an attempt to animate spiders

[Bwian]

DJ... I know what you mean...but that only really applies if you go for a natural, fluid kind of walk.
I intend to go for a walk more like those old wind up toys, where the leg moves in a simple hemispehical arc, and no real movement is required of the lower limb other than to follow. Provided the leg moves in the right plane at all times it works. The actual physical mesh would attach only to the lower leg, with the middle leg section free. This allows the rotational problem to be compensated for, and ht elegs kept in alignment.

Sad individual that I am, I have mode some stick models of the skeletons to correct proportions, with flexible joints. I have been experimenting with these in 'real' 3D to see how odd movements can work.

On another note, it is interesting to note the rider effect...I have had the same problem a couple of times, but I never figured out exactly what was causing it

[Professor420]

I wish I had the time to work on things like this... but alas, we mod teams too often leave the real work to you guys and just absorb it once the tweaks are worked out. Great job man, that's real outside the box thinking. I wonder how long it will be until we have flying units.

[Bwian]

Sorry to disappoint...but there will never be satisfactory flying units unless CA REALLY change the game engine. Monsters like this can be made by creative use of the animation and skeletons that we already have. They interact just the same as any other unit. Flying objects don't.

The game thinks in 2D .... not in 3D

[ScionTheWorm]

Sorry to disappoint...but there will never be satisfactory flying units unless CA REALLY change the game engine.

that sounds like a good old longshot

[Bwian]

er..no... that sounds like something that just won't ever happen in this game. CA have NOT changed the game engine for BI, nor would game engine changes to allow flying units add anything to a Rome based game. You would have to change so many fundamental aspects of the game, it just would not be commercially viable.

Hell...I have built some 'helicopter' style units, with rotating blades etc. but I wouldn't call them flying...they stay at head height so they interact naturally with the existing unit combat. There is NO way to make even archers fire UP at a flying unit, or stop a swordsman attacking the ground underneath ...and killing the unit. Fundamental things that make a flying unit pointless and stupid in the game. Anyone can make one.... it's really easy. It just doesn't work in the game. I really wish people would just accept that, drop the thought, and get on with making things that ARE going to result in usable things.

[Frans Ubberdork]

Here is something interesting though. The archers shoot up at guys on top of walls.

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Bwian is absolutely right in that the game does fundamentally think in 2D in most cases. But there are exceptions - such as the platform system which is used for the Siege Towers and Walls - where you can have men standing in the same 2D positions and the game handles them correctly.

This means that for run-of-the-mill creatures you could have hovering things which are not far off the ground (if you've played World of Warcraft you'll know what I mean), and for special cases it may be possible to create a 'fake' building which defines a set of platforms in midair with no visible geometry attached to them, unattached to the ground plane, which a flying thing could then "stand" on... this would also define a limited set of possible places it can stand. Of course it could then only hit things with missile weapons, and could only be hit by missile weapons in return.