[1.31.0.26] offline external cam 3rd person issues

[lutorm]

I was looking at the avatar with the external cam offline, and saw some funny business. I don't know if it's intentional but I thought I'd post it.

1. When you turn, the avatar doesn't turn his body until you've turned >90 degrees. Instead first looks in the new direction and then twists at the hip. If you turn >90 degrees, the lower body will twist around and he'll take a step to face in the new direction. This might be intentional, as I agree it looks better than having him turn around on a turntable, but it interacts funny with leaning:

2. When you lean, the avatar will lean to the side using his lower body as reference. If you face in some direction, and then turn 90 degrees, say, left, the avatar will twist and look in the new direction. If you now lean left, the avatar will lean left according to his feet, which is actually in the direction you're looking so it looks like he leans forward. If you lean right, he'll actually lean backward. This means when you lean, the movement of the eye point in 1st person is not followed by a corresponding movement by the avatar, which allows him to remain hidden behind whatever you're leaning out from behind.

Example:

I'm standing behind the building, facing the wall. Here the avatar is synchronized with 1st person. Thus, when I lean to look around the corner, the avatar does the same:

Now I've turned 90 degrees to the left to face along the wall, walked a step to line up the avatar, and turned back without moving the avatar's feet. My 1st person view is essentially unchanged from the first picture, but now the avatar is twisting to look in that direction:

Leaning out behind the corner now looks like this:

My eyepoint is here such that I'm looking down the edge of the building around the corner, the same as in pic 2. But the avatar is leaning backward and would not be visible from around the corner. Assuming that this 3rd person view is what other players would see, it would enable me to shoot them without them being able to see me.

[lutorm]

3. Moving to external view changes the aim point.

If I throw a grenade in 1st person view, switch to 3rd person view and throw again without moving, the throw will be significantly shorter. Example:

This was thrown in first person.

and this was thrown after switching to third person, without moving. The throw is significantly shorter, and it looks during the throw as the nade is thrown down toward the ground.

[zaltor]

mortors are doing the same set 50meters launch in 1st person then go to 3rd person it is like 200 or more yard where it lands

[lutorm]

4. Moving when prone.

When you turn around while prone, the avatar does spin like a turntable. I think this is really unrealistic. Turning around 180 degrees when prone takes significantly longer than the 1s it takes in game. It takes me 2s to do it, without weapon and combat gear (I measured...

Lying prone on the uneven berms looks good, nice job btw!

[lutorm]

5. SMG reload anim

The reloading in third person is a little basic, but for a rifleman it at least does something vaguely right. For the MP40 it's fiddling by the back and doesn't even pretend to put in a new mag.

6. LMG autodeploys in external view

This one's really weird: In third person, if I stand up with an lmg and hit the deploy button, the avatar will kneel and deploy. Switching back to 1st person, I have a fully stable, deployed LMG in kneeling stance with about 180degree range of movement and without any need to deploy on something. This is not possible in 1st person, and probably shouldn't be in 3rd either...

7. Spring from prone animation blending

When going into a spring directly from prone, the avatar starts by going into a slide on his kneecaps for a meter or two before he starts running. It looks really dumb, and it's also pretty unrealistic to be able to start moving forward so quickly from prone. Is there a way to make him stand up before starting the forward motion?

[lutorm]

8. Muzzle flashes not aligned with muzzle

This happened when moving the lmg around while firing. I also saw it during the online inf test, too. Either the barrel or the flash direction is lagging behind.

[lutorm]

9. Avatar glitches or vibrates when moving eyepoint.

This is hard to explain, but when moving the viewpoint, the parts of the avatar that aren't moving sort of vibrates. It's not a continuous motion, just single frames where arms, the gun, etc, are in slightly different positions. It looks a little like the movement you get when the ragdoll gets caught in some overconstrained position and just shakes like a crack fiend.

I wish I could capture it, but it seems 1.31 doesn't work with Growler cam anymore and if I use fraps it doesn't happen (maybe because framerate is so low when capturing).

[GOPHUR]

Bumping this for me to ticket later.

[GOPHUR]

1. When you turn, the avatar doesn't turn his body until you've turned >90 degrees.

Fine.

2. When you lean, the avatar will lean to the side using his lower body as reference...

Will ticket for a look. Not awful worried about it given lean is fairly useless IMHO. Very nice reporting. Thank you. #3808

3. Moving to external view changes the aim point.

I'll ticket this but not too awful worried about it. #3809

4. Moving when prone.

Agreed. Seen lots of this feedback. #3810

5. SMG reload anim

Not going to worry about these until our next thrid person redo.

6. LMG autodeploys in external view

Agreed but too minor to ticket a fix for. You can;t play in third person.

7. Spring from prone animation blending

Agreed. Probably can;t do anything short term but maybe. #3811

8. Muzzle flashes not aligned with muzzle

Again, offline only so pretty minor BUT it makes screenshots look stupid. #3812

9. Avatar glitches or vibrates when moving eyepoint.

More worried baout growler cam. Can you post on that seperate, I've not seen it. I'll keep an eye out for this bug as well and ticket if I see it. Do you get it with vsync enabled?

Nice report. TY.

[lutorm]

9. Avatar glitches or vibrates when moving eyepoint.

More worried baout growler cam. Can you post on that seperate, I've not seen it. I'll keep an eye out for this bug as well and ticket if I see it. Do you get it with vsync enabled?

I'll post separately about growler cam, but now it did (sort of) work, so I managed to capture a clip of the crack fiend effect.

http://governator.ucsc.edu/filer/avatar_crack_fiend.avi

Edit: and yes it happens with vsync on too, but it doesn't capture as well then.

Edited March 5, 2010 by lutorm

[lutorm]

8. Muzzle flashes not aligned with muzzle

Again, offline only so pretty minor BUT it makes screenshots look stupid. #3812

This is what I don't know: is the offline external rendering different from the third person rendering of other people online, so that these same issues won't happen there?

[jalik]

emote animations do not work in offline mode when watched in 3rd person view after you fired a shot and the avatar changes into this crouch-like position.

[GOPHUR]

This is what I don't know: is the offline external rendering different from the third person rendering of other people online' date=' so that these same issues won't happen there?[/quote']

Mostly correct. We do not consider third person offline to be valid testing. Everything must be confirmed with online looking at another player.

However, offline external is used for screen shots so anything particularly wonky we want to fix. Like muzzle flashes.