Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (Full Version)

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pacwar -> Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/1/2005 1:15:58 AM)

All,

You may have already beaten this one to death in previous posts but while I think the game is great I am disappointed in the combat graphics...how shall I say this, they are primitive. I know I can turn them off and I do, but I'd like to get the detailed information they include. This is obviously one of the SSG contributions to the game, very similar to their great naval battles graphics, and I didn't like it in that game either.

I don't see why that portion of the game couldn't more sophisticated. Why not use actual film footage as a surogate for the graphics....at least display the hit and damage information under the film. What I have in mind is very similar to the film Gary G. used in his Patton Strikes Back game, which I liked very much despite the negative reviews from game "experts". Anyone else think the animation sequence needs an overhaul or should I worry about more important things?

db



dtravel -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/1/2005 1:28:05 AM)

I suspect that most of the people here will tell you to worry about other things. At this point a major graphics overhaul & change is not going to happen. As for why it was done this way in the first place, I can't say. But keep in mind that the game is being sold as a digital download and graphics (even more so movies) take a lot of megabytes.



WiTP_Dude -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/1/2005 1:30:05 AM)

I think the graphics are a compromise between those who want sophisticated graphics and those who don't need any at all. Of course neither group is happy but what else is new? [:D]



pacwar -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/1/2005 2:07:08 AM)

I suspect you're right about the impact on the size of the game and ability to transmit it digitally...and I believe film would result in an increase in size, although I'm not sure...but the graphics don't have to be even that complicated. I liked the simple ships displayed at the bottom of the screen in the original PACIFIC WAR game that showed the level of damage as the surface battle or air stike took place. As WiTP Dude suggests, what we've got is a compromise on several levels...I just think it could have been done better without compromising the size of the program.

db



erstad -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/1/2005 2:10:28 AM)

What I wish for would be that the combat report would have all the essential information so I don't have to watch the animations (watch, click escape, watch, click escape, rinse, repeat).

I'd rather go off and start a load of laundry or something and come back and just read it.



kokubokan25 -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/1/2005 8:04:30 PM)

May be the graphics are some primitive.
May be is a game with some many little bugs and (of course) many things to improve but...
I'm playing it from july 2004 and this is the only pc game i playing so many time continuously.
Rome Total War, Pacific fighters, Hearts of Iron, and many more spent my atention only some weeks, this not the case of WITP.
[X(]



mucky -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/1/2005 8:22:23 PM)

I acutally enjoy watching some of the animations: surface combat, dive bombers attacking ships and sub attacks.

the only combat animation i dont like is ground combat, all it is really is numbers lowering and rising. If i had to change anyone of those it would be ground combat.



Mike Scholl -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/1/2005 9:28:35 PM)

Personally, I'd have been just as happy to have had them left out entirely.
They can't compete with the graphics of "shooter" games, and about the
10th repetition I imagine most people turn them off anyway. Better to
have had more detailed combat reports, and would have saved resources
for things that do matter to the play of the game.....



Mynok -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/2/2005 5:04:57 AM)

Yep, agree there. The only combat animations worth watching are naval strikes and the ground combat (the latter only to get the identity of enemy units involved).



pacwar -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/2/2005 5:07:58 AM)

Mike,

I must agree with you in the end. If they aren't going to do them well, don't do them at all...they subtract from the overall game and obviously use up valuable bytes that could go towards other things...I gotta believe somebody from the SSG group had too much influence on the final product.

db



pasternakski -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/2/2005 5:23:30 AM)

They ain't changin'. Way back in the UV days, there was a clamor to change the surface combat "junior high school dance" depiction (so called because it resembles those dances with the boys lined up against one wall and the girls lined up against the other). The explanation was that the animation already showed more than what was actually going on in the code.

So, here we are. We hear noises that resemble bombs dropping and torpedoes splashing, but we never see them unless they hit or, in the case of bombs, splash in the water.



Strv103C -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/2/2005 5:27:43 AM)

I would like to see a port when doing port bombing, not an airfield (or what it is).



Cap Mandrake -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/2/2005 6:32:40 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

They ain't changin'. Way back in the UV days, there was a clamor to change the surface combat "junior high school dance" depiction (so called because it resembles those dances with the boys lined up against one wall and the girls lined up against the other). The explanation was that the animation already showed more than what was actually going on in the code.

So, here we are. We hear noises that resemble bombs dropping and torpedoes splashing, but we never see them unless they hit or, in the case of bombs, splash in the water.


"Junior High School Dance" [:D]

Not to mention that the perspective on the ship art doesnt match the horizon on the water [;)]



pasternakski -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/2/2005 7:42:51 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Strv103C

I would like to see a port when doing port bombing, not an airfield (or what it is).

I would like to see something that doesn't resemble Grandpa's black vinyl padded toilet seat cushion with vague gray stuff floating around down below.

I would like to see it. I know I ain't getting it.



Strv103C -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/2/2005 8:19:33 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

quote:

ORIGINAL: Strv103C

I would like to see a port when doing port bombing, not an airfield (or what it is).

I would like to see something that doesn't resemble Grandpa's black vinyl padded toilet seat cushion with vague gray stuff floating around down below.

I would like to see it. I know I ain't getting it.

well, when you say it... [:D]



mucky -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/2/2005 11:00:23 PM)

Speaking of animations has anyone seen the Naval Bombardment and City Attack animations. Id never seen them before i went snoping around the game files! [:'(]



GPitre -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/11/2005 11:32:05 PM)

All agreed here -- the combat animations are nothing special...and that's being charitable.

