Torso and Cockpit bob/jerk

[Spooky]

What I currently find really displeasing about MechWarrior: Living Legends is the way all the Mechs walk and how the cockpit jerks around while walking.

When the Mechs walk, it looks lik their torso is always at a completely fixed height above the ground. This gives the feeling as if the torso is attached to an invisible rail and it kind of destroys the whole Mech feeling in general, at least for me. MechWarrior 2, 3 and even 4 look better in that department . (MechWarrior 3 in general gave the best Mech feeling so far, in my oppinion.)

However, inside the cockpit it's a whole other story. The cockpit insanely bobs and jerks around. Even when you are not moving and just tilting your torso slightly up or down, the cockpit bobs around up and down. What makes the whole thing even worse is seeing the shadow of your Mech outside. The shadow of your torso will be perfectly still, yet inside, you see your cockpit bounce around like it would, when the torso would bob and jerk around while walking. That's a very strong discrepancy.

In another thread about walk cycles, it was suggested, that this is so that it doesn't affect your aim. But I don't really understand it, why would a torso bob affect the aim? The cockpit jerks around you currently anyway and in all other mech games the weapons simply still aim at where your reticule is, the best example being MechWarrior 3, where the arms freely aim where you are aiming, even while walking.

Why is it done this way or is this simply an engine limitation?

[Seraph]

Why is it done this way or is this simply an engine limitation?

Answered yourself there. We did what we could with the Engine but it has it's limits.

[Spooky]

Why is it done this way or is this simply an engine limitation?

Answered yourself there. We did what we could with the Engine but it has it's limits.

I see . But could it be made that the cockpit bob/jerk of each mech is heavily reduced? It is very annoying and "unrealistic" imho. As in: I wouldn't think that the BattleTech Mechs would jerk around like this while walking, plus I wouldn't think that the cockpit equipment (or the seat of the pilot specifically) would stay that steady with such big and sudden movements.

[Seraph]

Why is it done this way or is this simply an engine limitation?

Answered yourself there. We did what we could with the Engine but it has it's limits.

I see . But could it be made that the cockpit bob/jerk of each mech is heavily reduced? It is very annoying and "unrealistic" imho. As in: I wouldn't think that the BattleTech Mechs would jerk around like this while walking, plus I wouldn't think that the cockpit equipment (or the seat of the pilot specifically) would stay that steady with such big and sudden movements.

We did have that during development and it made them feel ... stupid. And in reality tanks still bob around like crazy, just their cannon is not. Same for Mechs: They torso bobs but the guns point to where they are supposed to.

[Blu_Haze]

The only thing that really bothers me about this, is the shaking that occurs during a torso twist. Moving your mouse a bit to have a look around results in the cockpit vibrating all over the place like it's about to fall off or something.   

The biggest offender though is when the entire 3D cockpit model suddenly disappears for a brief flash while moving. I guess it's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it can really break immersion when you see the entire cockpit clipping out at random.

[Spooky]

The only thing that really bothers me about this, is the shaking that occurs during a torso twist. Moving your mouse a bit to have a look around results in the cockpit vibrating all over the place like it's about to fall off or something.   

Yeah that annoys me as well .

[Toth]

Actually Seraph, I'm going to have to correct you on this one. What you see is what the mech is doing. It does not move on a rail, it moves according to the legs. There is a dampening factor applied, but what you see in first person, IS what you see in THIRD person. We did this on purpose, there is no faked first person view. Instead we apply a dampening factor on the camera to remove most of the disruption of your aim (but not all). The bobbing that you see is completely realistic, other mech games faked it more or less. Mech 4 is a particularly huge offender in this department. The more motion we give to the pelvis, the more bob you'll get in first person. Its not an engine limitation, its a limation of the design of the mechs. We find a middle ground that gives pleasing visual quality, while still maintaining playability.

Honestly you're getting the best of all worlds in this respect, though certainly some mechs could be cleaned up a bit.

The shadow thing is a bug, I believe the rendering for them are being done before the motion is applied. Not 100% sure to be honest, I've never looked.

As for the torso motion feeling a bit shakey during a torso twist, that is a known issue. For the most part is related to the mouse motion, I believe if you try a joystick you will not have an issue. I have suggested in the past adding a dampening to vertical motion for that as well, but its a delicate point. Recently Threesan did a fair amount of work to remove the framerate dependency on torso twisting, so what you see in 0.4 should be better than what it has been in the past.

