Great link. Thanks for that.

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Original post by Vopisk Anyway, understanding now that you want to compress the application down to work on a controller makes more sense why the limitation on the amount of buttons, however, I don't have the experience with dealing with controllers in programming to know what keypress combinations would be possible to solve the problem, however, I would stick with the 1-9 paradigm for keyboard users, as it is commonly used and familiar to most gamers.

Oh, it's not really related to programming. What I was speaking of is that the keyboard can only send so many "signals" at once. I really have no idea how the hardware works, but I imagine that certain groups of keys are branched together and sent through a single pathway to the computer. Try holding down A + S. While holding these down, the W key is ignored, but E and Q will work fine.

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My question regarding the graphical implementation would refer to I suppose, the point of view of the camera, that is, if you're in a roving 3rd-person perspective, you're going to have to show the back-sword being sheathed before the player can draw out his hip-sword/mace, which presents a lot more modelling than a standard FPS which would enable a quick swapping out of weapons.

I love working with 3D animation. It might be my favorite game development chore. It's so simple to churn out an action animation, and it works with every character in the game. So it's like drawing 2000 sprites in a few minutes. Plus you can blend, mix, transition, and do all sorts of crazy stuff with them. But anyway, yeah, it's 3rd person. And the characters are just as animated as the sims. More so, considering the sims don't open doors :P

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Once again for the sake of realism however, I ask, is it feasible to have both a "great sword", bow and shield all strapped to your back and can you quickly and accurately use each one?

Bows are strapped to the same location as 2-handed swords. I considered making the shield use that same location. But imagine wanting to specialize with 1-handed and shield, and needing that bow for long distance. What they have equipped is all they can use.

For what it's worth, I'm not on the realism kick. I like to keep the world as believable as possible, but believable doesn't equal realistic. I think it's far worse having things vanish into thin air when you unequip them than it is to have a big sword and shield strapped to your back at once.

I appreciate the suggestions. I'm still trying to sort my mess out.

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Original post by Kest For what it's worth, I'm not on the realism kick. I like to keep the world as believable as possible, but believable doesn't equal realistic. I think it's far worse having things vanish into thin air when you unequip them than it is to have a big sword and shield strapped to your back at once. I appreciate the suggestions. I'm still trying to sort my mess out.

I know, but being one of the rare individuals on the "realism kick" I have to bring it up as often as possible in an attempt to rally more people to my cause! I would agree with you that it is much better to have a believable amount of equipment strapped on your person rather than having some disembodied "inventory" where your character can miraculously carry three full suits of armor and an array of five two-handed swords. That's the real sticking point with me. But that's a topick for another discussion, now that we've got all the kinks worked out with misunderstandings.

I wasn't fully aware of how keyboards worked, or that holding any series of buttons down would disable other buttons, but it's interesting knowledge to have for future reference. I know that both left and right shift as well as control and alt can be used for macroing up the game and allowing for quick change out of weapons and whatnot, possibly with even less than four buttons. However, as I said I didn't even know that keyboards routed keys through the same paths and therefore created bottlenecks, so I don't know how that would all work. And since I'm really tired, I don't think I'll research it tonight, but maybe tomorrow...

Anyway, good luck.

Vopisk

Ack. I just went back to the design plan to see how well it might work to only allow one back item, and I see why I decided to sheath the shield onto a seperate slot: Spears. Spears are one handed, but too long to go anywhere but the back. They can't be dual wielded, but a shield can definitely be used. If they can't equip it, anyone wanting to use a spear & shield will have to pick one half of that combo up from a dead body every time they start combat.

It still comes down to 2 back items, 2 hip items, and a concealed item that isn't needed until nothing else is available. That's four, and I have just enough directions for it :)

Could you have the spear occupy the "right hip" slot and simply appear on the back? Say it's attached pointing downward, aligned from the left shoulder to the right hip. When you draw it, you character reaches behind him and pulls it down and forward to ready it. It would leave the right side knife sheath conspicuously empty, but I doubt players will mind.

