HELP: Weapon Reloading (was Help Wanted)

[qreeves]

https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/redeclipse/ticket/491
“Gun magazines should drop to the floor“

As of the time of writing, the SMG, rifle, and pistol clearly show the player's hand removing the magazine from the said weapons. The rifle animation is actually quite poor, and the same magazine seemingly reattached to the gun after magically gliding to the player's hand. The SMG animation is also weak in this respect. as the magazine, when taken out, appears to fly towards the player's torso before disappearing.

Requires: Separate models for creating this type of gun ejections.

[Julius]

Obviously the player animations kinda suck right now, but do we really need "dropping gun magazines"? Seems a bit overly excessive for a fantasy game like RE. Ah well it is probably not much extra work... another tag like for the shells and another 3rd person mesh for the magazine.
However I dislike requests like that, which obviously come from persons that have no idea how much work it is to make nice 1st person animations (case in point, most fast paced 3D shooters don't have them at all, see quake3, Xonotic or UT2004... which would have been probably the better way to go with RE too).

[qreeves]

That is a very good point, I don't think we've ever really tried to visually explain RE's unlimited ammo. It just is.

[Julius]

Well, maybe instead of using the ammunition metaphor (which is kind moot as even the projectile weapons seem to fire energy bursts), how about energy recharge? Kind of like some of the modern FPS handle life points, e.g. while in action it recharges only slowly, but if you stop firing for a short while it kicks into recharge mode and fills up the energy quickly again. The end effect would be pretty much the same as with auto-reload. Of course it should be possible to also manually trigger the recharge, but it needs to be decided what kind of "penalty" comes with that (probably a delay in being able to fire again).
Such a system would probably go well with with an on-weapon energy display (not sure if Cube2 has that feature), and you could do away with reload animations completely (which would really be a great work relief when we redo the weapon animations). Ok, some kind of reloading energy particle effects emitting (combined with some simple weapon tremor animation) from the weapon when recharging would be cool, but that is really much less work than manually animating a reload sequence.

[Lyberta]

Well, maybe instead of using the ammunition metaphor (which is kind moot as even the projectile weapons seem to fire energy bursts), how about energy recharge? Kind of like some of the modern FPS handle life points, e.g. while in action it recharges only slowly, but if you stop firing for a short while it kicks into recharge mode and fills up the energy quickly again. The end effect would be pretty much the same as with auto-reload. Of course it should be possible to also manually trigger the recharge, but it needs to be decided what kind of "penalty" comes with that (probably a delay in being able to fire again).
Such a system would probably go well with with an on-weapon energy display (not sure if Cube2 has that feature), and you could do away with reload animations completely (which would really be a great work relief when we redo the weapon animations). Ok, some kind of reloading energy particle effects emitting (combined with some simple weapon tremor animation) from the weapon when recharging would be cool, but that is really much less work than manually animating a reload sequence.

I love this idea. Make ammo slowly regenerate while not firing. This is awesome not only from a game design viewpoint but also from amount of modeling work viewpoint.

[Dratz-_C]

Unlimited ammunition and recharging weapons fit together very nicely. I have wondered before what guns reloadcharging in the background would be like, dismissing it as a pipedream. It could freshen up the the weapons management experience. It's not that there wouldn't be a slothful juggling competition, just that it might be fun.
Cheers

[TheLastProject]

Weapons recharging sounds interesting. Personally, I would wonder how it works. Perhaps they could even recharge on the background when not holding them, meaning that, for example, if you run out of shotgun ammo you just switch to another weapon for a bit while it recharges.

It is a fairly big change, gameplay-wise, though. Although it will make the game more casual in general, it will also make it more difficult as you can no longer hope for someone to simply run out of ammo.

[Ulukai]

It sounds acceptable indeed, but won't this take away the fun of reloading yourself and the need to think a little tactical about when you can reload or not?
The question is: WHY would we need / want to change it? Just for the heck of it or would it make things better?

[qreeves]

It sounds acceptable indeed, but won't this take away the fun of reloading yourself and the need to think a little tactical about when you can reload or not?
The question is: WHY would we need / want to change it? Just for the heck of it or would it make things better?

Ulukai basically said what I was thinking here, though I do wonder if we could have something variable-ish to modify weapon mechanics.

[Julius]

As I wrote originally, manual recharging could be still triggered, but should probably come with some penalty so that people don't push the recharge button all the time.

The rates of the slow base recharge (which happens all the time in the background), and the quick auto/trigger recharge could be individually adjusted and could give weapons additional interesting properties, e.g. for example the sniper could have a slow recharge so that if only seldom fired it doesn't need quick recharge at all.

