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[airman4]

Heya !

This thread is superweird but i wanted to make one about feeling impacts in video games
Sometimes you hear someone saying that some game is too soft on action and doesnt feel the impacts (when he shoots or fights whenever)

I wanted to know , how it's measured ? How would you know if your game have good feeling about Impacts or no ?
You feel that with cam shakes ? the sound effects ? The animations on the ennemy being touched ? or anything else

Or it's juste personnal opinion , someone will find a game very good on Impacts and shoots section and another will find the same section lazy and soft ?

How would you measure dynamism in actions from a video game ?

[Schoq]

I would just like to start off by saying I really hate this recent trend of using screen shakes for exactly everything. It loses effect quickly and obfuscates the action and everyone should stop doing it right away.

[s0]

@airman: I think the word you're looking for is "feedback" 

Anyway, there's no universal formula for good feedback. There are different requirements for different games and different ways to achieve good feedback. For instance, in the N64 Zelda games (maybe the later ones too? idr) the game freezes for a moment when you kill an enemy. This not only makes kills more dramatic but also serves as a brief respite and "closure" to the fight, like a mini version of the victory screen in turnbased rpgs.

[airman4]

@airman: I think the word you're looking for is "feedback"  

Anyway, there's no universal formula for good feedback. There are different requirements for different games and different ways to achieve good feedback. For instance, in the N64 Zelda games (maybe the later ones too? idr) the game freezes for a moment when you kill an enemy. This not only makes kills more dramatic but also serves as a brief respite and "closure" to the fight, like a mini version of the victory screen in turnbased rpgs.

Oh i see , feedback from the players on the impact of a blow in a game
Sorry for my english

The little freeze idea is great , i'll notice that
I wanted to make it for my game but the engine can't it seems froze the game and then re-start
But when you play zelda on 64 before the "closure" did you feel the blow when you hit the ennemy multiple times ? and if yes , how ? it was the animation ? the special effect ? the camera shake ? or it's a personnal feeling


Schoq
So you hate shakes ?
Well that's a great feature i think , you feel the weight of the ennemy if it's a giant for example
But too much can become boring like kikoo slow-mo effect (slow mo is the worst to me)

Edit
For example
I saw a video from a youtuber (he is french so it's useless here)
The dude was playing 1886 the order and he said the game was astonishing beautiful (wich is true) but the combat was off , no feeling here etc
I didnt played it myself but i hoped he could have explained more why the shooting part were boring and off

[baconman]

You want a short, uninterruptable "recoil" for anything that's taking damage; as well as sometimes two animation variants - one for "an attempted-and-then-unsuccessful strike," and a second "successful strike" one which interrupts at the time of collision, unless you want every weapon to be a sharp knife, and everything else in the game to be hot butter.

Screenshakes imply seismic proportions - this should be reserved for occasions like taking a TREMENDOUS, crippling hit from a boss; the exciting conclusion of a grand battle. Fighting games are a bit more liberal with this kind of thing, because they are ALL ABOUT the sensation of impact.

Depending on your audience, you might put a ~1ms "screen flash" per collision (white and red are super effective) if your game is more cartoony/animated; but with this comes the essential epilepsy warning.

Highlight with a "crisp" sound effect, and you're good to go. (EDIT: or "crunchy," depending on the type of impact)

Any MegaMan game, Zelda game, fighting game, Castlevania, La Mulana, Spelunky... play these and pay attention to your character whenever you eat a hit. Also, pay attention to when you land hits on foes. Then proceed to ask Bethesda "how you not get this basics right?"

[Dragonmaw]

1) Use the camera

While screenshake isn't good in excess (reserve it for special occasions, as mentioned above), do wiggle the camera with movements to give across the concept of body movement. Scale your camera movement to the severity of the action; moving, firing, etc causes small camera wiggles, being hit causes shakes, etc.

2) Slow, then fast, then slow

When animating, you want to make sure you have pauses in your animation. Think of it like a punch; when you throw a punch, you reel back, pause, punch really quick, and then pause at the end. Good use of pausing and slower keyframes, followed by bursts of fast activity, helps convey a sense of weight.

[airman4]

You want a short, uninterruptable "recoil" for anything that's taking damage; as well as sometimes two animation variants - one for "an attempted-and-then-unsuccessful strike," and a second "successful strike" one which interrupts at the time of collision, unless you want every weapon to be a sharp knife, and everything else in the game to be hot butter.

Screenshakes imply seismic proportions - this should be reserved for occasions like taking a TREMENDOUS, crippling hit from a boss; the exciting conclusion of a grand battle. Fighting games are a bit more liberal with this kind of thing, because they are ALL ABOUT the sensation of impact.

Depending on your audience, you might put a ~1ms "screen flash" per collision (white and red are super effective) if your game is more cartoony/animated; but with this comes the essential epilepsy warning.

Highlight with a "crisp" sound effect, and you're good to go. (EDIT: or "crunchy," depending on the type of impact)

Any MegaMan game, Zelda game, fighting game, Castlevania, La Mulana, Spelunky... play these and pay attention to your character whenever you eat a hit. Also, pay attention to when you land hits on foes. Then proceed to ask Bethesda "how you not get this basics right?"

Thanks
The last zelda game i got , i gave to my little bro but i'll go watch some videos of link between worlds 3ds

The seismic effect with sake , yeah i know , you can see that in Colossus ps2

For the last part with bethesda , if i understand well you insinuate that they can't make a good fight part in their game right ?

