So there's going to be talking emotes.

[Kyatai]

Ahh... well that would explain it.

Too bad though... can you imagine how awesome a game it would be if we could take all the great stuff from other games and cram it into one?

The developers and producers would make a mint.

 

But yeah... didn't think about patents. *grumble*

They are good to protect your interests... but bad when they stop progression! haha

[Aulairet]

Hrmm. That'll be interesting. I really do like how much FF14 developers have put thought into emotes, the ability to interact with environments. It is really something that nearly no longer exists in the MMO world. Its a nice change. I missed it.

This is like, exactly what I was going to say almost. SE is really putting some fun extras that they really don't have to, but make the game so much more. Especially for us RPers, very very cool! :thumbsup:

[Averis]

EDIT: DAMMIT, AVERIS! BEAT ME TO IT!

 

Hehe, I'm no game programmer, though I've dabbled a little, but I do know 3D animation, and even in that industry skeletons (rigs) from one project to the next can be vastly different. You would think since they are all human it would be pretty standardized, and while there are some standard rigs, everyone has their own ways of doing things and each project has its own requirements.

[Ildur]

Even if someone 'did it before', you still have to adapt it to your current game/engine/programming language, and perhaps you'll run into technical difficulties that will render it impossible to do.

 

There's a lot of factors that could be the issue. Resource allocation is the most likely.Modern videogames eat a lot of computer resources to work, mostly on visuals. All those high-res textures take a lot of space and quite a lot of memory to load and show, not to mention all the shadow and light calculations, and a lot of other systems that need to be processed. I'm guessing doing a phenome system like the one FreelanceWizard mentions would, perhaps, not be that taxing to the system on its own. But you also have to consider that you can have many people in the screen talking at the same time, and for each text line you have to run the process and show the result.

 

In ARR, however, I think they wouldn't have much of a problem besides designing the whole system to work properly. They'd need a lot of animations to fit the words and the pauses, though, so it's hard to say. And while it looks like it should be a simple task...well, it isn't. That's the thing with programming: maybe that window with the 3D preview of your charcater that you can open and close in a second actually took a week of programming. Not because it's hard, perhaps, but because programmers run into problems, bugs and glitches all the time. Maybe the render window was rendering the wrong armor, or the wrong colors, or the wrong race, and they couldn't find the error until after a week.

Now imagine something as complex as a phenome system. It would take them a lot of time and a programmer that is stuck in such a complex system is a programmer that isn't programming other, probably more important gameplay things.

 

EDIT: Ninja'ed like, two times. I'm so slow and old and get out of my lawn!

[Lren]

Ahh... well that would explain it.

Too bad though... can you imagine how awesome a game it would be if we could take all the great stuff from other games and cram it into one?

The developers and producers would make a mint.

 

But yeah... didn't think about patents. *grumble*

They are good to protect your interests... but bad when they stop progression! haha

It's wishful thinking, sadly.

 

You can occasionally 'leverage' code that has been written before, so long as credit is given and such. But when money gets involved, things are generally re-done as to make full profit and avoid all the plagiarism mess. That's not even mention what transferring a line of code from one language to another... That's a whole other mess! XDD

 

EDIT: DAMMIT, AVERIS! BEAT ME TO IT!

 

Hehe, I'm no game programmer, though I've dabbled a little, but I do know 3D animation, and even in that industry skeletons (rigs) from one project to the next can be vastly different. You would think since they are all human it would be pretty standardized, and while there are some standard rigs, everyone has their own ways of doing things and each project has its own requirements.

 

I've seen some packages that come with a standard human rig. Would be nice to see more of that but then again, it can look different depending on what environment it's running in !

[Averis]

I've seen some packages that come with a standard human rig. Would be nice to see more of that but then again, it can look different depending on what environment it's running in !

 

That's the thing about rigs, though. A pre-built rig might be good for prototyping, but it's often that it will break or not control the model properly for certain motions. It really depends on what is needed. And really, good luck getting all animators to agree on the best type of rig. I can imagine it would be nearly impossible to get all gaming studios to do the same.

 

EDIT: Just to add, it's not only about how the rig can control the model, but each animator has their own preference for how they like to control and access certain features and motions in a rig. So that alone can cause a big discrepancy in rig preference as well. That can also change depending on if you are using mocap or hand animating or both (though, usually, mocap needs some clean up anyway).

 

Anyway, sorry for getting off topic... >.>

[Lren]

That's the thing about rigs, though. A pre-built rig might be good for prototyping, but it's often that it will break or not control the model properly for certain motions. It really depends on what is needed. And really, good luck getting all animators to agree on the best type of rig. I can imagine it would be nearly impossible to get all gaming studios to do the same.

 

EDIT: Just to add, it's not only about how the rig can control the model, but each animator has their own preference for how they like to control and access certain features and motions in a rig. So that alone can cause a big discrepancy in rig preference as well. That can also change depending on if you are using mocap or hand animating or both (though, usually, mocap needs some clean up anyway).

 

Anyway, sorry for getting off topic... >.>

Exactly it! xDD Wonderfully said. : P

[Naunet]

I'd like to see a /liedown emote or similar (not necessarily sleeping). It would be ideal for relaxing, and combat RP as well, assuming the animation fits.

 

This is the one emote I want to see above all others they may add. I am so tired of not having access to it. @.@

[Ronberku]

I'm definately looking forward to this. And I'm pretty sure it will just be random mouth flapping. But the same one we see in the npc animations. Even our current facial emotes are just basically the emotes we see in the cutscenes. So I doubt it will look awful as some people were worrying about. It will most likely be our mouth moving while our head lightly moves around (like when the npc talk to us).

[LandStander]

Wooows, that is gonna be interestings. I wonder how they're gonna do that, hmm.. I guess it makes sense maybe.

 

In WoW, your character will use the "talk" animation whenever you speak in /say. They even have different animations depending on if you end your sentence with a question mark or a bang.

 

I wonder if ARR will have different animations for ending your sentence in か or よ?

While this does sound easier, I remember reading that they said that you can use their facial expression emotes when you use /say to actually get them to look angry, worried, etc., while speaking.

[Ildur]

You can, but they aren't animated and the expressions don't last very long. It would be nice if they were a toggle like in Champions Online: you could have a forever smirking character, or a forever frowning one. Or you could dance between expressions when roleplaying.

 

In practice, though, nobody used it. I think it was because the expressions were very exagerated and ugly. A system that looked natural and pretty might have more success.