Set death anims vs Ragdolling

[the4thlaw]

Does anyone else agree with me when I say that the preset death animations in FO1 and 2 are better than the ragdoll + limbs flying in FO3?

My favourite anim in FO2 was when you blew the chunk out of the person's torso with the shotgun and they fell slowly. It was comedic and gross at the same time and I think it worked great.

But in FO3 all there is is the same ragdolling, you shoot someone, and BAM they drop like a sack of crap. With a head or some limbs falling off. The only real "creative deaths" are when you use plasma or laser guns.

And on that note, I'm already sick of the decapitations, they're way too clean. I DO however, like blowing a leg off a fleeing enemy.

I would have liked to have seen some more small guns specific deaths as opposed to standard ragdolling, but I'm just venting. It's no big deal really

 

[Leon]

As Eyenixon (and probably others) has pointed out before, FO3 lacks visible damage to torsos. Dumb.

 

[Wooz]

I dunno, I found the energy weapons death animations crappy as well, and the guillotine bullet effect gets old after the third time you enter combat.

Enemies also tend to do backflips after getting shot, which has led me to at least two hilarious situations so far:

A Deathclaw shot up at 90 degrees immediately after I shot it, flew straight up. I assume it reached space, as it never came back.

This supermutie did a backflip and got stuck to the ceiling after a critical hit.

 

[Eyenixon]

Not to forget those hilarious bugged out ragdolls that stretch their limbs 50 feet in every direction and begin flailing wildly as their beings contort through the air and randomly spasm with their mile long arms and legs.

 

[rcorporon]

I was watching my brother play Gears of War 2, and the ragdoll in that game is freaking great.

Why couldn't Beth make ragdolls that acted in a semi-realistic way?

 

[Eyenixon]

Because Bethesda decided to use Havok.

 

[rcorporon]

Because Bethesda decided to use Havok.

I thought that GoW used Havok as well... guess the Unreal Engine handles it's own physics...

Didn't Half-Life 2 (and Portal) use Havok?

I thought that the Havok technology was halfway decent... or perhaps I was mistaken in that assumption.

 

[Eyenixon]

No, I'm pretty sure the Unreal 3 engine uses its own physics, absolutely certain actually.
Havok was used pretty well in the Source engine, but it's implementation is entirely dependent on the developer, it's not just something Bethesda could have applied with the press of a button, they had to manipulate it to a certain extent to get it working properly.

Needless to say, the results weren't that great, it could be from the large amount of objects or the complexity of the ragdolls, even the amount of "weight" they applied to objects, whatever the case, Havok is a bit finicky because it doesn't always work right when developers can't figure out how to implement it in their games properly.

 

[Barbalute]

BethSoft probably made it the way they did in order to give FO3 similar 'over the top' deaths that FO1/2 had.
In all fairness, I think they did a pretty good job. It's a very thin line to walk between having a lot of gore and seeming too realistic versus a lot of gore and seeming cartoony. They're pretty close, but a little on the cartoony side.

 

[ballystix]

Yes, i greatly favor the fallout1/2 death animations over fallout 3's ragdolls. This is true for most game these days: gone are the days of watching enemies/monsters die in interesting or creative ways, we now see NPC models fling throughout the air defying gravity (realisticly hand held guns would never shoot bullets to carry that much momentum, a shot gun blast will not blast you back 5 feet.. sort of ironic that the main purpose of using a physics engine is to emulate that).

You'd be hard pressed to find a game these days that still has good death animations. Im trying to think of a few.. FEAR sort of integrated animations and ragdolls (cant find any good youtube vidoes of this). In Half Life 2 the antlion gaurd (the big one) sort of mutters last breaths before dying, then ragdoll physics takes over.. good effort... but i dont think i've seen a game where a monster's skin melts off and exposing internal organs.. i think its just too complicated.

And yeah the laser/plasma melting effects in fallout 3 are sort of crappy (Nitpick: the laser rifle was supposed to cut people in half for critical strikes while the plasma melted them.. however now they both seem to do the same effect, just different color). How about this instead: you do a crtical strike on an enclave soldier's left arm with your plasma rifle, his entire arm begins to melts off while the now-amputated soldier looks at what's left of it, screams in horror and dies from pain/shock.

 

[Barbalute]

Yeah, but then again in FO1/2 you'd have totally over the top death animations that a real gun wouldn't do, including one where they get blown back a couple of tiles IIRC. A physics engine isn't necessarily there to emulate reality, it's just there to give a some semblance of physics to the game - real or over the top. In this case, over the top deaths, with heads exploding is the closest they could get to the feel of the originals.

