First Person Weapon Model?

#61 That seems like a reasonable way.....perhaps i or somebody will try that and do a resource.

#62 Josh: That would be very well appreciated by myself :), and im sure everyone looking for a solution.

Chris

#63 We have a nice first(and third) person weapon system going that renders the players hands depending on the needs of the weapon image itself. So the player(hands) only gets rendered if it needs to be, like for reloading or melee, but not for scopes/iron sights(need abolute control over image position). The system uses pretty much stock code, besides a few enhancements for our reloading system and code to toggle player rendering/"walk" mode(while scoped).

Screenshots...
Holding pistol:

Holding a BFG:

And reloading a machine gun(this weapon has my favorite reload animations):

#64 Are you going to share your insights or are you just showing off :)

#65 As I said, it's pretty much stock code... it's all in the animations. :)

I know some people might think it to be easier to make a seperate first person model and animate the hands for that, however they're all forgetting that they still have to animate the player so things look right in 3rd person. The way we do it, they just use the same animations.

#66 Except some people (myself included) don't care about the 3rd person reload animations.

The LOD idea is an interesting one, and I hope someone decides to post a resource about it.

Quote:Fortunately, the render function takes a parameter for the detail level and you can make some code changes to force it to the highest detail level when in 1st person mode and only when rendering your own player plus mounts.

That's where I'd need aid.

#67 It seems only a change in the eye offset of the model, isn't it ?
Anyway, very good work! (as usual for the Illumina team) :)

#68 @Josh[in the most polite manner]:It would be great to see the ouline of the process in the TDN....;). I've developed a new blend for the look* sequence of my base primary pistol-weapon and got fairly good results, little strange but it was done very quickly[for R/Ding the steps] during my Ms3d Blends article and I was amazed at how close I got to getting the whole hand & the forearm into the players' FOV. I did get some strange kind of arcing offset as I did my head up/down sequences...?!? The point being; by carefully setting up my modeling application, I got the hands infront of the Eye Node without animating that at all. I'm curious, Josh, did your team animate the Eye Node during your look* and head* and your custom reloading sequences? I'm also trying to get my player to do his reloading sequence to fire correctly in the State Machine, but haven't been very successful so far. Again, it would be super great and a big help to many[I'm certain...] to see this type of article/flow laid out for this effect. BTW, great job on the screenshots, the HUD with arm/hand/weapon looks like any other AAA's...!
Here's my screenshot:

Rex

#69 @Josh - Do you have two animations (one for player model, and one for weapon) playing at the same time? Or are you mounting more then one object (clip, gun, ect) and setting them to different mount points on the player model and just letting the mount points effect the possition on the object. I'm just wondering because this will cause some problems in our game as well.

#70 @C2:My mistake, I was just under the impression that people actualy want to make a real, AAA game.

@Rex: The eye node is pretty much animated in most our animations, but I'm not sure about the weapon "looks". I had to add some code to the ShapeBaseImage system to allow you to manualy set an image state(the custom code I was talking about). We use it like this: %player.manualSetImageState(%slot, %state); %state is in the form of a string. Just so you know, I have alot of code that I'm sure would really help alot of people out, but sadly I don't really have the time to make the resources/TDN articles. Although I will get to it sometime, probably before the end of this year.

@Mr. Pig: We're doing both.

#71 @Josh: Your attitude is highly unnecessary.

I simply stated that some people are not interested in the need for displaying reload animations in the 3rd person view. (You might, in fact, notice that this thread is actually about having separate models first and third person) Not everyone must follow your absolutely amazing skill at making real games the way you do it.

#72 I edited my post for clearification. I don't think I've ever seen any game where reload animations are not played in third person; it's a standard now.

And, for your information, we would of loved to of have seperate first person models with detailed hands and arms, but did not have the resources to make them. The way we went is a very good solution to cut back on animations, resources, and time, in my opinion.

#73 Josh, I agree with C2 your comment was extremely harsh and short sighted, there are still many situations and reasons why you may want to have seperate first person models, to name a couple:
- Single player FPS games, as an example imagine a zombie blasting type game, why would the NPC zombies ever care about shared animations between 3rd and 1st person view?

