Fully boned hands: yay or nay?

Dark_Ansem

Obvious puns aside, during one of the streams of February the possibility of models featuring fully boned hands surfaced but was not explained.

I would personally be in favour of it, ESPECIALLY with the newer models. That tight tight clenched fist, ALL THE TIME, it just terrible to see and doesn't make any sense. Especially when casting spells.

Staran

Pm hands aren’t fully boned ?
Or maybe I don’t understand

Trinital

This feeds into my trello request for Fully Rigged faces too.
Trent has said we have 128 bones to work with..

I would like to see the entire mesh more detailed in it's node distribution so we can get more precise animations.

Dark_Ansem

Staran said:

Pm hands aren’t fully boned ?
Or maybe I don’t understand

Hands are not boned at all. They are stuck in a closed fist position. The proposal I heard during the stream was to actually make fingers move, by having their own structures.

Trinital said:

This feeds into my trello request for Fully Rigged faces too.
Trent has said we have 128 bones to work with..

I would like to see the entire mesh more detailed in it's node distribution so we can get more precise animations.

Trello card link? Perhaps merge them?

voidofopinion

I think I want a far more simple experience than others.

I don't want entirely new models I just want the square edges taken off the current ones and slightly higher resolution textures.

I don't want entirely new animations for everything, I just want the run waddle and combat shuffle to be fixed.

I don't want individually working fingers I just want a better sculpted lego hand.

Not having fully boned hands has never stopped me enjoying a dungeon, RP, or a DM run event.

There are just so many more pressing priorities...

That's 3D Artist time that could go to updating or adding new monsters.
That's Animator time that could be fixing the combat animations.
That's cash that could be unlocking the 16,000 item limit.

I don't care how many fingers my character has to cast spells if they are still pausing in the middle of combat to do the bobble head, hands in the air wobble casting animation.

Dark_Ansem

voidofopinion said:

I think I want a far more simple experience than others.

I don't want entirely new models I just want the square edges taken off the current ones and slightly higher resolution textures.

I don't want entirely new animations for everything, I just want the run waddle and combat shuffle to be fixed.

I don't want individually working fingers I just want a better sculpted lego hand.

Not having fully boned hands has never stopped me enjoying a dungeon, RP, or a DM run event.

There are just so many more pressing priorities...

That's 3D Artist time that could go to updating or adding new monsters.
That's Animator time that could be fixing the combat animations.
That's cash that could be unlocking the 16,000 item limit.

I don't care how many fingers my character has to cast spells if they are still pausing in the middle of combat to do the bobble head, hands in the air wobble casting animation.

They plan to redo the assets in two years. I doubt that this categorises as a "pressing issue". But you can be certain that there will be people who will notice this, and will likely refuse to buy even for such a small thing.

voidofopinion

Dark_Ansem said:

They plan to redo the assets in two years. I doubt that this categorises as a "pressing issue". But you can be certain that there will be people who will notice this, and will likely refuse to buy even for such a small thing.

"The particle effects look bad. The animations are hilarious. Combat looks like everyone has to pee. The textures look like they were made of a Nokia 3310. Raised terrain looks like a series of egg cartons. The creature models are Minecraft quality. The UI doesn't work in 1080p. The audio pops and crackles. The weapon models look like knockoff lego.

...And I would be totally fine with all of that but those hand models are ruining my immersion."

Dark_Ansem

voidofopinion said:

Dark_Ansem said:

They plan to redo the assets in two years. I doubt that this categorises as a "pressing issue". But you can be certain that there will be people who will notice this, and will likely refuse to buy even for such a small thing.

"The particle effects look bad. The animations are hilarious. Combat looks like everyone has to pee. The textures look like they were made of a Nokia 3310. Raised terrain looks like a series of egg cartons. The creature models are Minecraft quality. The UI doesn't work in 1080p. The audio pops and crackles. The weapon models look like knockoff lego.

...And I would be totally fine with all of that but those hand models are utterly unforgivable."

Oh look, the strawman argument. Hilarious. Wrong too.
BTW I lost count of how many times this happened with Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. The author of the Clan Quest Mod explicitly said his best friend stopped playing the game due to an animation issue. His loss, eh, but still.

voidofopinion

Dark_Ansem said:

Oh look, the strawman argument. Hilarious. Wrong too.

