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Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 2 post(s) |
Jett0
Team Kitty Choke Slam
7
   |
Posted - 2011.11.14 08:00:00 -
[1] - Quote
tl;dr Synchronized missing is weird. Randomized animations possibly?
-- Miss animations are awesome --
First of all, bravo for adding this in the first place. This has been something I've wanted to see for a long time. Having said that, I have some suggestions for minor tweaks.
From what I can tell, a laser or similar animated type is done by drawing an effect between a start (turret) and end (target) point. The "miss" seems to be created by setting the target point somewhere off in the distance, offset from the ship you're firing at. I can see the appeal to this strategy; it's easy and efficient, and conveys the proper information to the player.
-- The things that bother me --
* When my row of lasers miss a target, it's a little weird to see them all miss by exactly the same distance and follow the target at the same speed, especially when the target is orbiting close. My gunners are incompetant, but at least they're synchronized?
* There are only two animations: hit, and wide miss. Seeing half my lasers make a precise hit while the other half miss widely (and again, by the same distance) is weird.
-- Suggestions --
* If possible, calculate the animation offset and target follow speed separately for each miss. Hell, maybe a small number of misses could actually "follow" away from a target. The randomness would make for some great looking fleet fights.
* What about a third "barely hit" or "grazed" animation? The end point starts at the target for the first half of the animation, then gets offset to the distance during the second half, but closely following the target. This would give the effect of the target "slipping away" from the full damage. |
Goodgodyourface
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
13
|
Posted - 2011.11.14 08:24:00 -
[2] - Quote
Am I missing something? I went flying around on SiSi last night in an Inty (specifically to avoid being hit) and even though I kept getting "missed" by the guys shooting at me... I didn't get the miss animation.
I don't get it :/ Does it only apply to the shots I fire at other people? |
Jett0
Team Kitty Choke Slam
7
|
Posted - 2011.11.14 08:28:00 -
[3] - Quote
Huh... Never tried being the one dodging the shots, so I can't answer that. I flew an Abaddon and fired at some NPC frigates to test the feature. |
Goodgodyourface
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
13
|
Posted - 2011.11.14 08:36:00 -
[4] - Quote
Jett0 wrote:Huh... Never tried being the one dodging the shots, so I can't answer that. I flew an Abaddon and fired at some NPC frigates to test the feature.
Yeah, I just went on and asked a guy in a Daredevil to run around while I barraged him with my Abby. I'm pretty sure it's only your own misses you can see.
Probably easier for the client to render, but still... I was looking forward to tackling people and watching their weaponry fly uselessly by me. Oh well. |
Jett0
Team Kitty Choke Slam
7
|
Posted - 2011.11.14 08:40:00 -
[5] - Quote
I don't see how it would be difficult. If both clients acknowledge the miss (which obviously they have to) then why not show, graphically, the miss on both clients? They don't have to look the same on both screens, as long as the proper information is conveyed.
Prototype, I guess. |
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CCP Choloepus
C C P
C C P Alliance
14
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Posted - 2011.11.14 10:31:00 -
[6] - Quote
Hi all,
Jett0, thanks for the suggestions! I particularly like the idea of having the grazing shots slip off-target, if we can get that looking sufficiently slick. We've definitely been bouncing the idea of having the tracking less absolutely perfect-yet-wrong, and ideas are always appreciated.
One thing that should go to TQ but missed the last Singularity build is that lasers behave differently to projectile and hybrid fire. The latter two don't track at all, instead aiming at where the target was at the time of firing. Whilst this on/off behaviour isn't quite ideal - it'd be better if all turrets tracked their target, just not as effectively - it does at least give some variety. Something in the middle with a bit more randomisation is probably going to be the sweet spot.
As to the people trying to dodge, I'm afraid you may have run afoul of bugs on SiSi. Shots fired by or at your ship should both be handled in the same fashion, but it sounds like this is a tad borked. I apologise for the confusion caused by the buggy implementation  |
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Ione Hawke
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
1
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Posted - 2011.11.14 11:08:00 -
[7] - Quote
I always interpreted "glancing hits" and the like as that a few of my guns actually hit, while the others missed. The better the hit, the more guns actually hit. Dunno if that interpretation makes sense.
Anyway it would be awesome to have for a subset of guns a hit animation and for the other the miss animation ;) |
Daedalus Arcova
Havoc Violence and Chaos
BricK sQuAD.
