ARMA 3 development blog & reveals

[CriminalMinds]

The game in its state at the moment, is a big step in the right direction. But the animation system is by no means perfect. There are far too many things, which are old leftovers from ArmA 2.
One big problem of the animation system is the "weapon-down animation". Once the player is moving in one direction and is in sprinting stance, the character is putting down the weapon. I think its just not realistic. No one is lowering the
weapon for walking 2m to the right or the left. This is especially disturbing in CQB, when the player moves over short distances (e.g. from one wall to another). Another problem is that the sprinting speed is too fast, it needs to be ajusted.
.....the next thing which dissappoints me is the influence of PhysX on the player..... there seems to be none. The player isn't influenced at all.



Look at 4:00 min.

The player falling down, looks just unrealistic. I think the anim is not influenced by PhysX.

Look at 3:30 min.

The sprinting animation is way too fast and looks unrealistic.

P.S.: I also agree that the speed of the player should be controlled with the mousewheel.... it's very intuitive and simple.

[duke_N]

The player falling down, looks just unrealistic. I think the anim is not influenced by PhysX.

Yes that's something I wanted to test or ask but I somehow forgot it.

The player should definitely be influenced by physx especially to make collisions and interactions with objects more realistic.

[batto]

One big problem of the animation system is the "weapon-down animation". Once the player is moving in one direction and is in sprinting stance, the character is putting down the weapon. I think its just not realistic. No one is lowering the
weapon for walking 2m to the right or the left. This is especially disturbing in CQB, when the player moves over short distances (e.g. from one wall to another).

I think this is solved by new tactical stance (eg. weapons always up). We should use it in CQB or when in danger. One does not simply run in building full of tangos, right?

Look at 3:30 min.

The sprinting animation is way too fast and looks unrealistic.

It doesn't seem so unrealistic on such short distance. I guess the character will slow down considerably after some distance (fatigue).

[Rye]

One does not simply run in building full of tangos, right?

[Steakslim]

Sly doesn't count. He could walk into a nest of honey badgers and come out alright.

[Chortles]

Shift/Alt+W are best and used in other games too.

Problem is that Shift+W is already walk, and Alt+W would be horrific if you've got your hand on the mouse (unintentional free-look), plus Left Ctrl is already used for stance adjust. Moreover, Z/X/C is close to FPS standard (except for the bit about C to stand) and actually more intuitive to newcomers (again thanks to what's "FPS standard") than Q/E.

Lean is best on mouse 4/5, as you can combine it that way conformable with movement (different hands).

Not so, since the way mice are now there's usually only three buttons (including the mouse wheel and/or middle mouse button if there's a separate one), so the controls ought to be with "the most broad range of hardware" in mind.

As that's probably only a handful people, I'm sure you'll get some quality feedback on the issue when the community Alpha hits and people start experimenting with it at home, with unlimited time, their own home control setups and fast access to feedback sites like DevHeaven and the forums.

Which is why the alpha should be open and not pre-order only.

From what I've seen, the default forward "W" is as always the "weapon-down jogging", what might be useful is to make the "tactical pace" the new default. Reasoning behind this is that it still provides reasonable pace of movement without being all up and down with the rifle.

The only reason to even have walk in the game is more precision while on the move, while thanks to tactical pace the only reason to keep the old ARMA weapon-down jog is as a less-Fatigue interim between that and sprint... while sprinting is for quickly moving to cover and dealing with sometimes-terrible mission design. Otherwise for me it's tactical pace all the way every day.

Is the 'Aiming Deadzone' still in the controls? or has it been removed completely? (I hope it hasn't)

It's still in, but last I heard it's disabled in the showcases because Jay (who plays them) doesn't use the aiming deadzone in Arma 2 either.

I would say that this is a real flaw in the new animation. Things like vaulting, opening doors, throwing grenades, raising lowering weapons etc. all need to be able to be done on the move. Or at least give us the option to cancel these actions midway by moving to avoid temporary paralysis of the character. Otherwise from what I can see the animations look very nice and smooth, and the aiming control + weaponsway seems to work well. I am interested in seeing how the controls for all the new stuff fit on the keyboard though.

I would call this the "press V to vault" problem, since that animation in ARMA 2 summarizes the problem -- not least because that animation (besides being uninterruptible and causing your character to a halt) also can be triggered out-of-context when on open ground.

There is a great animation mod which allows for many more stances, grenade rolling/lobbing etc. I wonder why BIS never seem to make use of modders work. If I were a modder I could think of nothing better than my work being used as a base for future game content.

That was Smookie, now a BI dev who mo-capped like two-thirds of the animations mo-cap for this. Rocket did the other third before DayZ.

