A glimpse at upcoming EVE avatars at the 2006 Fanfest
There are some people who complain that characters in games don’t move in a lifelike manner. CCP Technical Producer Tofi Olafsson couldn’t agree with them more.
Moreover, he says that we already have the technology to make character movements more dynamic, and he’s working very hard on incorporating it to upcoming EVE Online avatars.
In fact, during the 2006 Fanfest, he gave us a sneak peek of his procedural animation project for the EVE avatars. Although it’s still in its early stages, you can see that it shows promise:
In one example, one of his basic models would follow a light with his eyes as Olafsson moved it around the screen… Later, he had hundreds of little men running around the screen, navigating their way to preset patterns or all standing in rows, following the light as it darted around the screen.
Impressive, eh? Our source reports that the “traditional” way of making character animations is to hire artists who will pre-render the movements each character will make. So Olafsson’s project is definitely something. The good thing is, EVE’s “heading for ultra-realistic visuals”. There’s nothing to worry about the realistic vs. not debate (in doing character animations in video games) as Olafsson’s completely in line with the game’s theme.
But forget about the debate. With this project, EVE Online’s sure going to blow our socks off. Kudos to Mr. Olafsson!
Via MMORPG
There are some people who complain that characters in games don’t move in a lifelike manner. CCP Technical Producer Tofi Olafsson couldn’t agree with them more.
Moreover, he says that we already have the technology to make character movements more dynamic, and he’s working very hard on incorporating it to upcoming EVE Online avatars.
In fact, during the 2006 Fanfest, he gave us a sneak peek of his procedural animation project for the EVE avatars. Although it’s still in its early stages, you can see that it shows promise:
In one example, one of his basic models would follow a light with his eyes as Olafsson moved it around the screen… Later, he had hundreds of little men running around the screen, navigating their way to preset patterns or all standing in rows, following the light as it darted around the screen.
Impressive, eh? Our source reports that the “traditional” way of making character animations is to hire artists who will pre-render the movements each character will make. So Olafsson’s project is definitely something. The good thing is, EVE’s “heading for ultra-realistic visuals”. There’s nothing to worry about the realistic vs. not debate (in doing character animations in video games) as Olafsson’s completely in line with the game’s theme.
But forget about the debate. With this project, EVE Online’s sure going to blow our socks off. Kudos to Mr. Olafsson!
Via MMORPG