Boarding and Exiting animations in Planetside 2

[GTGD]

I'd definitely like them to return. Without them, things could get confusing. Imagine an enemy taking cover behind a tank, and then all of a sudden they're inside. Plus, it really made the game feel polished and added to the scale. It was amazing to see tons of vehicles rolling into the courtyard of a base, and then players dismounting to invade. Or a ton of gals lined up and being loaded.

[Drev]

Even if they animations are returned post launch. That would be great. As everyone has said before; it was an awesome part to the immersion.

Fantastic seeing people load up on their vehicles in sanctuary prepairing for a big assult!

[exLupo]

Originally Posted by Vancha

Hopefully they'll just include a boarding "delay" and add the animations later, rather than anything instantaneous.

With the removal of boarding animations this would make the most sense to avoid turning vehicles into freebie insta-turrets. Maybe smaller vehicles have quicker activation times whereas full on battletanks get a sequential bootup sequence. Higher tank skills equal faster boots and the like.

[BorisBlade]

And those not liking the third person switch. I think it would be very cool to keep you in first person during the "climb in". Either way, im hopin for atleast a delay of some sorts if the animations arent goin in.

[SealedSun]

I'd really like to see vehicle boarding animations in Planetside 2. Believe it or not, but these animations in Planetside 1 were, what got me interested in the game in the first place.
After seeing that soldier hopping into the Reaver, I just had to check it out!

[Skorne]

Really want to see them back. I know people have said they don't matter, but of course they do just like all animations do such as reloading your weapon or jumping.

They had the budget to do it in PS1 and they can't do it now with the far more sophisticated animation tools available in 2011? It feels like they are cutting corners to me and I start to worry what other features will be removed to reduce development costs.

[Bing]

I feel like boarding animations aren't just an immersion issue, but a balancing issue as well. Especially if just being in a vehicle makes you immune to damage, ala Planetside 1. Boarding animations + shooting soldiers in vehicles would stop the insta-turret as well as using vehicles to escape immanent death.

[Drentz]

Stay stay stay. I always thought it was pretty badass watching my outfit's squads surround a couple galaxies and other vehicles and have everyone load up together.

[opticalshadow]

you will never ever ever ever convince me that something so simple is not possible to be placed in ag ame due to budget or time constraints when A) you have no release date, B) the time it takes to do this is a joke compared to the fact your making a whole game either way.

[Volw]

Originally Posted by opticalshadow

you will never ever ever ever convince me that something so simple is not possible to be placed in ag ame due to budget or time constraints when A) you have no release date, B) the time it takes to do this is a joke compared to the fact your making a whole game either way.

Adding probably close to a 100 animations along with interior textures is a joke?

Maybe you should write to Smedley and volunteer to do this. I'm sure the community will love you and it's only a few hours of work for you, anyway!

[Traak]

I dunno about the other vehicles, but the moment I clicked my button to get in the AMS driver's seat, all damage to me from any PShield RExo HA enemy who had leapt at me, shooting me in the back as I repaired the AMS ceased.

So, the animations didn't make me more vulnerable, by any means. Sure did frustrate Captain Braveheart that he couldn't rape yet another engineer with his back turned while he repaired something, I am guessing, and had to helplessly watch his quad-shot alternating dual Jackhammers just hit the AMS instead, even though he was aiming at my vehicle entrance animation.

[IceyCold]

Originally Posted by Volw

Adding probably close to a 100 animations along with interior textures is a joke?

Maybe you should write to Smedley and volunteer to do this. I'm sure the community will love you and it's only a few hours of work for you, anyway!

Seriously, thank you for pointing this out.

Although there probably aren't 100 animations (more likely 25-35) this is still a LOT of work for a team of animators. And that is not even getting into having modelers rig the hatches to animate as well as creating internal sections for the vehicles.

That is a lot of time and money for the feature. Although I would love to see it return, I know that it is no small feat to add said feature in.

[CrystalViolet]

The hatch stuff would be a breeze to animate as your dealing with solid objects moving on a single axis. A professional animator could probably do every vehicle in the game in a matter of hours. The character stuff is a bit more involved, but if you used a similarly sized seat in every vehicle, you could probably get away with a single "sit down" animation for each armor type. Just make it so that you have to be standing in front of the seat to activate the motion.

[1Shotwonder]

makes a more realistic feel to it like what we going to do pop into a veh. then oh guess what we magically pop out that just sounds like its being half assed

[Volw]

Originally Posted by IceyCold

Seriously, thank you for pointing this out.

Although there probably aren't 100 animations (more likely 25-35) this is still a LOT of work for a team of animators. And that is not even getting into having modelers rig the hatches to animate as well as creating internal sections for the vehicles.

That is a lot of time and money for the feature. Although I would love to see it return, I know that it is no small feat to add said feature in.

I've made a quick calculation in my head before I've posted.

Galaxy alone is 13-14 animations? Minus a few as they are mirrored. Then there is Liberator with 3. Two seated Reaver with 2 etc.

Sunderer and deliverer also quite a few animations per vehicle.

Empire specific tanks and buggies - 14 animations.

Plus the generic vehicles, turrets and whatnot.

I'm quite sure the total number is quite close to a 100...

I'm guessing they're using motion capture, which would make it a bit of a trick to do right, I guess.



I think the easiest and actually quite 'canon' solution would be to ... have a small router pad like item to transfer people inside, which would take, say 2-3 second to power up. Same with exiting.

Thoughts?