I personally don't mind the constant raise/lower, so long as I can go into tactical pace fast enough to save my ass at "panic mode" shooting distance; I didn't get that sense in ARMA 2 but I do in the ARMA 3 videos -- and yes, batto, one of the videos has the Field Manual (seemingly the hint system just appears to offer a relevant entry from the FM) mention that sprinting increases fatigue by a lot.

[Madeon]

I'm in the middle of watching a re-run of the Olympic closing ceremony

Not to mention the variety of competing interests at hand.

Mission impossible keeping everyone here happy!

I, for one, am looking forward to the fight!

[Smurf]

The problem that I see is that the movement system feels like something "binary".

Either you move "one block" or you don't move. It should have some acceleration\smoothness\inercia in the inicial\final movement, like Crysis and Red Orchestra 2. Like how many times you wanted to lean in a corner but had to go back and forth to find that sweet spot between exposing your body and having a clean line of fire? Or when you want to look through a hallway or hole and end overdoing the movement (especialy indoors in windows and stuff)?

Dunno how to explain this right....

That is one thing, other is the control scheme wich is tightly tied to it (I could also add that the comand interface, player actions and weapons selection also have a big weight here). No easy fix or way to develop this without deep thinking.

[-Coulum-]

The problem that I see is that the movement system feels like something "binary".

Either you move "one block" or you don't move. It should have some acceleration\smoothness\inercia in the inicial\final movement, like Crysis and Red Orchestra 2. Like how many times you wanted to lean in a corner but had to go back and forth to find that sweet spot between exposing your body and having a clean line of fire? Or when you want to look through a hallway or hole and end overdoing the movement (especialy indoors in windows and stuff)?

Dunno how to explain this right....

That is one thing, other is the control scheme wich is tightly tied to it (I could also add that the comand interface, player actions and weapons selection also have a big weight here). No easy fix or way to develop this without deep thinking.

Is that based on a2 or a3? Because in some of the GC vids, when looking through third person the initial movement of the character doesn't actually triiger any animation. The character just seems to slide for the tiniest of distances before starting to run walk etc. I was hopng this sliding was BI's way of making it easier to make the fine adjustments in position. Maybe I am just imagining things though.

Ahh there it is!

See in this vid the character seems to "slide" to start his motion instead of jumping straight into an animation. It happens several more times, most noticeable at 14:23, in this vid, and my assumption was it was to help with those small precise movements...

[.kju [PvPscene]]

Good default controls is very important as most players dont change them. This is just how it is. No point to argue about it.
In my view different default schema to select from (OFP like, Arma like, FPS standard) would be a fair approach.
Yes it is more work, but this is so important this limited additional effort is justified.


My say is to go for the best/most convenient default controls and make no compromises.
In terms of priority its:
1) movement
2) stance adjustment
a) toggle crouch/lie down
b) adjust (new ones by smookie)
3) lean
4) weapon use (could be also 3)
This should be the driving factor for a better default system.


Mouse wheel for movement speed adjustment is a bad idea.
1) mouse wheel is already cluttered enough
2) imprecise
3) does not allow fluid transition during movement


My take:
W = Run
Ctrl+W = Temporary Walk
Shift+W = Temporary Tactical Walk
CapsLock+W = Temporary Sprint (if limited in use and not the default movement speed in practise)
Alt+Mouse needs to remain for head movement of course.

Most dedicated players have a mouse with 5+ buttons. And you can still leave lean on less important keys available too.
Again mouse buttons allow use of lean during movement (toggle lean is bad as its not fluid to switch to).


Gradual lean and posture seems appealing, yet it seems complicated to implement, and at least some people also say
the existing solutions in other games didnt work well. Probably depends on slow vs faced paced play style as one element.


The animations are certainly a big step ahead. More fluid, smooth transitions, quicker reaction/change is welcome.
However there are still "stuck in anim" elements left (grenade throw, weapon change, vault over objects(I assume),
ladder interaction, body/ammo box interaction, looking at the map, treating wounds (I assume), raising/lowering weapons,
etc) that need attention.

One big problem of the animation system is the "weapon-down animation". Once the player is moving in one direction and is in sprinting stance, the character is putting down the weapon. I think its just not realistic. No one is lowering the
weapon for walking 2m to the right or the left. This is especially disturbing in CQB, when the player moves over short distances (e.g. from one wall to another).

I am pretty sure you will no longer notice this once playing with it after a while.
So the visual part is not the important part - the gameplay part is the one.
Here it requires more experience with the new system of walk-tactical walk-run-sprint to see
how well the fit into each other in the current configuration (ref alpha).

Another problem is that the sprinting speed is too fast, it needs to be ajusted.

If this is unchanged, than true. There is a good CIT ticket why and how (almost?) all movement speeds need to be reduced.