Lately I've been playing “Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition” and it's a really great game... frustrating, infuriating, brutal... but fun.
However it at some points has kinda tickled up a small issue quite some games have, conveying size of enemies though their movements.
For the most part Dark Souls does quite well there. The Giants and most big enemies you encounter a bit later on do move like they are huge creatures.
It's just a few that tickled this and reminded me of this topic, for example the GIANT giant rats in the sewers which move like regular sized ones that have just been increased in size... which is probably what has been done here :-p
Or the final boss of the "Artorias of the Abyss" expansion, or as I like to refer to him "Spaz Monkey", who really seems to move way too fast and agile for his size.
Now,
this is not to criticize Dark Souls, just in case someone got the wrong
idea here, and lets be honest, this is the Internet, someone WILL have
gotten the wrong idea here, so lets clarify.
The main meat here is that oftentimes animators and developers don't seem to take size, mass and momentum into account. While this isn't a huge issue in itself, if the game still plays well there's not a real problem, it does waste a bit of potential. That potential being to really convey size other than just making something look big.
A small example is between “Mechwarrior 3” and “Mechwarrior 4”.
In 3 the mechs moved rather slow, the faster ones both needed time to speed up and to slow down again and overall the movements felt heavy and somewhat slow. In 4 they moved a lot faster, could accelerate and decelerate pretty fast and where overall more agile.
While this is largely done for gameplay, fast and agile is more engaging, it did make them lose a lot of the feeling of size and weight, it felt less like you controlled a 40 meter behemoth but more like you controlled the 4 meter tall X1-Alpha from “Future Cop: LAPD” which is a small mech that's supposed to be fast and agile.
On the topic, my brother sent me a video a bit ago about the eruption of a volcano in Iceland which tossed out huge lava bombs. While you do get a certain scale by seeing people near the eruption site, simply seeing how slow they apparently move does convey a lot of their size.
If you want to check the video out, here's a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgih2TL-9As
Now, the primary problem if course, what does this mean for gameplay.
For players this would mean losing a bit of “control” in a way. If something huge has been set in motion it's hard to stop again. This does already work in a lot of driving games, a huge truck will take a lot longer to get to a halt than a small city car.
You would be more at the mercy of physics which can be an off-putting thought but should be doable with some time to get used to certain quirks.
For NPCs this is less a problem, what has to be done it actually make the move appropriate to their mass. A small issue again though is consistency, the player has to be able to rely on big mass meaning more momentum. If an enemy can swing a 20 ton hammer but simply fully turn around mid swing it breaks both the illusion and being able to rely on a tactic.
An enemy that's huge and heavy and does a jump your direction should still carry the momentum and slide or roll on quite a bit before coming to a stop and not just behave like a scaled up version of a regular sized person.
Inversely the momentum issue does also work out for smaller scale.
Oftentimes, especially in First Person games, character and especially the player seem to have no momentum at all. Again this is often done for gameplay, however I personally think the issue is simply being afraid to try it.
I have tried out the first person view mod for GTA4, as you may know when you played it you do have a good bit of weight to you, it takes a bit to get into a full run and to stop from it and while sprinting you can't take tight corners too well. And surprisingly, it actually feels very natural after a little bit, all you need is some getting into it. And for GTA4 not being designed for first person this still says something.
And of course a little problem with seeming to apply too MUCH weight at times. See how slow you often move melee weapons (especially swords) or when punches seem to move at walking speed.
I personally like to refer to that as “reenactment accuracy” as this is probably done by watching people do reenactments and show fights. Of course this misses a little detail, the actors of course are trying to not kill or hurt each other, which is kinda the point of fighting. So of course they will throw their hits slower and and more careful.
My advice, watch the reenactments but then give them some foam batons and just let them wail away at each other as well, that should give you a small idea of them really throwing punches. While that isn't that accurate as well try to find a bit of a middle there.
Anyway that's all for now, hope my next installment will not take one and a half years to write up.
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