Dev Blog #33 - Moving Up!
The movement system and associated animations have all received some extra love in the making of Isonzo. With steep slopes and height differences being more common, it's an important part of the overall atmosphere. Here's what we've been doing…
Updated movement & vaulting
The ability to vault over low obstacles and more effectively clamber up on low rises gives everyone more tactical flexibility in their movement. The Italian landscape is filled with all sorts of hard obstacles, walls, cliffs thus being able to quickly navigate these was key in the design. Therefore we have introduced a vaulting & mantling system.
Ubiquitous stone walls like these can be quickly vaulted over
Unlike the western front trenches which allowed us to create “smoother” entrances, the trenches and cliffs of the Italian front are unforgiving and require a system to help the player move around. The ability to vault over low obstacles and more effectively clamber up on low rises gives everyone more tactical flexibility in their movement.
climbing (mantling) out of trenches is important when going over the top!
Updated movement locomotion
Above all we wanted to improve the base walking animations, making everything feel more weighty and grounded. Putting extra emphasis and weight into the character when walking regularly, really showing that the soldiers carried around heavy equipment and therefore had a strong impact when planting their feet. To complement this, characters now also kick up dirt and dust depending on the surface they walk on, grounding the character more.
Soldier carrying his heavy rifle lower, heavily stepping from side to side, kicking up dirt
Additionally, we made many adjustments to the prone animations. When prone, your body is dynamically aligned with the ground. The image below shows you how the game now prioritizes keeping your head (as the player) exactly where the first person camera is. This feels more natural and leads to fewer glitches.
Connected to this, the aiming has improved as well. In Isonzo, you no longer rotate your entire body when aiming to the side (which was the case in our previous two games).
Aiming is now much smoother and dynamic
We've also made the regular movement tighter, whether you're crossing rocky uneven ground or moving steeply uphill. When walking up or down hill the cadens and point of weight of the character is adapted, only for the steepest of cliffs.
Here you can see the special animation for walking up and down a mountain
Third person foot placement and IK
Inverse kinematics (IK) is a fancy technical solution to the problem of getting characters to position their limbs appropriately for the terrain and situation without contorting themselves into inhuman shapes, or requiring thousands of bespoke animations! This also appears in first person - you're enjoying IK when your character reloads close to a wall, for instance.
Reloading while sheltering behind rocks, as seen in the gunplay blog.
IK in combination with further technical tweaks from our coders allows for soldiers in Isonzo to keep their feet more firmly planted on the ground, even when scaling steep slopes.
This can give quite dramatic poses as soldiers look to physically be leaning on the sides rocks, putting their weight onto it, while shooting. Foot-placement in general is now procedural with the soldiers now accurate stepping back after moving.
Alpini dynamically placing feet on the rock surfaces
Updated third person animations
We have also overhauled a lot of our third person animations. There are lots of new ones for the new actions you can take in Isonzo (like construction, operating mortars and mountain guns, wire cutting), but that didn't stop us going back to the basics and adding even more polish where necessary.
The most dramatic of which is changing stances from sprinting directly to sighting. This actually maintains player weight momentum a little and thus the character will lean back to compensate as he comes to an abrupt standstill. We wanted to give specific love to this as this is one of the most common actions players take and would look unnatural otherwise.
Sprint to sight, the body leaning back, feet sliding a little
In a future post we will look at how death animations and ragdolls were improved.
Firearms Expert Reacts To Isonzo’s Guns!
Jonathan Ferguson, a weapons expert and Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries, breaks down the weaponry of Isonzo. Have a look at the arsenal and all its details.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]3 days till release day![/h2]
Isonzo releases on September 13th, and you can already wishlist it. Stay tuned for our final map reveal - it's a very special one!
Remember buying the game in the first week will unlock the special launch-exclusive Avanti Savoia pack!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1556790/Isonzo
Updated movement & vaulting
The ability to vault over low obstacles and more effectively clamber up on low rises gives everyone more tactical flexibility in their movement. The Italian landscape is filled with all sorts of hard obstacles, walls, cliffs thus being able to quickly navigate these was key in the design. Therefore we have introduced a vaulting & mantling system.
Ubiquitous stone walls like these can be quickly vaulted overUnlike the western front trenches which allowed us to create “smoother” entrances, the trenches and cliffs of the Italian front are unforgiving and require a system to help the player move around. The ability to vault over low obstacles and more effectively clamber up on low rises gives everyone more tactical flexibility in their movement.
climbing (mantling) out of trenches is important when going over the top!Updated movement locomotion
Above all we wanted to improve the base walking animations, making everything feel more weighty and grounded. Putting extra emphasis and weight into the character when walking regularly, really showing that the soldiers carried around heavy equipment and therefore had a strong impact when planting their feet. To complement this, characters now also kick up dirt and dust depending on the surface they walk on, grounding the character more.
Soldier carrying his heavy rifle lower, heavily stepping from side to side, kicking up dirtAdditionally, we made many adjustments to the prone animations. When prone, your body is dynamically aligned with the ground. The image below shows you how the game now prioritizes keeping your head (as the player) exactly where the first person camera is. This feels more natural and leads to fewer glitches.
Connected to this, the aiming has improved as well. In Isonzo, you no longer rotate your entire body when aiming to the side (which was the case in our previous two games).
Aiming is now much smoother and dynamicWe've also made the regular movement tighter, whether you're crossing rocky uneven ground or moving steeply uphill. When walking up or down hill the cadens and point of weight of the character is adapted, only for the steepest of cliffs.
Here you can see the special animation for walking up and down a mountainThird person foot placement and IK
Inverse kinematics (IK) is a fancy technical solution to the problem of getting characters to position their limbs appropriately for the terrain and situation without contorting themselves into inhuman shapes, or requiring thousands of bespoke animations! This also appears in first person - you're enjoying IK when your character reloads close to a wall, for instance.
Reloading while sheltering behind rocks, as seen in the gunplay blog.IK in combination with further technical tweaks from our coders allows for soldiers in Isonzo to keep their feet more firmly planted on the ground, even when scaling steep slopes.
This can give quite dramatic poses as soldiers look to physically be leaning on the sides rocks, putting their weight onto it, while shooting. Foot-placement in general is now procedural with the soldiers now accurate stepping back after moving.
Alpini dynamically placing feet on the rock surfacesUpdated third person animations
We have also overhauled a lot of our third person animations. There are lots of new ones for the new actions you can take in Isonzo (like construction, operating mortars and mountain guns, wire cutting), but that didn't stop us going back to the basics and adding even more polish where necessary.
The most dramatic of which is changing stances from sprinting directly to sighting. This actually maintains player weight momentum a little and thus the character will lean back to compensate as he comes to an abrupt standstill. We wanted to give specific love to this as this is one of the most common actions players take and would look unnatural otherwise.
Sprint to sight, the body leaning back, feet sliding a littleIn a future post we will look at how death animations and ragdolls were improved.
Firearms Expert Reacts To Isonzo’s Guns!
Jonathan Ferguson, a weapons expert and Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries, breaks down the weaponry of Isonzo. Have a look at the arsenal and all its details.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]3 days till release day![/h2]
Isonzo releases on September 13th, and you can already wishlist it. Stay tuned for our final map reveal - it's a very special one!
Remember buying the game in the first week will unlock the special launch-exclusive Avanti Savoia pack!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1556790/Isonzo
One of our reference photos for the forest trenches which feature heavily in the first two defensive lines of the map. They’re also the jumping off point for the attack on the third line.
The Città di Roccia in-game!
Exiting the tunnels towards the supply dump.
The mountaintop trenches.
The Fior mountain peak.