to avoid comparing apples to oranges, though it looks like I missed the PANT SIR-S1 (it's on the truck mount, right?), the DPV, the skid loader (), and the BTR-90. Blame this site, since I don't own the actual game. http://bf3blog.com/2011/10/battlefield-3-vehicle-list/

I also have no way of guessing at the following, but I'm going to estimate that the most time-consuming aspects of the first two tanks were the armor calculations, programming the vehicle AI, and the research involved in detailing the tank interiors, in increasing order of difficulty, based on dev posts, articles, and the recent vehicle AI interview. Armor calcs and vehicle AI would have been needed regardless, and both present a challenge to modders.

I'm pretty sure that even if you could not turn your head within the tank, the devs would have gone to some lengths to make sure each crew station was as completely accurate as possible (though the good Rommel has a bone to pick there), which would have necessitated many reference photos, the same trips to Bovington, modeling and texturing, etc... so a lot of the vehicle interior research was already more or less sunk.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, I went back to Ostfront today to revisit the tanks... and really it's no wonder that we had so many. Hatches open by the power of the force, your view as the commander is limited to gunsight, cupola, unbuttoned, and binoculars, and the textures are spartan to say the least... nice to have WASD control of the turret, though.

The jump to UE3, better graphics, and more advanced AI and calculations was simply bound to require more development. Given what we started with in Ostfront, it's almost understandable that the devs reached for the stars with the animations and interiors...

[Colt .45 killer]

Originally Posted by Mike_Nomad

I doubt it would speed up anything. At this point in time, they've already invested countless hours into the interior animations. Many of those can and will be used in other tank models so, it would be foolish to abandon such a marvelous addition to our favorite game.

I believe changes are coming soon.

only if the interiors are identical.


On the modding side, I do hope that something is in place so that a modder could make a tank to a RO1 level of detail ( interior ) and it would work ingame.

[Fafnir_6]

Originally Posted by Colt .45 killer

On the modding side, I do hope that something is in place so that a modder could make a tank to a RO1 level of detail ( interior ) and it would work ingame.

A two-tiered interior detail scheme! It's brilliant .

Cheers,

Fafnir_6

[Nylle]

Please just hear me out.
If we are to remove all standards just so the devs' can produce as much content as possible, then what kind of community would we be?
And what kind of developer studio would TWI be if they would trade their quality for quantity?
Ask yourself that question.
Everyone want more content, but please lets be patient.

[VossRG]

I'd rather have more tanks sooner than wait for high fidelity models and animations, that do not affect gameplay and which will go unnoticed most of the time.

I'd rather have halftracks or ride-able tanks sooner that use teleportation than no transport at all. Even a small map like Arad cries out for halftracks. Delay times could be added for realism, as could forcing tank crew to exit facing their tank, to give nearby infantry the advantage.

Perhaps TWI could cut corners and give us DH-style interior views and position teleports now, to breathe some life into the tank combat with new vehicles, and then continue to work on the interiors and animations, which could be patched in later.

A similar option should be available for modders.

Tank combat in RO2 has great potential, but the paucity of tank maps and tanks may kill it before it can ever get there.

[The_Cook]

Me thinks with the bullet modeling, and penetration modeling we have to have somewhat detailed interiors for the tanks to "behave" correctly. Maybe the hope was that by detailing everything the pentration system would handle things correctly on it's own. idk.. just a guess.

[Nikita]

Some quick clarifications:

Did some fact-checking today when a bot-filled Panzer IV was kind enough to kill all my crewmates but the driver, allowing me to go through all the animations.

Firstly, the animation for the T34 to get from the driver's seat to the commander's seat is the exact reverse of the animation for the commander to get to the driver's seat. The same goes for going from the hull gunner position to the commander position, etc.

The AI prioritizes the loader position above all else, so AI will only move to the loader position, and will not leave it. I'm not certain, but the bot might just be teleporting to the loader's chair. Can't say for sure without further testing that just happens to kill my loader when I'm paying attention.

The driver-to-hull-gunner animations are different, however. You do a sort of spin around when going from hull gunner to driver that is not performed when going from driver to hull gunner.

That makes a total of just four animations for the T34 that the player participates in directly (not counting hatch opening, MG reloading, etc...). Not sure if it's more for the AI, but in any case, the AI only has third-person animations. A significant amount of clipping also does take place, and you really don't see your body parts that often when you're climbing around. Still difficult to model everything and animate it, but I was under the false impression that you needed at least eight.

Just food for thought.