Are we going to see procedural animations on creatures?

reh

I've been waiting for any mention about it here and on trello, but there's nothing so far.

Do you guys have any plans for implementing procedural animations for thin and long creatures in SN? The stalkers, both new and old, could use most love since they are so prevalent, but also the tail on garryfish, jellyray with its many tentacles is an obvious candidate, hanging stingers. Even gasopods could use flexible joints on both the neck and tail. Traditional animation only goes so far and works well only on short and stocky fish like peepers and bladderfish. The current animations are fantastic but even the biggest animation blending tree is not going to prevent stalkers and jellyray from looking like plastic wind-up toys.



I'm sure that you guys at UWE have all seen this already, but just for reference I'll throw this video in here. It's a tech demo/game for oculus rift with its main selling point being procedural animations themselves. Also I feel that it conveys being underwater in a spectacular way.

If you guys don't want this video on your forum please delete it, it's easy enough to find it on youtube with minimal effort.

The moray eel and dolphins look seriously impressive. Are you thinking somewhere along these lines?

dottedfish

Just stunning.
The gameplay of SN with these amazing animations (diver and creatures) would be amazing.
I also looove the water surface and the lighting.

Racer1

That looks awesome. However, what's the definition of "procedural animations"? If they are just something like "programmatic movement of joints", then I believe SN already has that. I imagine however, that the demo above just spent a whole bunch more time making those animations look realistic than SN has.

reh

Racer1 wrote: »

That looks awesome. However, what's the definition of "procedural animations"? If they are just something like "programmatic movement of joints", then I believe SN already has that. I imagine however, that the demo above just spent a whole bunch more time making those animations look realistic than SN has.

Good question. I think the guy who did the game in the above video describes it as a kind of semi ragdoll, where the model decides how it wants to position its core body and where to move it and the rest of the body is ragdolled but still can pulse its joints. The movements of such model is emergent and gives the illusion of a flexible organism.


I forgot to mention it in the OP. It's meant just as food for thought. I hope nobody will get annoyed by it.

SteveRock

definitely something we'd like to do! it's currently kinda low priority though, as our engineering team has PLLEEEENNNTY else on their plate

reh

SteveRock wrote: »

definitely something we'd like to do! it's currently kinda low priority though, as our engineering team has PLLEEEENNNTY else on their plate

2cough

seems flawless on the eels and the snake things, however a little less convincing w/ the fish and mammals. Still great and something I think should be worked towards.

coldsnap

After following a pack of gasopods for some time I remembered this video, did a search and found this old thread. The gasopods look fantastic as long as they are allowed to stay on course, but when colliding with each other or the ground they move in a very "unnatural" way, rotating 180 degrees on the spot, or making sharp, robotic back-and-forth turns, fins and tail clipping through terrain and objects. Same goes for many other creatures, but I found it especially noticeable in the gasopods. I get the feeling some kind of mesh deformation and/or smoother movement paths might do wonders. After seeing the dev comment above, it would be interesting to hear how they feel about procedural animation after another year of development.