94
|
Posted - 2011.11.14 11:13:00 -
[8] - Quote
CCP Choloepus wrote:One thing that should go to TQ but missed the last Singularity build is that lasers behave differently to projectile and hybrid fire. The latter two don't track at all, instead aiming at where the target was at the time of firing.
Can I have your babies?
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C DeLeon
Pangalactic Punks n' Playboys
HUN Reloaded
6
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Posted - 2011.11.14 11:44:00 -
[9] - Quote
Ione Hawke wrote:Anyway it would be awesome to have for a subset of guns a hit animation and for the other the miss animation ;)
You mean something like that? 
http://kepfeltoltes.hu/111114/2011.11.08.22.52.47_www.kepfeltoltes.hu_.jpg |
Bienator II
24th Imperial Crusade
Amarr Empire
274
|
Posted - 2011.11.14 16:42:00 -
[10] - Quote
since you are at it. Would it be hard to make a group of weapons hit different points at the enemy ship? A wrecking hit for example could still be the old animation where all weapons hit one point.
You fail you fail you fail you fail you fail you fail you fail to jump because you are cloaked |
Jett0
Team Kitty Choke Slam
13
|
Posted - 2011.11.14 23:52:00 -
[11] - Quote
Thanks for replying, Choloepus. I've got some further ideas based on your feedback.
CCP Choloepus wrote:I particularly like the idea of having the grazing shots slip off-target, if we can get that looking sufficiently slick. We've definitely been bouncing the idea of having the tracking less absolutely perfect-yet-wrong, and ideas are always appreciated.
I've always liked it when video game lasers don't necessarily "stick" every time. I'm a big believer in the idea that polished animations will always outweigh higher polygon counts in determining what looks pleasing to the eye. I'm glad even these little things are given weight at CCP.
CCP Choloepus wrote:One thing that should go to TQ but missed the last Singularity build is that lasers behave differently to projectile and hybrid fire. The latter two don't track at all, instead aiming at where the target was at the time of firing. Whilst this on/off behaviour isn't quite ideal - it'd be better if all turrets tracked their target, just not as effectively - it does at least give some variety. Something in the middle with a bit more randomisation is probably going to be the sweet spot.
I see where you're going with this. Instead of having a hybrid/projectile miss animation fire at the spot where a target used to be (which would imply that the gunner is an idiot who doesn't know how to lead his shots), what about taking into account the velocity and direction of the target (as seen by the client), and having it fire to the side or even a little ahead of the target? This would also be a nice visual contrast from the proposed laser "stick-then-slip" animation.
I'm going to assume that having the client treat each individual hybrid/projectile "bullet" in a burst as a separate animation would require rewriting more code than initially planned for this feature. However, I'm going to strongly advocate this approach for two reasons: One, it achieves the desired effect in a very convincing manner. Two, it opens up a lot of possibilities for future changes in hybrid/projectile animations that further differentiate them from lasers and each other.
CCP Choloepus wrote:As to the people trying to dodge, I'm afraid you may have run afoul of bugs on SiSi. Shots fired by or at your ship should both be handled in the same fashion, but it sounds like this is a tad borked. I apologise for the confusion caused by the buggy implementation
Haha, gotta love software development. |
Aglais
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
3
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Posted - 2011.11.15 00:17:00 -
[12] - Quote
I was ruining some NPCs and their shots were visibly missing me. Just throwing that out there. |
Jett0
Team Kitty Choke Slam
15
|
Posted - 2011.11.15 00:33:00 -
[13] - Quote
Same.
By the way, is it just me, or do the miss animations never seem to happen on your first volley? |
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CCP Choloepus
C C P
C C P Alliance
17
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Posted - 2011.11.15 00:58:00 -
[14] - Quote
Just a few notes before sleep, sorry if I missed anything:
Bienator II wrote:since you are at it. Would it be hard to make a group of weapons hit different points at the enemy ship? A wrecking hit for example could still be the old animation where all weapons hit one point.
Nice idea, and should also be simple to implement. Will try to make time to give this a whirl and see how it looks, on the smaller ships especially. They have few target points, and so tend to be most fiddly.
Longer term, I think everyone wants more impact points and more variety in the hit effects as well as the misses.
Aglais wrote:I was ruining some NPCs and their shots were visibly missing me. Just throwing that out there.
Yes, from testing this today it looks like it's limited to PvP scenarios, so shooting rats should work as intended. Should be fixed in the next Singularity update if all goes well!
