27 réponses à ce sujet

[phishface]

In an early cutscene in the new dlc The Descent, a character crosses his arms. The animation causes his arms to clip through each other and his chest. It's very obvious, as the camera lingers on him as the polygons shift around crazily. And it's actually quite funny, in a sad kind of way.

 

It's safe to assume that this must've been noticed when they were animating this scene and/or when they were testing it. But they didn't fix it. Is that because they don't see it as important, or because they're not able to?

[Kantr]

Seeing as it's a very visible bug, the assumption must be that they couldn't fix it.

[Darkly Tranquil]

I'm no animator, but my guess would be "because it's difficult(/time consuming) to make it not clip". If it were feasible to make it not happen, I'm sure the artists would do it.

[Sunnie]

Without the use of a 3rd party physics engine (cut from the game), it is near impossible to make surfaces interact with each other. All the animators can do is set up animation scripts and get a close approximation of where things like limbs need to be.

Would have been a much more immersive game had they been able to keep the destructible environment and physics engine in the game.

[thats1evildude]

But you can destroy objects in DAI.

[bondari reloads.]

I winced during that scene in the dungeon of Redcliffe castle dungeon when Dorian waves his staff around, repeatedly stabbing himself in the neck and skull.

Would have been a much more immersive game had they been able to keep the destructible environment and physics engine in the game.

But aren't there smashable things like carts and boxes strategically placed all over the landscape? Or do these work differently than a "true" destructible environment would? Am asking out of curiousity.

Edit: Ninja'd by the evil dude.

[pdusen]

But you can destroy objects in DAI.

 

I was gonna say, pretty sure I break things in the environment all the time.

[thats1evildude]

I was gonna say, pretty sure I break things in the environment all the time.

In fact, whenever I end up slaughtering a camp of Red Templars or Venatori, I try to break as much of their stuff as I can.

[Sunnie]

It's not a physics based destructible environment. The few things you can break are from a watered down version of Havok (basically object detection and animated destruction). If you want surface interaction, you need something like PhysX or full blown Havok. In that E3 interview, it was commented that they had to cut the destructible environment due to hardware limitations and maintaining a parity between platforms.

[bondari reloads.]

Interesting. Thank you.

(Insert mandatory remark about how lastgen consoles ruined DAI)

Although, now that they dropped lastgen support, is there any chance that the last DLC to be released will have such an interactive environment? I don't dare hope for the upgrade to be that obvious, if at all.

[Sunnie]

Not a chance, that needs to be hooked into the engine proper, that's not going to happen post production, or in any dlc.

[phishface]

Thanks for the answers. If I've understood correctly: (1) the reason for the clipping is that they chose not to use a 3rd party physics engine, and (2) the reason they made that choice was so they could release the game on as many platforms as possible?

 

So is it that they made their own bespoke physics engine, but it isn't as good as the 3rd party ones?

[Sunnie]

No, they are using Havok, but they only utilized a very minor part of it to detect object collisions. HAd they fully implemented Havok, they would have been able to have a fully destructible world. Unlike PhysX proper, Havok is CPU based, requiring CPU and ram resources, resources that are in short supply on last gen platforms.

[CorniliuS]

 My old post

The answer is simple if you familiar with 3d rigging. Basically it works like that, all characters in the games have bones systems it means every part of the model (character) attached to specific bone, bare in mind it can be more than one bone attached to one part of the model. Then, animator creates animation and assigning this animation to the bones and here you go, this is how all characters move in 3d games. Now the problem is then you put on new armor you basically loading a new 3d model, most of the time, with new model you need slightly different bone system and some time new animation sequence. You can imagine it's a lot of work, now bioware is all against hard work, this is why we have so little different armor in the game, and if you look closely in many cut scenes in Haven your character armor looks weird, glitchi, bizarre and unnatural. That’s because whey didn't bother to create different animation for all models, they created one for all models and characters. So they looked at their work and said “well... this looks like crap” “yep...” “so what are we gonna do? create new animations?” “Don't be stupid, remove all models from Skyhold map, create most basic model which will fit all races and we done here”.

It has nothing to do with physics.

[Sunnie]

 My old post

It has nothing to do with physics.

Might want to read from the beginning.

 

Without the use of a 3rd party physics engine (cut from the game), it is near impossible to make surfaces interact with each other. All the animators can do is set up animation scripts and get a close approximation of where things like limbs need to be.

 

I didn't think I needed to go into detail on bones/rigging/animating. General answers are quicker and get the point across without a lot of exposition.

[BansheeOwnage]

 My old post

It has nothing to do with physics.

Liked your post because I'm getting pretty tired of Bioware's sub-par animation. It's about as good as it was in ME1. I mean, it was fine then. Really. But it's been 8 years, a new console generation, a few games, and a new engine later. Please improve your animations for DA4. Try to stay ahead of the competition Bioware, you're slipping!

[CorniliuS]

 

I didn't think I needed to go into detail on bones/rigging/animating. General answers are quicker and get the point across without a lot of exposition.

1. Bones/rigging/animating is the general answer. To avoid clipping every model should be precisely the same proportion and bone structure it's the only way if animator wants to use the same animation sequence over and over again and avoid clipping. It is not my fantasies it's a fact, ask any 3d animator if you don't believe me.