Even so, I've been willing to give the designers a break considering the massive amount of detail & data they've incorporated into the game. If I want whizz-bang graphical fun I can always pop in Call of Duty for a half hour or so...

On the other hand...my big complaint is with the *strategic* map graphics. I am not an artist, a programmer, or a game producer, but even I could have figured a way to pack a little more information and ease of use into the task force icons without taking up more space.

I bet Nimitz and Yamamoto never had to squint at their wall map with a magnifying glass to figure out if they were looking at a BB or CV...

-G



BlackVoid -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/12/2005 11:15:20 AM)

I like the animations.

3D scenes from Aces of the Pacific would be nice, but what we have is good enough for the game.



Cap Mandrake -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/12/2005 7:34:41 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

quote:

ORIGINAL: Strv103C

I would like to see a port when doing port bombing, not an airfield (or what it is).

I would like to see something that doesn't resemble Grandpa's black vinyl padded toilet seat cushion with vague gray stuff floating around down below.

I would like to see it. I know I ain't getting it.


Keep this thread going. I want to see some more of Pasternaki's analogies. [:D]

Balck vinyl toilet seat cushion [:D] That has to be unsanitary



mlees -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/12/2005 7:43:56 PM)

quote:

Balck vinyl toilet seat cushion That has to be unsanitary


Not really.

See, the toilet seat is on hinges, and you can raise it up to a vertical position when a male must use the toilet from a standing position...

[image]local://upfiles/10157/Rp449589521.jpg[/image]



pasternakski -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/12/2005 7:53:23 PM)

Nawp, it wuz the seat part that wuz padded. Gramma bought 'er at K-Mart fer the ole man, and he wuz the only one what used it, so he didn't care what was on it. It mighta been scat, but it was HIS scat, so he could wallow in it while he grunted away and read the paper.

I think she bought it for him because she was sick and tired of cleaning up after the old b@stard (that was what she called him behind his back - "the old b@stard").



Cap Mandrake -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/12/2005 8:13:30 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mlees

quote:

Balck vinyl toilet seat cushion That has to be unsanitary


Not really.

See, the toilet seat is on hinges, and you can raise it up to a vertical position when a male must use the toilet from a standing position...

[image]local://upfiles/10157/Rp449589521.jpg[/image]


Whoa! That works really well! I dare say it is fun too.

Thanks mlees. You've changed my life [&o]



Cap Mandrake -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/12/2005 8:17:11 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

Nawp, it wuz the seat part that wuz padded. Gramma bought 'er at K-Mart fer the ole man, and he wuz the only one what used it, so he didn't care what was on it. It mighta been scat, but it was HIS scat, so he could wallow in it while he grunted away and read the paper.

I think she bought it for him because she was sick and tired of cleaning up after the old b@stard (that was what she called him behind his back - "the old b@stard").


"scat"...you are killing me [:D]

The mental image of the old guy sitting on his scent-marked vinyl toilet seat making odd noise and reading the box scores [:D]



mlees -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/12/2005 8:34:13 PM)

The only problem I have with vinyl seat cushions is that if you are seated on one, and it is very hot in the bathroom, and you perspire a whole lot, standing up is usually accompanied by a sound not unlike velcro being pulled apart. Very annoying.



Tankerace -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/12/2005 8:37:06 PM)

Don't forget the ripping of the hairs off of you ass....

Yeah, I got one for a present too... not sure how I should take it.

Anyway, in the summer, you get up after taking a crap and/or reading the paper, and RRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPP, Then, your bald for a while [:D]



mlees -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/12/2005 10:14:11 PM)

[:D] I have good genes. I don't have a hair on my fanny. [:D]



pasternakski -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/13/2005 12:59:03 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mlees

The only problem I have with vinyl seat cushions is that if you are seated on one, and it is very hot in the bathroom, and you perspire a whole lot, standing up is usually accompanied by a sound not unlike velcro being pulled apart. Very annoying.

Yeah, I had a Jewish Princess girlfriend in high school who weighed about a concrete block too much, and she made exactly that sound when she got up off my Volkswagen vinyl car seat. Also, whenever she wore pantyhose, she made that "whish-slap, whish-slap" sound that you hate for your friends to hear when you're with her.

Her mother chainsmoked cigarettes out of the corner of her mouth like Burgess Meredith as the Penguin in the old Batman TV series, but that's another story ... for another hopelessly off-topic thread ...



pasternakski -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/13/2005 1:00:11 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mlees

[:D] I don't have a hair on my fanny. [:D]

Jeez, how can you stand being with a bald woman?



Thayne -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/13/2005 5:04:19 PM)

Obviously, the graphics are not the best possible.

However, I have . . . for a number of years now . . . bemoaned the fact that people who make games (and movies, and television shows) put so much money into visual effects and ignore content.

I have long said that, if I were to ever inherit such a company, the first thing I would do is fire half of the graphic artists and use the money that I saved to hire some writers/programmers.

So, yes, the combat animations suck. But if money was going to be spent improving the game, I would rather have them pay programmers to improve the AI, then artists to improve the combat animations.



mapr -> RE: Anyone else think the combat animation needs help? (1/13/2005 7:52:54 PM)

I don't watch combat animations. Have seen for couple minutes worth of those so far.

In UV I watched combat replays and combat reports while watching the replay.

In WITP, I watch replays only if something important is about to happen. Usually I just check text reports and do my turn. But in Wipt turn will always run without popup combat reports.



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