Don't make a poll if you only want one answer.

Dark_Ansem

voidofopinion said:

Dark_Ansem said:

Oh look, the strawman argument. Hilarious. Wrong too.

Don't make a poll if you only want one answer.

I didn't say your answer was wrong.

DerpCity

voidofopinion said:

I don't want entirely new animations for everything, I just want the run waddle and combat shuffle to be fixed.

I don't really care for the rest of the arguments going on here, as I only really voted yes out of a "I don't really care if its added, but why not?", but what do you mean by Combat Shuffle? Do you mean them shifting around, towards, and away from each other based on their internal weapon ranges, and if you do what do you mean by "fixing" it? Its honestly part of the reason I prefer NWN1 over NWN2. NWN2 combat visually looks stale because everyone is so stationary. In a real combat scenario against a balor, I highly doubt you'd want to stand still except when you swing at your opponent. It also looks dumb because their player animations are really awkward looking (Girls get to step forward, jump and slash, land, and back up in a single animation. Whatever happened to simple slashes and stabs?) and because they got rid of blocking and parrying animations. I could be misunderstanding, but if I'm not, to each their own though.

voidofopinion

DerpCity said:

I don't really care for the rest of the arguments going on here, as I only really voted yes out of a "I don't really care if its added, but why not?", but what do you mean by Combat Shuffle? Do you mean them shifting around, towards, and away from each other based on their internal weapon ranges, and if you do what do you mean by "fixing" it? Its honestly part of the reason I prefer NWN1 over NWN2. NWN2 combat visually looks stale because everyone is so stationary.

The movement is great and I agree NWN2 just doesnt have the same sense of flow.

By fixing it I simply mean making the animation slightly more natural. It has an odd, stilted shuffle to it that makes it less like the character is in a fight for their lives and more like they are playing dodgeball.

Keep the timing, keep the number of frames, keep everything else about it, just make the animation itself have a slightly more natural motion to it.

Likewise, updating the caster animations and variance would make spell casters feel more dynamic.

Small tweaks like that would go a long way to making NWN feel less dated and be more attractive to new players and requires far less resources than fully boned hands that you are not going to see when you are zoomed out and the screen is full of particle effects.

Dark_Ansem

voidofopinion said:

DerpCity said:

I don't really care for the rest of the arguments going on here, as I only really voted yes out of a "I don't really care if its added, but why not?", but what do you mean by Combat Shuffle? Do you mean them shifting around, towards, and away from each other based on their internal weapon ranges, and if you do what do you mean by "fixing" it? Its honestly part of the reason I prefer NWN1 over NWN2. NWN2 combat visually looks stale because everyone is so stationary.

The movement is great and I agree NWN2 just doesnt have the same sense of flow.

By fixing it I simply mean making the animation slightly more natural. It has an odd, stilted shuffle to it that makes it less like the character is in a fight for their lives and more like they are playing dodgeball.

Keep the timing, keep the number of frames, keep everything else about it, just make the animation itself have a slightly more natural motion to it.

Likewise, updating the caster animations and variance would make spell casters feel more dynamic.

Small tweaks like that would go a long way to making NWN feel less dated and be more attractive to new players and requires far less resources than fully boned hands that you are not going to see when you are zoomed out and the screen is full of particle effects.

Try with the new Aribeth model.

DerpCity

@voidofopinion I get what you mean now, and I sort of agree with your stance. I love how this game looks and feels so it doesn't bother me too much, but some animations do need a slight touch up to look natural. Except the Formians/Stingers. Whoever animated them must have been taught how to animate at gunpoint and had a week to make the animations. All their animations are robotic and have incredibly awkward posing. Their models look incredibly good, but the animations make it look like poorly animated Custom Content, since that's what a lot of custom content feels like. My stance is that regardless of what gets updated first, the Formians and Stingers need a visual update the most. Also, Stingers could have a dynamic model in the same vein as the Wemic model in the CEP/on the vault due to having a normal human torso.