Here's an idea: You could use a handful of different locations for each "slot". A thigh holster for a pistol, a hatchet secured at the back of your belt, a big revolver strapped across your chest, or a combat knife sheathed on your left shoulder could all occupy the "single handed right side" equipment slot. It would complicate animations, of course, but would offer considerable flexibility for things like spears. You'd still only have one such weapon available at a time, to adhere to the control schemes and keep players from covering every inch of their body with sheaths.

To keep it simple, though, a spear on the back as I've described and a knife on the hip could be wangled to use the same retrieving animation, if you do it right. A quick reach-and-pull and it's in your hand. No sweat.

Edit: I checked out your site, and the screenies are very nice. Do you do your own modelling? Is there someplace I can go to learn more about your project? The site was just pics.

About the key configuration, for a gamepad, I'd imagine something like this.

You have 2 buttons, one to move the selection up, and another to move the selection down. Pressing one of these fades in a graphical list of your weapons on the side. I'm picturing something like the one in Turok 2, anyone remember that? :) It looks pretty cool and there are many more games nowadays with an interface like this.

Anyways, you move your selection to the weapon or shield you want, wait a second to confirm, and now what it does is, instead of simply "changing weapons" to that one, it will either equip it or unequip it, replacing another one only if it's really needed. To solve conflicts of what replaces what, no one-handed weapon ever replaces the shield.
So if you're bare-handed, to equip a short sword and a shield is a matter of selecting both. Select your rapier and it replaces your short sword.
If now you want to go berzerker style and fight with both weapons, select your shield to put it away and then select the short sword. To sheathe both weapons, select them both.
Two-handed weapons are even simplier since they will always make you put away whatever it is you have equiped.

This way, you can chose any configuration, without ever making more than 2 selections! Not bad for just 2 buttons :)

If you're targetting the PC, I'd think that you could really rely on more than 4 buttons for the gamepad (most I've seen these days have 8+ buttons - 4 normal buttons, 2 triggers, and two analog sticks that can be pressed as buttons also).

Even ignoring this, I really like the idea of having a 'Select Weapon' button that pops up a circular menu as long as you hold it down, and then press the direction of the combo you want (or no direction for unarmed). You can most probably count on at least 8 directions (standard d-pad - obviously more directions are possible with an analog stick), so that should be plenty to choose any combo possible. I imagine you won't be switching weapons constantly in combat, but if the game is single player, you might want to make the game pause while you hold the 'Select Weapon' button, so players have time to look at the menu and decide which weapon combo to use.

Here's yet another possibility [edit: Which has been predicted by Extrarius above!]. I could create a directional type menu that pops up when you hold down a certain "equip" button. You hold the button down, press and hold a direction, then release the button. The different directions could either represent a single equipment or a single configuration. The game would behave nearly the same with either setup. Puting away what conflicts, then pulling out what is needed.

Here's an ugly moch up to give an example. I would probably literally render the weapons and not draw sprites:



Any opinions on that? I kind of forgot about throwing a fist or such in there to represent unarmed, but you can get the idea.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage Could you have the spear occupy the "right hip" slot and simply appear on the back?

Well, having the spear on the back isn't an issue. I mean it would work the same way. You would just press up (or whatever represents the back) instead of right. I really wanted spears to be a secondary weapon - still allowing side arms. Mostly because of Hoplites, who used a short sword, spear, and shield, all at once. They may have not carried it on their back, but my characters need their hands when not in combat.

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Edit: I checked out your site, and the screenies are very nice. Do you do your own modelling? Is there someplace I can go to learn more about your project? The site was just pics.

I haven't had very much time to work on it yet. To be honest, I'm not sure what to put up on it. Nearly everything is still in progress except the world design. And I didn't really want to give that away - should be experienced in the game. I suppose I can list features of the game and such. But I'm still trying to get a decent demo before I do that.

Oh, and yeah, I do the modeling. Pretty terrible, huh? I'm getting slightly better as I go. I just added normal mapping. Notice his toes? Those aren't real - just a texture. Now I just need to fake his ears.

The models look good, and from the stills, I have high hopes for your animations. I noticed the tights and mask. Making him a ninja for the 4e4?

Isn't the hoplite's setup ill-suited to single combat? The hoplon only really covers half of you, since you're counting on the next guy to guard your right side, and most of the tactics seemed to involve a lot of guys not moving around very much.

