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OJ typing things!

posted Friday, 20 September 2019 by OhJay
Welcome to the new edition of 'News with OJ'!

Wait a second...I've just had word...we have a new title!

Welcome to 'OJ typing things!'

Really? That's what we're going with?

Those responsible for sacking those other people have just been sacked.

We will try again next week. Hard to find good help in the 'Creative Titles' department. No wonder they are down there in the basement.

Yes I know I know, I did promise a post a week but there has been some complications... I have just lost both my arms fighting tigers in Bengal and am now writing this from my hospital bed using my toes and a primitive version of Stephen Hawkings voice program. See the dedication I have for Urban Terror. Without a doubt definitely the hardest worker in FS...

Anyway, over the last few weeks lots of work has been done on UrT5 but today I'm going to talk about the design and then implementation process. Because after all that's why you are here, other than to read about my adventures in Bengal, right? RIGHT? Right.

So where was I...ah yes - the design and then the implementation process relating to animation. One of the things we have been talking about is the ledge grabbing and how we could make it better suited to us. Like, sure we know it's as easy as grabbing a ledge and lifting yourself up yeah. But what actually happens? Are we using both hands? Which leg goes up first? Do we have a gun in our hand still? If we put it away at what point do we bring it out again? Can we be firing from the ladder? They go into their technical garble talking about certain things triggering others whilst some sort of other checks are in play... that's when I start drifting off into my own world.

Lots of questions for such a small thing and to be honest I just don't get most of it and I'm not a stupid guy. So I won't go into much detail as I'll probably just make myself look silly.

I don't know if you know who HappyDay is but he is one of our coders and our lead developer. Used to be an artist and level designer but decided to go the coding route... you know, one of those guys that is pretty much great at everything he does. And Walker, well you know him - I've shown you some of his artwork before. An accomplished artist in his own right, go check him out on instagram - walkermasuda.art.

Anyway, I don't even know how it got started but all of a sudden I've seen Walker post this picture (below) of this girl ledge grabbing. And so it began...

Nek minnut...HappyDay writes up the first draft of what will be the code for the ledge grabbing. Like so:

1. Falling
2. Catching yourself with one arm
3. Start pulling yourself up; simultaneously bringing the other arm up
4. Getting one toe in the gap
- at this point we could do a check if there is a wall in front
- if there is, the knee rotates outwards
- if not, the knee can stay in a more natural, forward facing direction
5. Pushing yourself up with that leg
6. Standing position, right at the edge

This list is basically asking for 3 different animations. Falling, catching a ledge, and pulling yourself up. As I couldn't word it better I am going to directly quote one of our level designers and all round cool guy - Krasus.

"From this list, the animators then animate the animations for each specific pose. Usually you have a looping animation for situations where the player can stay in that state, like crouching, and then a transition animation for coming out of that state, like standing up. All the animations are done individually, so you have a falling, ledge hanging and pull up animation all by themselves.

Once they are animated, they are taken into the game engine where the individual animations can be blended together based on the coded conditions that trigger them.

To give you an example, when the player falls the falling animation will play, then when the player catches a ledge, the falling animation will blend into a ledge catching animation. If the player stays there, a ledge hanging animation would play. If they climb up, it would blend into a climbing animation, and if they fell down, it would blend into a falling animation."

Thanks K! He knows things that guy.

So this is going to be a two part uh...blog? Episode? Either way, when the animations are done and we have the final product or close to, I will do another post then going into the animation process a bit more and then comparing the design to the implementation in the final product.

If you guys want me to address a certain topic or have any other idea or feedback please email me (ohjay@urbanterror.info) or comment where comments can be found. While you're there join us on the official Discord to keep up on all the latest things.

Have I written enough to test your attention spans? I could continue but I will leave it here. If you keep your eyes peeled you might see some lovely pictures floating around of certain maps and their progress.

Until next time, I bid you adieu.

- OJ
comments: Feel free to discuss this on our forums

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