[GB-72AT Talon]

Would it be difficult to allow weapons like small laser, medium laser,  mg, maybe Gauss.....have free "aim" like in MW3 where the aiming reticule can move independent of the torso?  Large lasers, missiles, large heavy weapons should still be restricted to torso direction maybe?

Make it a toggled feature.  So one could go from free aim to fixed torso aiming with a hotkey.  Its very realistic actually as today's weapon systems have this and it would help aiming when simply walking or running as today's tanks for instance can compensate.

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

Would it be difficult to allow weapons like small laser, medium laser,  mg, maybe Gauss.....have free "aim" like in MW3 where the aiming reticule can move independent of the torso?

Yes, very difficult as Crysis doesn't support anything alike by default.
(+ IMO it wouldn't be good, even: bit of game-breaking as it'd increase the gap between new players and the veterans)

[Spooky]

Actually Seraph, I'm going to have to correct you on this one. What you see is what the mech is doing. It does not move on a rail, it moves according to the legs. There is a dampening factor applied, but what you see in first person, IS what you see in THIRD person. We did this on purpose, there is no faked first person view. Instead we apply a dampening factor on the camera to remove most of the disruption of your aim (but not all). The bobbing that you see is completely realistic, other mech games faked it more or less. Mech 4 is a particularly huge offender in this department. The more motion we give to the pelvis, the more bob you'll get in first person. Its not an engine limitation, its a limation of the design of the mechs. We find a middle ground that gives pleasing visual quality, while still maintaining playability.

The shadow thing is a bug, I believe the rendering for them are being done before the motion is applied. Not 100% sure to be honest, I've never looked.

I don't quite understand what you mean here. The torso of a Mech in MWLL does not bob at all during walking (up and down, forward and back up, left / right). It stays perfectly still. The Cockpit however bobs all over the place. Or has this changed recently? I am on 0.4.3 though.

[Toth]

The torso does in fact bob, some more than others. I absolutely guarantee it. The cockpit IS the torso is what I'm trying to say. Its not a special first person model, its part of the third person model. When you are in the cockpit you are in the torso. The bob in the cockpit = the bob in the torso.

[Spooky]

The torso does in fact bob, some more than others. I absolutely guarantee it. The cockpit IS the torso is what I'm trying to say. Its not a special first person model, its part of the third person model. When you are in the cockpit you are in the torso. The bob in the cockpit = the bob in the torso.

Hm, I had a closer look at it in some youtube videos and you are right of course, there is some bob. But it is so minuscule, that it's only really noticeable on a close up, like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3f09uzdrpE&hd=1#t=6m08s
Overall, the Mechs in MWLL simply do look like their torsos are on rails, because they always seem so perfectly stable. I am guessing that we are back to my original post (or the thread that I mentioned), that this is because otherwise, if more movement of the torso would be allowed, it would influence aiming too much? (And thus an engine restriction, because weapons can't be aimed independently from their model for instance.)

It's hard to find good examples of what bothers me so much on youtube. But let's take this one for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2YzJgzf83I&hd=1#t=4m35s
If you look at the Shadow Cat, that comes in from the right here, it goes pretty fast, making some huge steps. However, its torso stays perfectly still, as if it is not affected by the movement of the legs at all. The torso doesn't go downward before it places a new step and it doesn't go upward on the peak point of one step. And it doesn't bob forward when placing a step. (Well it probably does bob, as I discovered, but it's unnoticeable.)

[=KoS= Eldragon]

Take the Uziel out for a spin if you want to see the torso bob. 

[Askis]

This has been discussed before, although quite some time ago.
Basically, since the player camera is tied to the cockpit of the vehicle you're using, instead of being some theoretical entity floating in the vicinity of it (MW4, yes even the "cockpit" view), any bobbing of the torso affects your view and if it's severe enough your aim too.
For playability reasons, the bobbing is reduced and still needs to be dampened for the player camera (pilot an Uziel, imagine your aim would sway along with the cockpit to see why the damping is necessary).
Any more bobbing and the dampening wouldn't be able to cut it, therefore affecting your aim on the move.

Drive a tank at max speed over some shallow dunes on Sandblasted or Death Valley, probably a rough approximation of what piloting a Mech would be like if there was as much bobbing as in MW4

[CHHš Rampage]

Take the Uziel out for a spin if you want to see the torso bob. 

Amen, Brother!