[s0]

yeah bethesda fights are horrible. there's next to no knockback or any other visible effect from attacks so characters just kinda stand around hitting each other and its really awkward.

btw sound effects are a really important aspect that is often overlooked. generally in an action game you want them to sound "heavier" than they would in real life.

also also also good feeback does not necessarily mean a lot of feedback. i think thats where schoqs criticism of screenshake comes from. there is nothing wrong with screen shake but many inexperienced devs overuse it because they think its a shortcut to good feedback.

[ThemsAllTook]

Experienced devs do too. Isn't Vlambeer in particular known for thinking screen shake is the answer to everything?

Force feedback is another option if you're playing with a controller capable of it.

[Moth]

there's this nearly novella length article (15,000 words) about the different kinds of feedback

http://kotaku.com/5558166/in-praise-of-sticky-friction

people complained about this article and didn't understand it (the comments are filled with gamers whining) but it does a decent job at categorizing different kinds of feedback, which he refers to as friction. I always loved this article but it's very stream of consciousness and I bet many people would find it to be hard to follow. but I think this guy definitely knows his shit and I agree with a lot of it. he includes examples in his definitions of each kind of "friction"- sticky, crispy, juicy, crunchy, etc., so you can know exactly what it is he's talking about.

[airman4]

1) Use the camera

While screenshake isn't good in excess (reserve it for special occasions, as mentioned above), do wiggle the camera with movements to give across the concept of body movement. Scale your camera movement to the severity of the action; moving, firing, etc causes small camera wiggles, being hit causes shakes, etc.

2) Slow, then fast, then slow

When animating, you want to make sure you have pauses in your animation. Think of it like a punch; when you throw a punch, you reel back, pause, punch really quick, and then pause at the end. Good use of pausing and slower keyframes, followed by bursts of fast activity, helps convey a sense of weight.

Thanks
I'm working on a game (action game) with another guy
I made this thread to improve the feedback in combat and have a good feeling about it
I'll try to see with him if we can "modulate" the animation in the impact time to make it even better

here is the gif of the work (careful , it's very early stage build and i'm not even supposed to put it out XD)

gif will be probably be down after


I feel we can make it better with the boxes , it's already good but can of slow/soft

Silbereisen
Okay for the feedback , yeah over charge of effect can become tiring , i get it


Moth
Thanks
I didnt read all but interesting
I think kotaku should fragment those long articles into many pages html , little connection can't even charge this thing under 15 minutes XD
Anyway i have ninja gaiden on my vita , didnt played a lot , i think i'll address this tonight
Apparently starfox adventures have good friction , i'll take some videos on youtube

[RyanB]

Snappier animation on the character (hold pose, fast swing)
The sword is metal and the size of his body and he swings it like it weighs five pounds
Show vibration throughout his whole body when sword hits rocks
More particles
Particles are moving way too slow
Rocks should fly, not dribble to ground
Particles from rocks should bounce off character
Particle dust puffs too, look at some classic kung-fu movies every punch has a dust puff

and of course...

screen shake

The key to impact is contrast.  Slow -> fast, dark -> light, quiet -> loud, etc.  Exponential not linear.

[majormel84]

Hitstop

play a fighting game and when a hit connects the game will pause, giving a sense of a powerful attack.

[airman4]

hey guys
thankies for the free critics !

I knew we can improve this

Hitstop , hold more the sword etc , yeah we'll try to do this (for the particles it will be hard , probably due to the software we use XD )

[Tobers]

I really like wahts dragonmaw said about slow, fast, slow. It's the same idea with the screen shakes, you can't over use it. If everything hits hard, then there's no contrast between impacts. Gotta have texture.

That and when it's fast, it needs to be FAST. Sharp popping sounds, sharp recoils, fast screen shakes, etc...

Think of a hollywood explosion, awesome fireball. But slow, doesn't feel like it could do much damage. But a REAL C4 explosion is freakin SHARP, and it feels violent and deadly.

[RyanB]

yeah we'll try to do this (for the particles it will be hard , probably due to the software we use XD )

Fix or change your software if you don't have decent particles.  Particles are one of the easiest ways to show connection and reaction between two objects which is a big part of what you are trying to achieve.

[airman4]

yeah we'll try to do this (for the particles it will be hard , probably due to the software we use XD )

Fix or change your software if you don't have decent particles.  Particles are one of the easiest ways to show connection and reaction between two objects which is a big part of what you are trying to achieve.

I dunno , i dont use code and software in this project (software is citrus engine ) , i mostly create the universe and animations/character etc etc , any visuals stuff

We'll improve it anyway
thanks very much

[airman4]

The gif is still there but i delete it from the website
ANyway the game will probably not come out , nobody interested in working on this and it's a total mess
So i'm exhausted of pushing it , i gave to the next week or i'll drop out of this
 
So basically you wasted your time cause there is great chances i'll remove all of my works (since last year) from this sinking boat.
The craziest part is that even the original author doesnt seems to care wich baffles me

Anyway if you see in the next days a devlogs with arts closing of this you know the story (not the entire story because it's quite unbelievable but still)

Now out of job That give me now more time to work on my personnal projects

See ya

[ThemsAllTook]

Sad.

[baconman]

The discussion is still an enriching learning experience, and you'll probably learn a way to manage particles more lightly since now you have a motive to.

Sometimes taking a stab at a project just teaches you ways that don't really work. It's sad that it doesn't produce a game, but it IS still a step closer to producing another one.