"True First Person" mode for idtech4

[The Happy Friar]

Tribes makes sense, was the studio behind Earth/StarSiege, which was a Mechwarrior competitor.  Same tech in Tribes & StarSiege, so they had everything needed already in place and the know how to do it.

[2ton]

Very true. funny though how tribes felt perfectly useable in third person where Starsiege didn't. Though still have fond memories of looking at my mech from the front at a low camera angle in third person just to show off hoow badass all 10 of those polygons were

[motorsep]

The whole idea of seamless 1st/3rd-person perspective is cool, but there are a lot more games that are purely 1st-person but still use full-body awareness.  Starbreeze did it with the Riddick games and the Syndicate reboot, as well as Mirror's Edge, Alien: Isolation, Halo 2, 3, ODST, Reach, 4, Destiny, Crysis, etc.  In my humble opinion, being able to view your protagonist's body in a game adds a lot to your 'presence' in a game world - especially in Riddick and ME.  Just having your viewport attached to an animated character and all the little movements that adds really add to the immersion.  Sure, I imagine it's the sort of thing that would make Quake deathmatch purists barf, but depending on the design of whatever game / mod you're working on, this sort of trick could be hugely beneficial.

I recall that in Crysis(I think it was that game) FP model had only legs, not full body. So your hands+gun models/anims were exactly like on Quake, except you also had legs model. This allowed proper control/anims/polycount on weapons/hands, plus you could see you legs. In TP view you had a separate full body model.

[motorsep]

Course you wouldnt know motorsep since you probably dont play these games and as such means they can't possibly be of any value to anybody, ever

No, I don't. I played Crysis series and didn't find having legs any more beneficial than having no legs as in any other FPS game I played.

As for VR, you don't get more immersion by having full body. For once, VR body won't animate when you bend over, nor it will move in sync with yours (that's if you use room scale setup; otherwise you will be standing/sitting and that will rather break immersion when you have VR body). Not to mention engine has no VR support.

On top of all that, if you attach cam to eyes of the TP model, the view will move as model's head and that isn't gonna feel good as game's tend to have exaggerated animations.

All I am saying you can't get the same FP view look once you use TP model with camera in the eyes. That's why games have nice, big ass guns and differently animated FP weapons/hands, because you can't have it look right in both FP and TP views. That's why having standard view weapons + separate legs model makes more sense. This way you still have legs, but view weapon / camera has more control to allow smoother experience.

IMO Gears of War had it done well - it would bring cam on your shoulder when aiming and shooting.

[motorsep]

Oh, and one thing everyone is forgetting is that TP levels are designed differently than FP levels and accommodate design to suit both and be aesthetically pleasing, and not break gameplay is hard, next to impossible.

[2ton]

I was correct. If motorsep hasnt played a game, or if a feture in it doesnt directly benifit him, then any of its accomplishments become irrelivant to everyone and should be ignored. He did bring up a good point in his last paragraph though. Yes, there are extra considerations that need to be looked at when building a third person map vs a first person one. That is, as it turns out, one of the areas which being able to switch between the 2 views becomes very benificial. You make a map the way you want, without worrying about those things, then you simply let the player switch between views on the fly. This is how you (well not you motorsep) were able to transition from wide open outdoor areas (TP) to clausterfobic indoor ones (FP) rather seemlessly. For a mod/dev, you sure are good at purposly trying not to solve problems

[motorsep]

I was correct. If motorsep hasnt played a game, or if a feture in it doesnt directly benifit him, then any of its accomplishments become irrelivant to everyone and should be ignored. He did bring up a good point in his last paragraph though. Yes, there are extra considerations that need to be looked at when building a third person map vs a first person one. That is, as it turns out, one of the areas which being able to switch between the 2 views becomes very benificial. You make a map the way you want, without worrying about those things, then you simply let the player switch between views on the fly. This is how you (well not you motorsep) were able to transition from wide open outdoor areas (TP) to clausterfobic indoor ones (FP) rather seemlessly. For a mod/dev, you sure are good at purposly trying not to solve problems

Your manner of writing reminds me of someone who was banned not too long ago 

And no, you don't just make maps for FP (tight indoors) and let player use TP cam to look around the corners and see danger / traps / etc. You could, perhaps, make TP levels and have TP design of the game and allow FP cam just for shits, but not other way around.

The problem with OP is that it makes it sound as FT/TP cam and seamless switch between is a holy grail of cameras in gaming, without taking into consideration soooo many factors that affect final decision of which cam to use. That's why most games use only one type of camera and don't allow switching.

FP view with legs is not TP camera. It's FP cam with legs, which can be achieved either by having what OP did, or by having standard view weap + legs.

