cinematic effects

douchebagatron

im proposing adding in cinematic effects to the general gameplay. by cinematic effects i mean sequences that make the game look like youre watching a movie at times.

an example of this would be like in hl2 episode 1 when alyx is fighting zombies, sometimes when one gets close instead of just shooting it like normal she will jump up and do a kick, or it will grab her and she will fight it off and do something stylish. valve actually explained how this was done in the dev commentary, and i think this sort of thing could really polish up the gameplay.

an example of how it could be used would be fore the onos devouring, if its impelemented. instead of the onos clicking devour and then the marine disapearing, there could be a minor scripted sequence where the onos lunges forward and theres an actual animation of the onos devouring him. it would really add to the atmosphere to actually see some things happen instead of just resorting to using your imagination.

Buzzou

i think this idea has a lot of potential, more-so with aliens than the marines. it could make the fade swipe actually look threatening...

mattoX

I like it.. Sounds tastey.

StixNStonz

Requires a lot of good animators and good animation. Don't know if they have the funding or volunteer support for it.

Wisp

That would be pretty awesome.

Lt.Realness

I think that's a good idea. That would probably work out best for the death animations of Marines and Aliens in general. Other things like falling damadge could be done too.

Testosteron

Don't forget that NS2 will be a fast Multiplayer game and not a Single Player game where the devs can influence the speed.

If the marine who is devoured gets to see a nice little animation of him being wolfed down for a few seconds (instead of the interior of the onos) thats cool and reduces his time-of-boredom but for the rest of the players it doesn't work. You don't want to freeze and watch a video while you're in the middle of a fight.

douchebagatron

thats not at all what i am proposing. in no way would the rest of the game stop or even slow down, it would work just like a scipted sequence in single player games where things are going on but you still have full control of your player. the best example of this happening would be in hl2 episode 1 where alyx fights the zombies.

the way they designed it, from what i recall, its specified more in the developer commentary, is that when alyx and a zombie are in a specific location relative to each other, such as when alyx is facing a zombie that is .5 meters in front of her instead of alyx preforming a normal attack with a weapon, she jumps up and does a spin kick or something. not anything too distracting or extravagant, but something to keep the battle interesting.

this could also be done in ns2, specifically for the onos devour.

when an onos attempts to devour a marine it checks to make sure that the marine is in the right position to be devoured. this would have to be a lot more loose than exactly a certain distance in front of the onos, so i think it should be in a general area in front of the onos, as it is now.

to make the animation look more fluid you would need to align the 2 players automatically, so when the devour animation begins the marine spins around towards whatever direction the animation has him looking and the onos lines up to where the onos' position is relative to the marine in the animation, then once both players are lined up properly the animation plays where the marine appears to get devoured.

this sounds like it would take a long process, but that really depends on how long the animation is. it could be as quick as half a second where the onos just lunges forward and encloses the marine entirely with it's jaws.

another idea for this cinematic effect that would add a really cool gameplay element is when the onos charges, it knocks around players which turns them into ragdolls but does not kill them. they flail around and take damage as they hit things, but once they land the player regains control and preforms a standing up animation, similar to the first person standing up animation presented several times in F.E.A.R.

Heyman

This sounds alot like... The chainsaw in Gears of War. My only qualm with this is to not make the onos invincible while performing the action.

HatlabuFarkas

good idea, but requied a lots of NOT requied work about NS creating .