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these combos look awesome!

Like the previous ones, they seem a bit jerky. The downward fall, especially. Might I also note the disadvantage of jumping twenty feet up if you are anywhere indoors? Or outdoors, for that matter? 80% of most enemies stay on ground level....unless your zombies, or Jedi, or whatever, usually fly.

But then, I haven't done much better with my own experiments, so I can't complain.

oh dang those are some awesome saber combos rancor!!

I don't quite see where you guys get the idea that theres choppyness now.. perhaps I don't know what to look for when I see it, or maybe it's the xfire video quality.

Either way, I'm open to suggestions on how to improve the combat system. Currently it works like this:

Idle is where you spawn as, with sabre off.

You have access to the weak attack, medium attack, jump attack, and a state called Focus.

When accessing focus by pressing crouch button, you have perfect block for 5 seconds, and can't move. You have access to the attack button which places you into Weak attack stance, where you can hit attack button to attack and C again to head back into focus.

While in focus you can also hit block to access Medium stance, or hit force button to access Strong stance. Each stance can hit C to get back to focus, so you can change attacks in combat relatively painlessly.

The "choppy" anims you see are the transitions between the attacks and their given stances, and this might not always look as seemless as pandemic did in their combos, but thats because this was done by Seconds and not frames.

I'd love nothing more then to figure out how to do seemless transitions, but until then... I will continue to provide excellent gameplay and cool attacks.

By having 3 different paths available to each of the 4 characters I've created, is a very nice thing to have in combat, even if they appear to be awkward right now.

http://www.xfire.com/video/b69b2/

New video of better quality, with the current sides. I await some replies of opinion before changing anything more.

MetalcoreRancor wrote:The "choppy" anims you see are the transitions between the attacks and their given stances, and this might not always look as seemless as pandemic did in their combos, but thats because this was done by Seconds and not frames.

It has nothing to do with that; you can make it as accurate as you want by getting the time right. Your real problem is the fact that you're using animations that don't fit (like walking melee animations in midair).

The problem you have right now is that none of this looks "real." It may be functionally working, but if you play something and it just feels like a glitch, then you break the immersion experience. There's a big difference between a mediocre texture that doesn't look as good when you zoom in and an animationset that reminds you constantly that your character is just an avatar for a weapon. Gameplay is important, but that doesn't mean appearance is not.

Even if you just want to use stock animations, you can do what you want to do and still make it look good. It'll take more work and more experimentation (and perhaps a lot of InputLock - a lot of animations shouldn't be moving on the ground when they're played), but it would be worth it to make everything look more polished.

I have actually a lot of InputLock usage. And I totally agree with you Mav, but again, I don't have XSI and a lot of people I know say animating is the hardest thing so I have shyed away from such things, in favour of trying to get better at .combo work.

So once again.. should I change the gameplay mechanic I've made in favour of polish, or keep playing with the animation usage to find what suites the jedi better?

MetalcoreRancor wrote:So once again.. should I change the gameplay mechanic I've made in favour of polish, or keep playing with the animation usage to find what suites the jedi better?

If you want my honest opinion, if I were you, I would simplify your combos. I think that while the way they are is novel, they are a little convoluted. You will make it more fun (and intuitive) for the user, easier for yourself, and better-looking if you simplify it a bit. You'll also open it up for more choice by the user (adding a whole bunch of different animations to each Jedi is going to eat up a lot of memory and you won't be able to have as many at once).

Of course that's my opinion and this is your project, so do what you want the most.

Maveritchell wrote:

MetalcoreRancor wrote:So once again.. should I change the gameplay mechanic I've made in favour of polish, or keep playing with the animation usage to find what suites the jedi better?

If you want my honest opinion, if I were you, I would simplify your combos. I think that while the way they are is novel, they are a little convoluted. You will make it more fun (and intuitive) for the user, easier for yourself, and better-looking if you simplify it a bit. You'll also open it up for more choice by the user (adding a whole bunch of different animations to each Jedi is going to eat up a lot of memory and you won't be able to have as many at once).

Of course that's my opinion and this is your project, so do what you want the most.

I'd like to try and cut down on memory usage this time around, so simple is good. Personally I'd rather have a beautifully fluid combo than a brand new gameplay mechanic - something elegant that doesn't need to be overly complicated. We don't need to have heavy and light attacks to make this good. Try and setup flowing combos over ones that introduce new mechanics.

I'm looking to get away from knockdown effects and character freezing - I want both characters to be able to continuously execute the best chain of attacks they can without interruption in an elegant duel, without being interrupted by each others actions. The person who executes the best chain of combos will be the one to prevail, not the one who clicked first.

Alright itfactor, thank you for giving me direction on the matter. I will comply and have an update rather shortly.. that being said, I still have more ideas that will bring a uniqueness to each jedi. :]

(Memory usage my butt, my animations aren't going to swallow up much memory at all, lol.)

MetalcoreRancor wrote:Alright itfactor, thank you for giving me direction on the matter. I will comply and have an update rather shortly.. that being said, I still have more ideas that will bring a uniqueness to each jedi. :]

(Memory usage my butt, my animations aren't going to swallow up much memory at all, lol.)

Pwnfest ate up a ton of memory, you could never load more than one mode in a map rotation without it CTD. I'd like to avoid that this time around XD

New zombie model thanks to Darth DUCK.
http://www.xfire.com/video/b7e31/

And a new jedi Im working on that attacks based on the direction you move.

http://www.xfire.com/video/b72fb/

MetalcoreRancor wrote:New zombie model thanks to Darth DUCK.
http://www.xfire.com/video/b7e31/

And a new jedi Im working on that attacks based on the direction you move.

http://www.xfire.com/video/b72fb/

woah rancor now that's progress! red glow/dusk, crawling zombie skeleton maniacs, i love it

For those who prefer their screenshots..

Must say the first-person models are somewhat off. It's not just that the weapon looks odd; the entire hand is missing. But I'm sure you've noticed this already.

That skeleton vid did have a few things that irked me, but the prone anims were so cool....I've gotta try it right this instant. Hang on a bit.

Hmm....the "play dead" weapon, did you use a LUA timer of any sort for it?

did he release the skeleton? i am planning on a using it in a zombie map aswell.and your new jedi is awsome, its like JKA!

Love the skeletons, need to scale down those weapons though

Fiodis wrote:Must say the first-person models are somewhat off. It's not just that the weapon looks odd; the entire hand is missing. But I'm sure you've noticed this already.

That skeleton vid did have a few things that irked me, but the prone anims were so cool....I've gotta try it right this instant. Hang on a bit.

Hmm....the "play dead" weapon, did you use a LUA timer of any sort for it?

It's simple .combo editing with the line Animation("insert_renamed_dead_animation") to do the trick.

I'm well aware of all the weird firstperson stuff and the weapon scales.

Those Skeletons look amazingly awsome.

That better?

For first-person? Slightly. The hand is still missing, and the scope on the third one down is slightly off - parts are transparent. Also all of the models seem too thin, but that could just be me.

For the .combo edit, wouldn't that mean it would have to have a melee weapon? And how do you set the time it stays down?