Shades Movement

[Buho]

Dev team: anyone familiar with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time book series? There's a type of creature called a ghoulm (sp) that's more snake-like than human. It doesn't have any bones, and moves like that. It can squeeze under doors, evade offensive strikes in combat with boneless fluidity, knife stabs don't effect it, and it can rip out the throat of a man. It also eats people for food. It's primary role is an assasain.

I was reminded of the gholum when thinking of the shades and gameplay movement. It would be really slick if you could animate/make the shades move in a "boneless" superhuman fashion. It would be a very distinctive addition to the game! (Turning, jumping, crouching, striking, running, mantling, etc.)

[-=V12US=-]

The problem would be how to animate it without it looking goofy.

Anyone who has seen The Incredibles knows what I'm talking about.

[Buho]

Not stretchy, boneless. Like instead of limbs bending at one joint, they would make a smooth curve occasionally (not all the time, but reverting to human-joints). Throw in some matrix moves like bending impossibly backward and you've got a kickass playermodel. It would look weird or creepy or not-humanlike. At least, that's how I see it.

[Microwave Oven]

Its a nice concept, but I really don't see how you could do such a thing efficiently. To get a smooth enough motion you would have to have a rather large amount of bones present in the skeleton. Then you would need to rig the skeleton with it's collection of bones to a skin (which would need textures), and then you'd need to animate the whole mess.

Its certainly doable, but the question really is, who's gonna take the large amount of time to do it? I'm already bogged down on the character model I'm working on, and I don't know if the rest of the team would have any free time to engineer it.

Its a nice concept, but until somebody actualizes it, a concept is all it will remain.

[Illuminus]

Also keep in mind that we using the UT2004 biped.. so that limits the animation part of it.

[Buho]

Dang. True dat.

[Radamanthus]

I read wheel of time, i've met Robert Jordan twice, and i've worn his hat that he modeled Matrim Cauthoun's on. A real great honor, i'm told. It's comfy.

Anyway, it sounds great. Let's see.. what book would the Gholam be in? Crown of Swords (seven) i think is the first appearance, but i'm certain that it eats people in Path of Daggers (eight). Ah yes. Path of Daggers is the jusge fight scene where Mat burns a hole in its skin using that weird glyph-type foxhead medallion. Yeah.

Devs, read these books, they're great and really capture the feeling of a time jsut before what that i hitnk nightblade is geared towards: a medieval scene where scholars are working with steam powered engines, and electric lights are just being thought of. AND it's where Dragon got his name.

[immortius]

I hate them. Sorry.

[Rodent]

AND it's where Dragon got his name.

Well... they're sure to make an exception in THAT case

[Buho]

No, I asked him. He had no clue what I was talking about.

[DeepQantas]

I would rather the devs read "Ill Met in Lankhmar" / "Thieves' House" and "Lords of Quarmall" by Fritz Leiber.

Thieves and shades, respectively.

And the stories don't last a dozen books.