Boarding and Exiting animations in Planetside 2

[basti]

Originally Posted by Crator

I was playing PS1 yesterday and while entering/exiting vehicles I thought of this thread and how it would be a shame if we never see those animations again in PS2. Not saying have them ready for day 1 of go-live, just sayin' put them in when ya can. As for time delays I have a question. When entering/exiting in PS1 were you vulnerable to being hit? I never could tell for sure if this was the case.

Nope. The moment you pressed E, you were save from damage.

[Elude]

Originally Posted by Higby

This is something we've talked about quite a bit in the office, but it involves a lot more than you guys may realize. It's not just making a couple dozen character animations, it involves modeling and texturing all the vehicle interiors, making all the doors separate, animated pieces of the vehicles, i.e. essentially remaking many of our current vehicles.

We definitely get that this is something that you guys love from ps1 and want in ps2. I'm on a bus with T-Ray and Elam for 5 hours today, so we'll pow wow about it a bit and see what can be done...

I would love to see a "rev up" time for when getting in a vehicle but would love to see animations for entering and exiting more. I understand that it would take quite a bit of effort to animate and redo, UV maps, many textures, and partially remodel whatever it is you already have done (which is probably a lot), but I would think it would more than definitely be worth it(I just feel sorry for whoever has to do the Galaxy lol).

If you can't make it by launch than at least include some sort of "rev up" time as others have said and later release entering/exiting animations through an update.

[Logit]

Originally Posted by Higby

You never know, man!

This is something we've talked about quite a bit in the office, but it involves a lot more than you guys may realize. It's not just making a couple dozen character animations, it involves modeling and texturing all the vehicle interiors, making all the doors separate, animated pieces of the vehicles, i.e. essentially remaking many of our current vehicles.

We definitely get that this is something that you guys love from ps1 and want in ps2. I'm on a bus with T-Ray and Elam for 5 hours today, so we'll pow wow about it a bit and see what can be done...

Glad to here it man.

I would say if they could pull it off 8 years ago, there shouldn't be any doubt you can do it now.

[Vecha]

Originally Posted by Higby

You never know, man!

This is something we've talked about quite a bit in the office, but it involves a lot more than you guys may realize. It's not just making a couple dozen character animations, it involves modeling and texturing all the vehicle interiors, making all the doors separate, animated pieces of the vehicles, i.e. essentially remaking many of our current vehicles.

We definitely get that this is something that you guys love from ps1 and want in ps2. I'm on a bus with T-Ray and Elam for 5 hours today, so we'll pow wow about it a bit and see what can be done...

I really hope you guys can put it back in

[BorisBlade]

Originally Posted by Logit

Glad to here it man.

I would say if they could pull it off 8 years ago, there shouldn't be any doubt you can do it now.

Yeah its definitely not a memory constraint if they could pull it off back then, the animation budget wouldnt be much different per vehicle slot which obviously was very small compared to modern memory. If anything its a time thing.

[dachlatte]

Originally Posted by basti

Nope. The moment you pressed E, you were save from damage.

and you can almost instantly fly/drive off. just press "M" twice

so i still dont understand what all the fuzz is about.

[basti]

Wait, what? What are you talking about?

[dachlatte]

Originally Posted by IDukeNukeml

I thought they fixed the map boarding bug.

why would they fix it? its not a big deal. its doesnt change the gameplay at all. 10 pages of drama for nothing...

[Malorn]

The few seconds delay before the vehicle is usable is the important gameplay piece. The actual animations I personally couldn't care about but they fill the time gap and make the time gap intuitive.

However, I'd also be content with a cockpit/driver view and a little progress bar that says "Powering up..." or something like that.

The way Arma2 did it was pretty good and didn't really require changing the vehicle model.

[Avirau]

Originally Posted by dachlatte

why would they fix it? its not a big deal. its doesnt change the gameplay at all. 10 pages of drama for nothing...

That's a pretty significant bug and yes it does change gameplay. The entire point is that it's supposed to take a couple seconds before you are in control of a vehicle and vice versa when exiting.

It's also an immersion factor, which is why this really bothers me. It just looks really retarded having a bunch of people walk up to the side of a vehicle and then instantly disappear and the vehicle drives away. I loved seeing the animations in PS1 and I really hope that they find the time to have them return for PS2.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Avirau

That's a pretty significant bug and yes it does change gameplay. The entire point is that it's supposed to take a couple seconds before you are in control of a vehicle and vice versa when exiting.

Thats the effect. Nobody can say what the point was. The actual point of the animations may have just been to look cool.

[dachlatte]

99% of the time it does not change anything. the 1% where one would actually notice it doesnt justify the the effort to implement it. its not reasonable

lets be honest... it boils down to a purely esthetic thing.

[Talek Krell]

Setting aside that your statements contradict each other, why would aesthetics be unimportant?

[Aractain]

1%? Its only ever asthetic. Its no different that a "rev up timer". If you have to holster your weapon and theres a timer before your in control its exactly the same as PS1.

But the way it looks and feels (animation quality) is important. Important enough to spend hundreds of hours of the art team redoing models and adding animations to them? Not IMO. Just make getting into a vehicle cool in some other way, cool start up sounds and maybe the Arma1/2 style boarding animations as suggested.

[Crator]

I believe it is important to add those animations in. Will it kill the game if it isn't in right away? No. In fact, it would be a smooth move (since you don't have it ready yet) to wait until after launch and add them in as you can. Get all the other BS stuff out the way like balancing and game play first.