[Ulukai]

When you talk about rechargeable weapons, it would be weird to have for example the pistol or SMG recharge because they fire bullets right now. I can imagine a rechargeable plasma gun and laser rifle, and maybe the projectiles from the shotgun and other bullets-firing weapons can be changed to plasma like stuff which might actually be pretty cool, so that all the weapons are plasma driven. A recharge could probably use a simple animation without a complicated and realistic reload animation which we are aming for now.

[Julius]

Yes pretty much, and the current SMG shots looks pretty plasmaish already anyways.

Another game-play option would be that the damage declines the less energy is charged, e.g. the first 1-3 shots do more damage (could be visually represented by taking away a larger amount of the energy bar) and then it goes down to "conserve energy".

[Sniper-Goth]

Sorry, but this weapon energy thing would make the game a BIT more casual than it is right now.
Changing game mechanics just for the sake of easier (quake 3 weapon) animating >.>

[Julius]

Why would it make it more casual at all? It is in fact pretty much the current version, just that you can make it make more sense as a metaphor and also can logically expand it to be more "pro" than the current system. E.g. I would say if it does anything to the current system it would make it less "casual".

[Sniper-Goth]

What i say is, don't mess with what is perfect.
But the last call is from quin's though.

[quintux_v]

Why would it make it more casual at all? It is in fact pretty much the current version, just that you can make it make more sense as a metaphor and also can logically expand it to be more "pro" than the current system. E.g. I would say if it does anything to the current system it would make it less "casual".

Sounds like we're asking for a new mutator

[Lyberta]

Here's the idea, make the reload swap batteries. So this is basically the same as it right now except the batteries are put into the imaginary backpack.. or an arm (we're robots, right?) where they recharge. Would require slightly more complex animations but doesn't need magazine ejection stuff.

[Jamestonjes]

If we had rechargeable weapons would there be a shared ammo/energy pool between weapons, while different weapons use different amounts of energy and possibly having the weapon recharge speed change while impulseing. Or instead of having a reload you could have the weapons/batterys overheat, combined with the recharging batterys
Also itd be nice for a mutator where you have to pickup ammo or batterys.

[Julius]

Here's the idea, make the reload swap batteries. So this is basically the same as it right now except the batteries are put into the imaginary backpack.. or an arm (we're robots, right?) where they recharge. Would require slightly more complex animations but doesn't need magazine ejection stuff.

That would really be exactly like it is right now, wouldn't it? I think it is worth exploring other options, especially if it makes the art creation easier

[Ulukai]

I hear many ideas (and some of them are OK and can be fun I admit) but don't we need most of all someone to step up and say "Hey, I'll do the animations' or "Here are some shiny new feapon models I made" because with talking alone, nothing is gonna happen. New models and the animations have been on the wishlist for a long time but no one of the community has either the time or the talent to do so, it appears. So let's find someone who wants to do this so we can talk real business and see what's actually plausible first.

Nothing wrong with a brainstorm, but I have the feeling that we're just daydreaming...

[Julius]

True, true.
But getting rid of the reload animations would make the recreation of the animations as needed a lot easier and quicker.

I have the new hand mesh all textured and 80% rigged, so importing the current weapons and getting them in game isn't that much of a deal if it wasn't for the dreadful amount of (mostly reload) animations that have to be recreated.

[Lyberta]

What is the exact problem with reload animations?

[Evropi]

What is the exact problem with reload animations?

For one the rifle's animation has the magazine taken off, then hover around the player's hand, get back into the player's hand, and then the player puts it in the rifle. This is why most games leave putting the magazine in and out at the [i]bottom[i] of the screen, so you don't see some ridiculous animation like that.

[Ulukai]

What is the exact problem with reload animations?

For one the rifle's animation has the magazine taken off, then hover around the player's hand, get back into the player's hand, and then the player puts it in the rifle. This is why most games leave putting the magazine in and out at the [i]bottom[i] of the screen, so you don't see some ridiculous animation like that.

Not to say that the current animation is played so awfully slow, it looks so unreal. I understand that the rifle is a powerful gun and a long reload duration may be necessary, but it looks so strange as it is now. Compare it with the speed of the pistol reload animation and the SMG reload animation, this really needs a fix. Even more because the rifle is the only gun you have in insta, you see this flaw all the time.

[Julius]

Besides those mentioned obvious current flaws, 1st person models and animations have the problem that since they are so close (and all the time) to the players view and occupy so much screen-space any small flaw will be immediately noticed by the player. That hovering for example wouldn't be a problem if it was a 3rd person animation at all.

Thus I strongly advocate for getting rid of the unneeded reload animations and opt for the more logical and extendable system proposed above.