- The players weapon is something the player is looking at non-stop throughout the game, it's therefore important that it's one of the nicest looking, highest quality models in the game, this means that if you have a high quality, effect smothered weapon stuck on every single player running round in a game with lots of players you're going to be suffering performance hits that needn't happen when the players weapons can quite happily be lower poly and have slightly less resource hogging effects when viewed externally, outside of 1st person.

It's nice that your method is working for you, but this thread wasn't about your method, quite the opposite, so to suggest that the method people are asking about here isn't plausible in a modern AAA title is both unfair and quite honestly, rediculous. There's absolutely no reason having different models for 1st person and external views isn't feasible in an AAA game. Also I assume that your comment was with regards to modern AAA titles, else might I point out that there's most likely more first person AAA titles out here with seperate animations than not? Pretty much everything built on the Quake 1 and 2 engines are a good place to start.

#74 Alright, well let's keep this thread on topic and anti-war.

Josh "GimpMaster" Hintze or Duncan "OziMan", it'd be very appreciated if you could write up a little resource on the implementation of the LOD-wise version of modelling the arms & hands as part of the weapon model and animating them as such, in first person. :)

#75 Ian, you are so off base I almost don't want to post, but I feel I have to defend myself from your slandering.

Quote:And, for your information, we would of loved to of have seperate first person models with detailed hands and arms, but did not have the resources to make them. The way we went is a very good solution to cut back on animations, resources, and time, in my opinion.

For a single player FPS, where you don't even need a player model you will want a nice first person weapon image. But in that case, the stock code is %100 ready to be used, sans some code to force a state change manualy.

I've read your post over about 6 times now and I can obviously see that you don't get it, or did not read any of my posts. I'm trying to show people that there's another way to do things(having the players hands show up without messing with the code at all). My method also saves on resources, models/animations/textures, and dev time.

Furthermore, I never said anything that would imply using seperate first person models would not be feasible for any game(commercial, or not), but rather that 3rd person animations have become standardized and anybody making a multiplayer game should have them.

#76 Oh i'm not quite there yet to start working on a resource....i know i will be within a couple weeks so if something isn't figured out yet and I do get something rolling i'll share it back with the community if needed.

#77 Here you guys go.

www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=9141

tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/How_To_Manualy_Set_a_ShapeBaseImage_State

#78 Yes Josh, I'm aware you edited your second post after I've posted to mention that you'd have liked to include seperate models, but my post was with regards to the original pre-edited version.

Quote:I've read your post over about 6 times now and I can obviously see that you don't get it, or did not read any of my posts. I'm trying to show people that there's another way to do things(having the players hands show up without messing with the code at all). My method also saves on resources, models/animations/textures, and dev time.

I'm not disputing that you're demonstrating another method, I'm disputing the fact that you're shunning other people's methods, who may have perfectly valid reasons for wanting to follow that method, some examples in my previous post.

Quote:Furthermore, I never said anything that would imply using seperate first person models would not be feasible for any game(commercial, or not), but rather that 3rd person animations have become standardized and anybody making a multiplayer game should have them.

If that was what you intended with your comment then it's not such a problem, but it would've made more sense to post that in the first place rather than:

Quote:@C2:My mistake, I was just under the impression that people actualy want to make a real, AAA game.

Which outright implies that no game under any circumstances should use this method, which as I mentioned is wrong and purely personal opinion, there are circumstances where it's still both feasible and a good idea, judging by the fact you yourself have said you'd have loved to follow this route I think you know that yourself already however.

This forum is generally quite friendly and whether or not your intention was to come across so aggressively I don't know, but that is how it came across which is something that this forum really doesn't need when it's mostly about helping each other. I'm not trying to stir things, I'm simply trying to ask that you put a little more thought into your posts so they don't come across as such aggresive attacks to other forum users. Your posts are often very insightful and very helpful, so if they were as pleasant to read as they were helpful then you'd be offering the perfect types of post this forum needs ;)

#79 Heh before it was edited it came out a little meaner:

Quote:My mistake, I was just under the impression that people actualy want to make a real game.

Anyway, @ Josh Hintze, good luck with that, I will also be working on getting that efficiently functional as well. Hopefully you, I, or someone else will get this up and running and can help the community. :)

#80 Thanks for the Resource Josh!