Why do games still use canned animations.

[TheRat62]

I don't get why developers still use canned death animations in video games.

Especially games that do have some sort of ragdoll physics in the game.

These days it seems they would rather use a mixture of scripted death animations and then let the physics take over after the body falls.

The argument is that it's somehow more realistic for people to fall down slowly often holding the bullet wound where they've been shot.

Ok maybe that makes sense if you were shot and killed by a single shot from a handgun but if you're being shot with an assault rifle at point blank range you're going down hard and fast so it doesn't make any sense for a spartan to grab their toe and then slowly fall down after being shot in the chest with an assault rifle.

Also, its not realistic to see the same 4-5 death animations play over and over again each time you kill someone.

So to me, death animations being more "realistic" than strictly just ragdoll physics is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. The way a body falls should be completely natural and somewhat different each time someone is shot.

I notice when you melee enemies in the Halo games there is no death animation and it's strictly just physics that take over so why do we still need death animations when shooting enemies?

I don't buy the "realistic" excuse there's some other reason that they're still using death animations. I know it's fully possible to have completely unscripted physics based deaths because in Halo 4 when I got bored I started shooting my team mates in the campaign and there are no death animations when killing teammates but for some reason when killing the covenant there are death animations.

[Corpulent Swine]

You're begging for realism in a game where you fight aliens.

[wwm0nkey]

I mean Halo has animations that go into ragdoll

[Sifer2]

Honestly I think ragdoll physics was actually a step back in some ways. Unless your going to go very realistic with your blood/gore rag doll just looks funny. Like a living breathing creature just turned into a crash dummy that slumps over in odd positions. And any kind of physic bug just makes it look even dumber.

In comparison I was playing an older shooter Turok recently, and was impressed by the death animations. Like a guy grabbing his neck as a stream of blood shoots out when you shoot him with an arrow then passing out. Halo had some good one's too like Elites dying while their plasma rifle is still shooting.

[TheRat62]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Deathscare:

I have no idea why you want complete realism in games.

It's not even so much about realism. As many have pointed out ragdolls often times are not realistic.

It's about preventing repetition.

When shooting for an entire game (however long it may be) ragdolls can make each kill feel unique which stops the gameplay from getting boring.

Even when the ragdolls glitch and it sends bodies flying or the ragdoll starts to move after it hits the ground it's lots of fun.

Certain games with incredible gameplay Like the resident evil games and the original Halo (Combat Evolved) it doesn't tend to bother me as much because the story, characters, gameplay and enemies are so good that I don't care about that stuff.

But with the newer more soulless games that are kind of dull in terms of story and characters it's nice to have the ragdoll physics so that at least the gameplay is as fun as it possibly can be. Because they aren't making games with great level design and AI anymore so they may as well get the physics right.

It just gets old very fast seeing the same 1-2 death animations play out over and over and over again especially in games where the ai is terrible and isn't providing me much of a challenge.

I dunno, in 2020, I just think death animations are extremely dated and repetitive.

[TheRat62]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Sifer2:

Honestly I think ragdoll physics was actually a step back in some ways. Unless your going to go very realistic with your blood/gore rag doll just looks funny. Like a living breathing creature just turned into a crash dummy that slumps over in odd positions. And any kind of physic bug just makes it look even dumber.

In comparison I was playing an older shooter Turok recently, and was impressed by the death animations. Like a guy grabbing his neck as a stream of blood shoots out when you shoot him with an arrow then passing out. Halo had some good one's too like Elites dying while their plasma rifle is still shooting.

They used to do death animations better. When they used animations at least they made sure they were good ones. I love the one from combat evolved where the elites let out a scream of agony and fall forward still firing their gun.

That said, it's still very repetitive. And in todays games, when they use canned animations I don't find they make very memorable ones anymore.

I dunno, I really just feel that natural physics help the game feel a little less predictable. They add this element surprise in that if you play multiple playthroughs you can always count on each kill feeling different on each playthrough.

The worst game I ever played for this was Far Cry Instincts on the original xbox. There was only 1 death animation and it was a body falling straight back slowly. I got through the half of the game and couldn't play anymore because the game was feeling too repetitive.

I know that shooters are generally pretty repetitive. But I feel that physics and ragdolls and other crazy explosions and graphical affects can help offset that and keep things fresh.

It sort of balances out the repetition.

[Helcyk]

i don't understand what is he talking about only Halo 1 had canned death animations for the ennemis like the covenants or the zombie floods and allies like UNSC marines. The other games has ragdolls