It would look really bad if they had static death animations, far worse than it does now. The only thing that really irks me is the flame effect - when you're on fire (at least for me, I suppose it could be a glitch on my end) your arms and gun (in first person mode) just turn a saran-wrap orange.

 

[Paladin Frost]

The only time I was truly impressed with the FO3 way of "over the top deaths" is the time I popped a feral ghoul (didnt know there were feral ones btw) in the head at point blank with the sawed off shotgun at point blank.

Overall though, my favorite death from earlier fallouts was in fallout tactics, the "explosion" death, where the limbs fly EVERYWHERE. Beutiful, almost poetic.

<tears>

 

[Leon]

At point blank, you say?

 

[Paladin Frost]

Looks like a ripe melon popping, complete with eyeballs bouncing off my armor, made me smile.

Quickly got old though, it's entertaining to watch, but without the clever text being hilariously descriptive, (like the blurb about a dog being killed from fallout 1, I cant remember the exact words) it's just not as fun... At least when done repetedly.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, I missed that, didnt mean to put "point blank" twice in the post... yeah... I should probably go to bed now...

 

[Sorrow]

A Deathclaw shot up at 90 degrees immediately after I shot it, flew straight up. I assume it reached space, as it never came back.

This supermutie did a backflip and got stuck to the ceiling after a critical hit.

Not to forget those hilarious bugged out ragdolls that stretch their limbs 50 feet in every direction and begin flailing wildly as their beings contort through the air and randomly spasm with their mile long arms and legs.

I prefer the Fallout 1 death animations. Though, I'd prefer if they had more frames and more effects, like blood slowly soaking clothes, etc.

 

[Lexx]

A combination of static death and physic death would be good I think. Like, you shot some bullets in the enemy, the static death animation starts and short after that the physic engine takes the hand and the enemy is falling to ground. Or not 100% static - with only a bit physic used at start. Morphing animations or stuff like that.

 

[Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude]

A combination of static death and physic death would be good I think. Like, you shot some bullets in the enemy, the static death animation starts and short after that the physic engine takes the hand and the enemy is falling to ground. Or not 100% static - with only a bit physic used at start. Morphing animations or stuff like that.

That's exactly what l4d has. It works surprisingly well.

 

[Crowfoot]

Man, the special death animations were great, like the Lieutenant's excrutiating disintegration and Frank's EPIC demise.

I used to keep those in special save slots to watch them again.

With regards to Fallout 3, I dunno, it just doesn't seem that violent to me. It certainly didn't strike me as "over the top", and in VATS the blood looks like little strings of spaghetti. Get's old fast.

Like the OP said though, no big deal.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Yeah, but then again in FO1/2 you'd have totally over the top death animations that a real gun wouldn't do, including one where they get blown back a couple of tiles IIRC. A physics engine isn't necessarily there to emulate reality, it's just there to give a some semblance of physics to the game - real or over the top. In this case, over the top deaths, with heads exploding is the closest they could get to the feel of the originals.

It would look really bad if they had static death animations, far worse than it does now. The only thing that really irks me is the flame effect - when you're on fire (at least for me, I suppose it could be a glitch on my end) your arms and gun (in first person mode) just turn a saran-wrap orange.

Well, both true and false; most of the FO1/2 animations were fairly realistic. Granted, blowing out half of someone's chest quite so literally is a bit over the top but plausible; sending someone flying a couple of feet with a sledgehammer or a shotgun blast isn't all that unrealistic either. Bullets cutting off people's heads is truly unrealistic.

 

[Ninjerk]

Yeah, but then again in FO1/2 you'd have totally over the top death animations that a real gun wouldn't do, including one where they get blown back a couple of tiles IIRC. A physics engine isn't necessarily there to emulate reality, it's just there to give a some semblance of physics to the game - real or over the top. In this case, over the top deaths, with heads exploding is the closest they could get to the feel of the originals.

It would look really bad if they had static death animations, far worse than it does now. The only thing that really irks me is the flame effect - when you're on fire (at least for me, I suppose it could be a glitch on my end) your arms and gun (in first person mode) just turn a saran-wrap orange.

Well, both true and false; most of the FO1/2 animations were fairly realistic. Granted, blowing out half of someone's chest quite so literally is a bit over the top but plausible; sending someone flying a couple of feet with a sledgehammer or a shotgun blast isn't all that unrealistic either. Bullets cutting off people's heads is truly unrealistic.

Sledge maybe, but a shotgun would have to exert the same force on the guy firing it to send them several feet through the air.