DIY motion capture

This might be of interest to any game-makers or animators in our midst. Poor animation with unconvincing kinetics is a bugbear of mine, and still bedevils too many games. It's quite impressive what people have achieved using this software and a couple of Kinect cameras.

http://ipisoft.com/

yeah, I have looked into this before, now that it is so accessible, we'll probably see better animation in a lot of none AAA games.

I hope so. For me, good animation is part of what makes gameplay work in a realtime game.

I'm not speaking only about animation here, but I find in many contemporary games, RPGs in particular, lots of effort is put into the content, but insufficient effort is put into the primary mechanics that make gameplay enjoyable. Whether it is twitch or tactical, RPG games are first and foremost combat games, and yet the combat often seems to receive little thought, in terms of playability.

If I were to create an RPG, I would start by creating and refining a combat engine in a simple wireframe space. I'd create all sorts of combat scenarios, experiment with the environment, obstacles, cover, engaging multiple opponents, ranged combat, and so on. The acid test for me would be whether it could stand as an enjoyable little arena combat game, with no other content at all. Only then would I proceed to create a wider gameworld and content.

Originally Posted by Ripper
I hope so. For me, good animation is part of what makes gameplay work in a realtime game.

I'm not speaking only about animation here, but I find in many contemporary games, RPGs in particular, lots of effort is put into the content, but insufficient effort is put into the primary mechanics that make gameplay enjoyable. Whether it is twitch or tactical, RPG games are first and foremost combat games, and yet the combat often seems to receive little thought, in terms of playability.

If I were to create an RPG, I would start by creating and refining a combat engine in a simple wireframe space. I'd create all sorts of combat scenarios, experiment with the environment, obstacles, cover, engaging multiple opponents, ranged combat, and so on. The acid test for me would be whether it could stand as an enjoyable little arena combat game, with no other content at all. Only then would I proceed to create a wider gameworld and content.

Yes, it is strange that many AAA companies don't take this approach. In many of the latest AAA games, combat and other gameplay is almost like an afterthought… in Far Cry Primal for example, they didn't even add the ability to dodge/parry/block.

Why not create a experiment box for gameplay first and foremost and then build the game. I bet that Dark Souls for example took this approach, it has such a refined combat compared to most other games in the genre.

I think you might be right. At their best, Japanese games (not so much jrpgs) strongly prioritise gameplay. Even something like a Mario game, which seem might casual by comparison to an RPG, is extremely well thought-out. You are given a range of capabilities, gain more as you go along, and can pick things up to assist you. Then it throws constantly varying situations at you, forcing you to work out how best to use the options available to you to solve the situation. A lot of RPGs could learn something from that.