Print

[Amarak]

I see that a lot of HE characters have animations such as Turn_Left_45, Turn_Left_90, Turn_Left_180. Are these looping animations for when a character is turning, like they lean left or right? And, do we make the SRB turn in 3DS Max when creating the animation, or do we keep the SRB pointing in the same direction and let the Character Controller do the actual turning?

I am just trying to figure out the process originally used since I don't really see this explained anywhere.

Also, when making a walk or run animation, can we just translate the SRB forward without translating the actual character rig? I have tried it both ways, and it seems to work both ways, and it is much easier to make a CAT rig run in place than to try to animate the movement.

[StadiThompson]

You do not loop the turn animations, the engine will loop them and yes the SRB must rotate. No it does not lean when running, it just makes the character turn when rotating the mouse in an idle pose (as seen in Hero's Journey). Almost all our player base hated it, because of the lag having to wait for the turn animation before moving. I'd strongly suggest removing the turning animations completely as the feedback from it was very negative.

You must animate the SRB and character moving forward. Also keep in mind you do not animation the SRB, it follows the root. I suggest reading through this:

http://wiki.heroengine.com/wiki/Animating_Characters_Tutorial

[FI-ScottZ]

Almost all our player base hated it, because of the lag having to wait for the turn animation before moving.

Yeah, I can see that delay with the Hero's Journey characters.  Though I wonder if waiting for the turn animation to finish is just how it is programmed and if there is a way to have it preempt the turn animation and go straight into the run.  For example, when it doing the normal idle animation and you start running, it doesn't wait for idle to finish but goes immediately into the run.

Regardless, if you do not do turn animations, it means that when the camera turns, the character will continue to face their current direction and will not turn to face the camera's direction until they start moving.  That is how some 3rd person games operate anyways and might be how you want your game.  But to have the character face where the camera points without moving you'd need to have turn animations or snap the character to that direction manually, which can look kind of weird.  Just depends on which approach you want.

[Amarak]

Thanks Stadi, I have actually had my character animations as far as movement go working for some time. I was mostly wanting other viewpoints and to know how the original HJ characters did it. That being said, it coincides with my findings that not making turning animations is the way to go, although turning in place does need its own animation.

Scott, thanks for your input as well. I think I will be doing camera controls like the ones in Everquest 2, where you click and drag with the left mouse to look around, and right click and drag to turn. You can also use the arrow keys or WASD keys for moving forward and turning, instead of using the keys for side strafing. If I remember correctly, in EQ2 you hold the CTL-Arrow key to side-strafe.

I like to give players the choice of first or third person, although I haven't decided for sure if I want to use tabbed-targeting or aimed targeting, and that will affect further design decisions.