[FS Frankie V]

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Sigh.. I still cant see how lowered guns enhance the game in any way besides looking rly wrong when looking in the mirror.. If anyone has more insight on this matter plz bring light to it.

I think your confusing motion (dynamics of) with posing.

From the technical side the engine has the ability to loop a sequence by back indexing to a place with in the loop. Lets say we have a sequence that is 10 frames long, like firing the weapon. The act of firing of the weapon lets say only needs 5 frames so the first 5 frames can be used to bring the weapon up into the position and only the last 5 frames of the sequence of the +attack will loop.

Once the player is no longer firing the weapon it cycles into the idle position using the same technique. This little trick prevents the animation from just popping from one position to another and each of the torso poses depends on the current state of the action. Walking, crouching, running, all have their own individual animations and in the case of the image on the front page what you see is the base idle pose when a player is just standing around and doing nothing.

Since no other Q3 based game has ever taken this approach before I don’t know how this will enhance the game but the SR8 is a good example in that the weapon was limited to the up position. How can one tell if they are just standing there or actually scoping for targets? With the new animation when someone uses the scope their key pose will blend (sort of) from the idle stance to the scope position so it should help someone to make a split second decision that they never had before.

[Qant]

I admit "INSTA-raise a gun in 0 frames" was phrased quite unfortunate. I tried to explain the matter by giving an extreme - although im honestly aware of the difference u pointed out.

As of what uve said.. doesnt that make it even worse? Making discrepancy between gamelogic and animations even bigger as if there was no animation? Or are you planning on delaying shots too? Delay for the time needed to show a questionable weapon raising animation?

Another question regarding "help someone to make a split second decision that they never had before": So we will be able to tell by looks if someones scoping and/or shooting at us or not. Assuming even now, without fancy animations, the average players getting it when someones shooting at u, that means we trade being able to notice someone zooming at us for being able to tell if someones actually AIMING at us. Think about it, whats the more expressive information?

[FS Frankie V]

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“As of what uve said.. doesnt that make it even worse? Making discrepancy between gamelogic and animations even bigger as if there was no animation? Or are you planning on delaying shots too? Delay for the time needed to show a questionable weapon raising animation?”

Well first off there is no way I can over ride the timing of the code which makes the game logic the same for everyone and has been part of the game up to this point anyways. The 1st person reload for example can be cycled longer than what the actual timing is as set by the code so one can always start firing again before the 1st person view has completed reloading.

The best way I can describe the motion from idle to +attack is more of a perception of a delay rather than an actual delay taking place and I’m sure that if one was to actually do a frame to frame capture there is probably a point where the attack takes place before the cycle is completed. Of note though the delay between motion and actually firing the weapon only occurs between those few frames, into the attack loop, and the animation does not delay the act of firing in anyway.

Overall though I believe that the new animation will be used in a manner that some players use sounds as a means to make decisions rather than trying to create more realism in a game that does not really need it to be real anyways.
 

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”      Another question regarding "help someone to make a split second decision that they never had before": So we will be able to tell by looks if someones scoping and/or shooting at us or not. Assuming even now, without fancy animations, the average players getting it when someones shooting at u, that means we trade being able to notice someone zooming at us for being able to tell if someones actually AIMING at us. Think about it, whats the more expressive information?”

Overall I think that the player will learn the difference and one of the things that I did when I first got here was to ask the players what they wanted to see in the form of new animations that they felt would be of benefit. One of the suggestions on the top of the list was the ability to realize a difference between zooming and aiming and by locking the pose when the player is using the scope one can assume that either or both are occurring. So yes I’m assuming that a player will be able to tell if they are being aimed at.

Something else to consider is I’m not just making off hand decisions and there is a lot of testing going on and I’m producing a new player pack every couple of weeks for QA to test out and they have been very good at pointing out possible problems but in general the responses have been very positive in regards to some of the changes made.

[beast]

Make sure gameplay won't be sacrificed.

[[T]BludShoT]

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3east link=topic=17131.msg232610#msg232610 date=1248199145]
Make sure gameplay won't be sacrificed.

Not to mention, the last thing the competitive community needs is bigger heads.    (get it?) 

[GlaD-don]

Curious, what's the reason for the headsize increase? The front page doesn't give a reason, and I personally can't tell the difference. I get headshotted randomly enough, if anything, the head hitbox should be smaller.

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Something else to consider is I’m not just making off hand decisions and there is a lot of testing going on and I’m producing a new player pack every couple of weeks for QA to test out and they have been very good at pointing out possible problems but in general the responses have been very positive in regards to some of the changes made.

I really wish the code would be available to everyone to test. I've said it again and again, the competitive community is underrepresented. I know nobody in [51] is on it, and I believe BoS also lacks any representation. The top 2 teams in North America, by a healthy margin, are not allowed to test the new release. It's not for lack of trying, either. I've applied several times over the years and I don't believe I even received a response. I only think that I could benefit the QA in some way, even if it's just another pair of hands to test new changes out with. I'm sure [51] and BoS would be more than willing to have a scrimmage with the new 4.2 changes to test out how the top players utilize new weapons or abuse new features. 

[Impy]

nem linked me for my morning lol.  ty nem.

[[T]BludShoT]

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Curious, what's the reason for the headsize increase? The front page doesn't give a reason, and I personally can't tell the difference. I get headshotted randomly enough, if anything, the head hitbox should be smaller.

The reason for the headsize increase is that the previous head size is awkwardly small and out of proportion and people had pointed that out (not me, although I definitely notice it especially in screenshots). Also they said that the hitbox is not being made bigger, just the visual look which is going to be a tiny bit bigger. Supposedly the increase is so small that you won't be thinking you are shooting their head and having the bullets go right through without hitting the hitbox which is smaller than the new head, which when you think about a tiny increase in head size, that makes sense.

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I really wish the code would be available to everyone to test. I've said it again and again, the competitive community is underrepresented. I know nobody in [51] is on it, and I believe BoS also lacks any representation. The top 2 teams in North America, by a healthy margin, are not allowed to test the new release. It's not for lack of trying, either. I've applied several times over the years and I don't believe I even received a response. I only think that I could benefit the QA in some way, even if it's just another pair of hands to test new changes out with. I'm sure [51] and BoS would be more than willing to have a scrimmage with the new 4.2 changes to test out how the top players utilize new weapons or abuse new features. 

lol, I think you know why they won't let you in.

Yeah it would be cool if QA has more competitive types in it (more than whatever they have now because more is good) but I don't even know if there are any people like that who are actually willing to spend the time testing it. And they need to be trustworthy people who don't have a history of leaking things or hacking things, and they need to be people with good cooperative personalities because QA and the devs (or any group of humans working on any project) want to work with cool people, not belligerent SOB's. So right away that counts out half of the top players in urban terror. For purposes of not being offended by what I just said, top players reading this can assume they are in the other half  (and yeah *half* might be an exaggeration.. maybe).

But the good news is, when 4.2 comes out, THEN everyone can test it thoroughly and if it has some small element that is less than ideal for competition, it can be fixed in 4.3.

[indecision (old)]

None of this was necessary. What a day...
Delete?

[Princebuster]

lolz at the amazing lack of self awareness.