2. Game has physics, you can see it every time then enemy body flying around and fall to the ground this is physics, however it's not nvidia physics, praise the maker. Another example about using the same animation, there is a cutscene then your character talks to Cassandra about chantry and then they approaching to the window and your character leans against the wall. If it is big male character it looks ok, but if your character let's say female elf, it looks like she leans against the empty space, you can see huge gap between her spine and wall. You know why? Because they used the same animation sequence and it was created for much bigger 3d model. And you know the funniest thing? It's very easy to correct they just do not care.

[PsychoBlonde]

1. Bones/rigging/animating is the general answer. To avoid clipping every model should be precisely the same proportion and bone structure it's the only way if animator wants to use the same animation sequence over and over again and avoid clipping. It is not my fantasies it's a fact, ask any 3d animator if you don't believe me.

2. Game has physics, you can see it every time then enemy body flying around and fall to the ground this is physics, however it's not nvidia physics, praise the maker. Another example about using the same animation, there is a cutscene then your character talks to Cassandra about chantry and then they approaching to the window and your character leans against the wall. If it is big male character it looks ok, but if your character let's say female elf, it looks like she leans against the empty space, you can see huge gap between her spine and wall. You know why? Because they used the same animation sequence and it was created for much bigger 3d model. And you know the funniest thing? It's very easy to correct they just do not care.

 

Calling this an "easy" thing to correct is like announcing that it's "easy" to run a marathon because running 10 feet is the easiest thing in the world.  Each individual instance of it may be an easy fix.  How many of them are there in the entire game, again?

 

What would have been "easy" would be for them to go with their original proposal of having only a human protagonist.  They decided to do a much harder thing because people asked for it.  And now you're saying that they "don't care"?  Please.

[phishface]

Calling this an "easy" thing to correct is like announcing that it's "easy" to run a marathon because running 10 feet is the easiest thing in the world.  Each individual instance of it may be an easy fix.  How many of them are there in the entire game, again?

 

What would have been "easy" would be for them to go with their original proposal of having only a human protagonist.  They decided to do a much harder thing because people asked for it.  And now you're saying that they "don't care"?  Please.

 

The example I provided in the first post was a dwarf NPC in cutscene dialogue.

 

The race of the PC shouldn't affect that at all, should it? Whether the protagonist is human or not, they were always going to need to animate their other races like dwarves.

 

This is why I asked the question. The example I gave is a fixed scene, with a fixed character in fixed apparel. The clipping through is very obvious. So either they couldn't fix it, or they could but chose not to. The latter would be a peculiar choice, because it's quite an important part of a scene-setting section of the dlc. 

[Rawgrim]

Clipping issues is NOT an easy thing to fix. The animators did a tremendous job with it by keeping it to a minimum in this game.

[CorniliuS]

Calling this an "easy" thing to correct is like announcing that it's "easy" to run a marathon because running 10 feet is the easiest thing in the world.  Each individual instance of it may be an easy fix.  How many of them are there in the entire game, again?

How many? A lot, so what? We applying different rules for gamedevs now? Because I can't go to my boss and say “too much work here so I finished only 25% let it go ok?”

 

What would have been "easy" would be for them to go with their original proposal of having only a human protagonist.  They decided to do a much harder thing because people asked for it.  And now you're saying that they "don't care"?  Please.

No they were frightened about they sales and so they slap very quickly new races packed and shipped, here you go kids now give us your money. This is how we got elves with atrophied arms.

 

Clipping issues is NOT an easy thing to fix. The animators did a tremendous job with it by keeping it to a minimum in this game.

Yeah you just keep telling yourself that and don't look to another games were characters walking and talking like real people and not like somebody pulling the puppet's strings. Tremendous job...)))

[pdusen]

Yeah you just keep telling yourself that and don't look to another games were characters walking and talking like real people and not like somebody pulling the puppet's strings. Tremendous job... )))

 

Do you live in some weird alternate universe where clipping isn't a pervasive issue throughout the games industry? 

 

Because it is, here on Earth.

[CorniliuS]

Do you live in some weird alternate universe where clipping isn't a pervasive issue throughout the games industry? 

 

Because it is, here on Earth.

No I live in some weird universe where fanboys are happy to pay money for low quality product and ready to defend it, making up funny excuses for their beloved mega corporation.

This is not some engine limitation, this is just lazy and bad, and frankly straight up insulting I would expect something similar from indie developer. Now go ahead tell my the story about how bad frostbite engine is and how they struggled to bring us the best product, go ahead I can use some laughter before bed.

[pdusen]

No I live in some weird universe where fanboys are happy to pay money for low quality product and ready to defend it, making up funny excuses for their beloved mega corporation.

 

This is not some engine limitation, this is just lazy and bad, and frankly straight up insulting I would expect something similar from indie developer. Now go ahead tell my the story about how bad frostbite engine is and how they struggled to bring us the best product, go ahead I can use some laughter before bed.

 

Uh... that was an interesting tirade about things that I didn't say.

 

No, I'm gonna stick with clipping is pretty common,  because it is, but thanks for playing.

[c0bra951]

Sunnie makes good points.  To those I'll add that they seem to be using a one-size-fits-all arm-folding animation--a motion capture, most likely.  Different models will have different proportions in their articulated features, and that likely explains why clipping is much worse with some characters than with others.

 

Edit:  I missed Cornilius's posts.  Yep.  Thanks for detailing it out.