New Screenshots of Oblivion (Thread 70% Hate Free)

Yeah, right now if they did that you'd probably be reading complaints about how the armour plates are clipping through each other. Animation sequences would have to be carefully re-done to prevent this and it might be different for each type of rigid armour.

 

They could use rigid body physics if the artist had the time to set it up and the processing power were available. It doesn't seem that incredibly hard to me, You just have to make sure all the armor allows for a certain degree of freedom so that all the animations can be carried out. You would also have to have a standard interface between different armor pieces or just mark some armors as incompatible.

I'm sure it would be alot of work as you would have to design actually functional armor, but I shouldn't think it's not an option for games being released in the next year or so (not Oblivion, too late to add something like that).

 

I still don't think it's viable. Setting up animations so that they take care of the worst-case scenario would make the best-case scenario look awkward. Having separate sets of animation for each group of armour would work, but only with homogeneous sets of armour. If the player decides to dress half the character in plate and half in something with much more freedom, which animation set would you use? The worst-case animation? That would make half of the character animate rather awkwardly again.

 

Well, that's the problem: rigid-body physics tends to get a bit unstable for this sort of thing, where objects are continually in contact. Most physics engines would end up with the pieces of armor continually vibrating. So, you'd need a robust way of making sure that the contact friction is dealt with properly, and sudden movements don't cause the armor to want to start bouncing.

 

what game has delt best with these issues?

 

Well, I've yet to see one that has, but then again, I've not sampled a huge selection of games.

 

There have been tech demos where characters have been dressed in a combination of physically simulated cloth and rigid body items (admittedly small ones). I don't think any games have yet used any of these methods.

Well this depending on how many armour types you have, haveing different animations for each would be viable. Each monster has it's own animations after all.

If you dress a character's torso and arms in light armour, but it's legs in heavy, then you use the light armour varient for any animation which only needs a high dgree of freedom in the torso area and the heavy varient when needing an animation that deals with the legs.

As you can combine different animations, you could have one type operateing on one part of the body and another elsewhere. It may still look dodgy is some circumstances, but then so does the current bendy armour.

I'll take your word for it, but I wouldn't have thought modern day physics engines couldn't be attuned to work correctly for this use. I'm sure somone will come up with solutions to these problems in the not so distant future.

 

PPU to the rescue! 8)

 

It still won't work. You could easily separate animations for each part of the body, but there would still be problems with interactions between body parts. The distance an arm can be from the torso will be different depending on the armour on the torso. This is an example where the armour on the limb in question is irrelevant.

I've been having fun dealing with joint explosions in Novodex. *sighs* I've also seen the vibrating problems that Chalnoth mentions. There probably are some solutions out there, but the type of animation that would make use of physics in this manner is really simulation. Trying to animate a character via simulation is incredibly complex and the matter goes far beyond physics. Right now it's tech-demo material.

 

Well, the issue here is that it's fundamentally a very challenging problem to solve. The issue is that the way such a system would naiively modelled would be that you would just place the rigid objects together. This has direct problems if the objects are in close contact (like armor would be), and any motions may cause the armor to start bouncing around.

This might be avoided by modelling the two objects in contact as a single object, with a very weak "breaking point" between them. But then you have to figure out how you'll reattach the objects afterward.

Regardless, for armor, if you'd want to use physics, what you'd probably end up doing is not modelling the rigid pieces of armor as separate from the body, but rather rigidly-connected to specific pieces of the body. Then the physics may come in in the case where you don't want flesh clipping with the armor, where the armor would deform the character's flesh if the character moves in a certain way (hey, plate mail should be uncomfortable).

 

Agreed, and agreed with the many ppl citing MW's flaws -- they were many -- but I was SO FLOORED the first time I saw the architecture in the dark elf cities (iirc). It was just... it was as if Gaudi had been reborn, and dcided to make game maps instead of cathedrals. I was SO happy. and the weather effects were great too, if a little choppy on my poor pc. It wasn't that the environent was immersive -- it was that it was slightly immersive, and original.

 

I got sick of the shoddy textures and artwork in Morrowind too. Never went back to it until the 3 big texture packs came out. Now it's much imporved and Oblivion will probably look better than these if they tone down the bloom. Just teasing. But bloom can dull things a bit. But all is not lost, if you guys want actual gameplay of bloom in forests and other exterior areas (not HDR) download the X-Isle demo. And once you make it to the forests without crashing, and it can be done by fly mode, then check out the fairly sharp trees and such all in bloom. Why bring it up? Because we don't have an Oblivion demo so we at least can use what's out there now.
Edit: The X-Isle mod for FarCry that is.

Ok back to the enhanced Morrowind textures, here are the screens I took today, they're not from the web. You have to install Visual Pack 2.1 and 2.2, and XT Textures in that order. Sure there are plenty of other visual add ons but these three big ones are fine for many users and they don't conflict.

Grass between stones and nice stucco cracks added to Balmora -
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=7/21012344891.jpg&s=x1

The new tapestries, flooring, bedding and some clothing are leaps
ahead of the first Morrowind:
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=7/21012473743.jpg&s=x1
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=7/21012475838.jpg&s=x1
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=7/21012481928.jpg&s=x1
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=7/21012484785.jpg&s=x1
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=7/21012495216.jpg&s=x1
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=7/21012433658.jpg&s=x1
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=7/21012445481.jpg&s=x1

And even the dull hills now look pleasing, you won't find these
ground textures, leaves or pebbles in the original -
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=7/21012451971.jpg&s=x1
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=7/21012463511.jpg&s=x1
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=7/21012471329.jpg&s=x1

You need kind of a beefy machine and mine barely cuts it,
Radeon X800 Pro, 3.2 Ghz P4 and 1 gig ram.

 

Yeah I've played it with the Visual Pack XT I think it's called. That and all the packs of atmospheric sound effects, better heads, better bodies, real signposts, and some others I can't think of. They really make it look great. Too bad the cell sizes of the areas are so small. If you do some tweaking it's not at all hard to see the edges of the cell you're in.