Why am I bothering explaining all this? 

[oneofthe8devilz]

Sorry for all the posts, im just excited Im finally back on this forum and someone is showcasing this concept that I was curious about for literally years now. I'm excitedto see what you do with it.

Welcome to the forums 2ton, it's always nice to see new as well as familiar members showing up here and actively discussing topics and contributing to the community...

Also don't fear motorsep He is our little in-house-troll and you'll get used to the fact that he will post about everyone and everything exactly in the way you described it. Noone can ban you for describing the truth. As a matter of fact I am pretty sure motorsep got banned from so many other forums and sites that it is just thanks to The Happy Friar's limitless patience that he is still allowed to post here

[2ton]

Thanks Oneofthe8. I was Sir Blackington waaay back when friar made the forum after d3w went down, and not too long after that everyone lost thier accounts or something. I was in the middle of alot of stuff and I didnt put a whole lot of effort to get back on the forum again, though I have been browsing it on and off. So if I talk like someone who else, its probably because I share others opinion at times.

Back on topic. motersep is right about being able to look around corners and ssee traps, and in some cases that is detrimental (Dayz, multiplayer games that have stealth as a core part of gameplay for example). The thing is, is that it not usually that big a deal in a single player set up, and there are games designed to take advantage of just that, (later Metal Gear games, Splinter Cell, The Evil Within, Velvet Assasin though I never played it) just to name a few. Keep doing what you do Oneofthe8,

[2ton]

For the high polycount issue, would having a lod applied to the weapons vs distance help? having full poly count at a distance of about 3 meters or so, then have a simpler mesh for distances past that?

[oneofthe8devilz]

For the high polycount issue, would having a lod applied to the weapons vs distance help? having full poly count at a distance of about 3 meters or so, then have a simpler mesh for distances past that?

LOD systems play a pivotal role in today's modern game engines and make the constant increase in polygonal density possible...

But in a multiplayer idtech4 environment (to which I was referring in my earlier post) even without an LOD system implemented, an average polygon-count of 5K-7K per player is still manageable when the total player count per server is not exceeding "16".

[Chromatose]

Regarding LOD, I have no clue how difficult it would be to backport such a feature, but to the best of my knowledge, The Dark Mod implemented an LOD system for models a while back.

[motorsep]

As a matter of fact I am pretty sure motorsep got banned from so many other forums and sites that it is just thanks to The Happy Friar's limitless patience that he is still allowed to post here

Wishful thinking on your part, devilz. The only one place that banned me was iodoom3 IRC channel, now defunct as well as the project itself, and trebor revoked my posting capacity in his repo on github. That's all. As a matter of fact, the reason I was banned from iodoom3 channel was due to me disagreeing (worth noting that I did it politely) with "heads" of the project on the subject of usefulness of proposed features. And just like here, I was labeled ..... simply because I didn't pat anyone's back and was candid about my argument backed by my actual game dev experience (regardless of how little or how much I have it). This is exactly the same case with you, devilz. If someone doesn't say "wow, god of idTEch4 development, I bow to your achievements" your day will be ruined (or actually entire existence, since you still can't just take it with a grain of salt and accept that there are people, even if one person, that don't share your point of view).

No one else finds me being troll except you (on many other resources nontheless). I already described in details in the past why I post things in this manner when it comes to OPs like this one (and somehow it usually happens to be your posts), so won't repeat myself here.

[oneofthe8devilz]

No one else finds me being troll except you.

Thanks for the joke of the day, made me laugh

Save yourself the typing to quote/reply... I stopped caring a long time ago

[caedes]

if everyone could stop insulting each other and just discuss the topic (or maybe not post if you don't like it) that would be nice.

I think it's pretty cool, I really like body awareness in FPS games.
Of course this is only the start. You'd need better animations (walking slowly or a step at a time looks a bit weird and choppy when looking at your legs).
But to really benefit from this you'd need additional animations, e.g.
* a grab animation to pick things up (maybe like https://twitter.com/James9475/status/656157781666496512 description in https://twitter.com/ja2ke/status/656138485204566016 )
* See hand pressing buttons, opening doors etc
* If you climb onto a wall or something, show hands pulling you up
* if you  jump down/fall, put hands on the floor upon landing
* hold to ladders when climbing them
* a kick attack+animation (like in Duke3D)
* maybe pulling things aside that are in the way (high grass, curtains, ...)
* you could store some weapons (like pistols or knives) or ammunition visibly at the legs and when picking them show the hands actually grabbing it

(I've seen several of these things in gifs/mini videos Brendon Chung posted on twitter, just scrolling through https://twitter.com/blendogames is very inspiring!)