Besides which, a hoplite's spear is hypothesized to have been about eight feet long. I doubt anyone would be strapping that to them anywhere. I'd say you'd carry that monster around, and lower it into a fighting position to deploy it. When you switch to a sword or other weapon, you throw the spear on the ground.

I think you're on the right track with the menu wheel. It does seem to require a gamepad, but I'm sure some secondary option to use keyboard commands can do the same thing. Will you have pausing during weapon switches? It hurts immersion a little, but it would be nice to have a moment to really look at what you're switching to. I was always grabbing the wrong gun in Turok, and then swearing.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage I think you're on the right track with the menu wheel. It does seem to require a gamepad, but I'm sure some secondary option to use keyboard commands can do the same thing.

Neverwinter Nights uses a nested version of this set-up for most of its commands, and it works fairly well. The numeric keypad is mapped to the directions in the wheel, so if you know the command positions you can just type in the number code to get the command you want.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage The models look good, and from the stills, I have high hopes for your animations. I noticed the tights and mask. Making him a ninja for the 4e4?

Demo real soon. I'm really going to need some help testing the engine out. So far, this is the only PC it has been run on. That's pretty scary, considering how far along it's getting. So the real hidden purpose of the demo is to do just that. But I'll try to trick everyone into thinking they're really having fun.

I had never heard of the 4e4 until you mentioned it.. and I did a search. But wow, I do have a variation of robots (ancient police mech units that have never stopped functioning), characters can dress and evolve like ninjas (sneaking, climbing, shurikens), and more than half of the world's population consists of wandering zombies. No pirates, though. There actually won't be any ninjas in the game. None that I have planned anyway. I just figured some players might want to do the ninja thing on their own. A lot of the abilities that characters can go for are pretty ninja like, so I figured why not add a few suits to let them play the part?

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Isn't the hoplite's setup ill-suited to single combat? The hoplon only really covers half of you, since you're counting on the next guy to guard your right side, and most of the tactics seemed to involve a lot of guys not moving around very much.

I'm really just liking the idea of a big shield and spear. The animation maps can define special animations for special equipment. For example, a thrust attack with shields that have a spike on the front. Normally this attack might slash the side of the shield down the enemy. Or, even special stances for special equipment. Another example, where normal shields might have a stance that holds the shield up and slashes around it, a special shield stance for tower shields will be added. Like proping it against the ground and hiding behind it. The character could move around slowly, dragging the shield, and do thrust attacks from the side. This would be really useful against just about anything. Something would need to either tear through your shield, knock it out of your grip, or get around to your back. So effective in fact, that I'm not sure I should let my AI use that tactic.

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Besides which, a hoplite's spear is hypothesized to have been about eight feet long. I doubt anyone would be strapping that to them anywhere. I'd say you'd carry that monster around, and lower it into a fighting position to deploy it. When you switch to a sword or other weapon, you throw the spear on the ground.

That's still possible. I doubt I'll create eight foot spears, but normal objects can be used as weapons. Sticks, brooms, pitchforks, flag poles.. even pens and pencils (shurikens!). I hadn't thought about it yet, but I could create weapons (or objects to be used as such) that cannot be sheathed. In fact, that is most likely necessary with things like Pitchforks. I'm glad you brought that up before I tried tweaking the back sheath to fit crazy stuff on it.

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I think you're on the right track with the menu wheel. It does seem to require a gamepad, but I'm sure some secondary option to use keyboard commands can do the same thing. Will you have pausing during weapon switches? It hurts immersion a little, but it would be nice to have a moment to really look at what you're switching to. I was always grabbing the wrong gun in Turok, and then swearing.

What's wrong with holding a key and pressing W+A for up-left? Or if you use other keys for movement, up+left and other directions should be something that is used quite frequently.

As for pausing, I would hate to do so. Don't get me wrong, I'll make sure the menu is fast and responsive. But if I always keep the weapon configurations in the same directions (like sidearm and shield is always up, dual always up-left), I don't think it would take long to memorize. Still, adding a pause to it would take seconds, so I'll test it out. Plus you guys can all yell about it when I get that demo up, if you want to try it.

Thanks for all of the help :)