Jett0 wrote: (which would imply that the gunner is an idiot who doesn't know how to lead his shots)
I blame the beer to be honest, I should probably stop keeping it in the hold next to the ammunition. But yes, this kind of thing is pretty much exactly what we'd like to end up with. It will take a little more tweaking and testing than we have time for initially, partly because it needs to avoid the target catching up to the 'missed' shots due to acceleration or direction changes. Good stuff though.
Jett0 wrote:I'm going to assume that having the client treat each individual hybrid/projectile "bullet" in a burst as a separate animation would require rewriting more code than initially planned for this feature. However, I'm going to strongly advocate this approach for two reasons: One, it achieves the desired effect in a very convincing manner. Two, it opens up a lot of possibilities for future changes in hybrid/projectile animations that further differentiate them from lasers and each other.
It is indeed a bigger code change than we could sensibly get in for winter, and there's also a performance concern associated with tracking and rendering the "bullets" separately if it's not done with care. And of course hiding (as much as possible!) the fact that said bullets home in on their target when the server rolls in your favour. The flexibility it allows would be a very nice thing to have though.
Jett0 wrote:By the way, is it just me, or do the miss animations never seem to happen on your first volley?
Yup. This is really annoying, has to do with the effect timing and getting the miss/hit info from the server. I'm trying to find a way to get this working without tripping over edges cases or touching the effects themselves, but so far all I've found is a large number of ways to make things slightly more broken. Not exactly the goal.  |
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Renan Ruivo
Hipernova
Vera Cruz Alliance
331
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Posted - 2011.11.15 02:28:00 -
[15] - Quote
I fought Blood Raider rats with a navy geddon on sisi tonight, just to check it out.
I had only one thing in mind:
LASER RAVE!
Now all we need is a lot of Mindflood and TEH PARTY IS ON!
Rated ARG for Pirates. **** you. |
Jett0
Team Kitty Choke Slam
22
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Posted - 2011.11.15 23:47:00 -
[16] - Quote
Thanks again for the responses. By the way, is there a CCP employee thats the audio equivalent of what you do? I wouldn't mind speaking to him/her as well.
CCP Choloepus wrote:Longer term, I think everyone wants more impact points and more variety in the hit effects as well as the misses.
I know I do.
CCP Choloepus wrote:It will take a little more tweaking and testing than we have time for initially, partly because it needs to avoid the target catching up to the 'missed' shots due to acceleration or direction changes. Good stuff though.
As for targets catching up, you do know that we can currently shoot through asteroids, yes? As long as it consistently communicates the proper information, I don't think players will take issue with it. Obviously iteration is key, but no one expects Crucible to be the end-all expansion for EvE Online.
CCP Choloepus wrote:It is indeed a bigger code change than we could sensibly get in for winter, and there's also a performance concern associated with tracking and rendering the "bullets" separately if it's not done with care.
I'm speaking from ignorance here, but would splitting the hybrid blaster animation from one to three parts be that bad? As for projectiles, you (by which I mean probably someone else, if I've got your job description correct) couldn't have the same split, with each of the three animations having multiple rounds? I can't imagine it would be that much more of a strain on modern-ish GPUs. And it's not like the servers have to keep track of this.
CCP Choloepus wrote:And of course hiding (as much as possible!) the fact that said bullets home in on their target when the server rolls in your favour. The flexibility it allows would be a very nice thing to have though.
Hahaha, I never even considered this. I knew all the laser, hybrid, and projectile animations operated on the same mechanics, but for some reason it never occurred to me that hybrids/projectiles need to mask the "sticking" phenomenon. If you avoid having the miss animation aim at exactly where the target was at time-of-fire and make it more random, would the hits look all that out of place? This isn't rhetorical; I really want to know.
Another (future) solution might be to create a separate animation specifically for hybrid/projectile misses. Something that spans more than a straight line, if that makes sense.
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Bender 01000010
EVE-RO
Fidelas Constans
2
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Posted - 2011.11.17 10:12:00 -
[17] - Quote
how about a reflection animation when you get the message "you barely scratched"..
- the laser changes his direction by reflecting on armor of the targeted ship(if possible with a thinner beam) and when it barely hit the shield the animation show like the lazor is being absorbed (the photons from the lazor beam are absorbed by the shield and will light up around the ship)
- projectiles barely hits will create sparks on armor and bounce in other direction; and when they barely scratch shield you will see burning V's between shield and armor on the ship( the shield burns out the projectiles and repel them in other direction)
-hybrids combined animations with both from above written (its a projectile charged with photons)
These are brain fart ideas for the barely scratched hit. |
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