As for the main topic of the thread, I feel that hands should definitely be a later addition after they make everything look nice. I never really had an issue with the weird block thing the game calls a hand, and in fact feel that the open hand that some custom content has looks weird considering the hand has to be used as a fist in most cases. I can't really argue against its inclusion, though, since it gives modders more to work with, which is why I clicked yes.

Dark_Ansem

DerpCity said:

@voidofopinion I get what you mean now, and I sort of agree with your stance. I love how this game looks and feels so it doesn't bother me too much, but some animations do need a slight touch up to look natural. Except the Formians/Stingers. Whoever animated them must have been taught how to animate at gunpoint and had a week to make the animations. All their animations are robotic and have incredibly awkward posing. Their models look incredibly good, but the animations make it look like poorly animated Custom Content, since that's what a lot of custom content feels like. My stance is that regardless of what gets updated first, the Formians and Stingers need a visual update the most. Also, Stingers could have a dynamic model in the same vein as the Wemic model in the CEP/on the vault due to having a normal human torso.

As for the main topic of the thread, I feel that hands should definitely be a later addition after they make everything look nice. I never really had an issue with the weird block thing the game calls a hand, and in fact feel that the open hand that some custom content has looks weird considering the hand has to be used as a fist in most cases. I can't really argue against its inclusion, though, since it gives modders more to work with, which is why I clicked yes.

The formians do look quite amazing, don't they?

DerpCity

@Dark_Ansem They do, which is why I randomly decided to play one using some Leto magic. How let down I was when I began watching him do anything. Hell, their walking and running speeds seem to be reversed, since they animate so slowly while running but animate so quickly when walking. Also, I noticed that wearing a light source causes his shadows to freak out, which probably makes the Infinite Dungeons playthrough I started with him a health hazard for my sanity.

Dark_Ansem

DerpCity said:

@Dark_Ansem They do, which is why I randomly decided to play one using some Leto magic. How let down I was when I began watching him do anything. Hell, their walking and running speeds seem to be reversed, since they animate so slowly while running but animate so quickly when walking. Also, I noticed that wearing a light source causes his shadows to freak out, which probably makes the Infinite Dungeons playthrough I started with him a health hazard for my sanity.

Good luck with that I'm holding off from ID until BD releases it in the toolset.

Trinital

I'm more pragmatic than most in this thread. The game doesn't need to be marketed to us - the super fans who were dying for this game, it needs to capture an audience outside this forum.
When they announced an EE and showed that video. Most gaming communities were scratching their heads wondering what 30 bucks was even buying them.

Most players don't care about shaders or server security - that Aribeth model built way more hype than an essay of patch notes ever could.

JuliusBorisov

Added the link to this thread to https://trello.com/c/eHw0F4HL/43-update-the-player-character-models (from the Roadmap board)

Dark_Ansem

JuliusBorisov said:

Added the link to this thread to https://trello.com/c/eHw0F4HL/43-update-the-player-character-models (from the Roadmap board)

Er, thanks?

Trinital said:

I'm more pragmatic than most in this thread. The game doesn't need to be marketed to us - the super fans who were dying for this game, it needs to capture an audience outside this forum.
When they announced an EE and showed that video. Most gaming communities were scratching their heads wondering what 30 bucks was even buying them.

Most players don't care about shaders or server security - that Aribeth model built way more hype than an essay of patch notes ever could.

Thank you.

FreshLemonBun

Hopefully the goal with development isn't to generate a lot of hype because I hear the exchange rates for hype can be pretty volatile.

Finger bones were already incorporated in one of the Trello cards for what it's worth.

Filipse

Boned hands would be nice, it feels/looks abit odd when a character's hand is just fully open holding weapon or a squared-permanently clenched fist when the model is HD.

Dark_Ansem

Filipse said:

Boned hands would be nice, it feels/looks abit odd when a character's hand is just fully open holding weapon or a squared-permanently clenched fist when the model is HD.

Thank you for making my point clear. @FreshLemonBun which trello card is the one for finger bones?

FreshLemonBun

https://trello.com/c/eHw0F4HL

PaddyMaxson

Yes, if it doesn't take time away from literally ANYTHING else. it's nice but totally ancillary