PTS Feedback Thread for Inverse Kinematics (IK) System

ZOS_GinaBruno · April 2017

This is the official feedback thread for the foot IK system. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

Did you play with this on or off? (Note that it defaults to on)
Do you feel that the IK improved your overall experience while playing?
Did you experience any issues with IK when it was turned on?
Do you have any other general feedback?

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

Love the Idea. Understandably it is in beta. I am going to play with it on.

One Thing I noticed immediately is that the characters body seems to have no sense of inner balance while moving with your weapons sheathed on any incline. it seems the model itself is rotating the entire skeleton based on the angle of the ground. very noticable when moving over sharp terrain. (very noticeable while sprinting down small inclines)

With your weapons at the ready though, the problem is gone (at least DW & Bow) (perhaps the anims overwriting some rotations?).

standing still with weapons sheathed or unsheathed seems awesome.

Edited with pics:
Running unsheathed

Running Sheathed

[img][/img]

Edit Again: As expected, while facing directly forward at a steep incline, your feet will always clip through. though That's too much a hassle to fix in my opinion. Unless perhaps make the characters stationary model have one leg propped up against the incline? (like climbing it) and the other leg rotated perpendicular to the slope?

Enodoc · April 2017

I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to do. Is it supposed to better match up your feet with the terrain?

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

@Enodoc

Yep

It's a method to prevent players feet from clipping into the ground. On live, if you walk onto a slanted surface, your feet will be completely horizontal in the 3D space, even if the terrain is slanted (more than likely having your foot underneath the ground as well.)

For immersion purposes.

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

[snip]

Attica-Centurius · April 2017

The IK makes characters 'stutter' when going from tilted to straight terrain, even on normal area's like bridges/scaffolding, which decreases my gaming experience. Especially while running.

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

@Attica-Centurius

Is this with weapons sheathed or unsheathed?

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

Not sure if delves are considered group dungeons, but the IK system is disabled in those areas as well.

Attica-Centurius · April 2017

@Avran_Sylt
Weapons sheathed, not quite sure how strafing (so unsheathed) is affected by IK, difficult to see any big differences.

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

@Attica-Centurius

I've noticed that strafing (unsheathed) helps a lot with how IK works, makes the torso much smoother. Unsheathed though and you get those weird twitches when going over small bumps (such as bridge edges)

Zakor · April 2017

Bug: When using an ability while rolling (due to high fall) the body will stay in it's rotation while the feet will "roll through" the upper body.

Reproduction:
1. stand on top of high cliff (fall shouldn't kill you)
2. slot instant cast ability with long cast animation (I used the first healing skill of the warden(fungal growth?))
3. Jump down and just a moment from hitting the ground cast your ability
4. Strange animation happening

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

Crouching with Unsheathed Weapons on upward inclines seems to make the character lean way far back. Doing the same but with sheathed weapons seems normal. (Male Bosmer character)

Edit: added pics

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

Crouching with Unsheathed weapons while facing/on a decline forces the character model foreward into the ground. Sheathed is normal. (Male Bosmer Character)

Edit: added pics

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

K, that's weird, tried it on my khajiit which is taller than my bosmer (where the issue is), and crouching on inclines/declines while dual wielding with axes/2H works fine.

EDIT: Just tested it on all the races, this issue only effects the Bosmer

Edit Edit: Only effects the Bosmer Male Specifically.

Kendaric · April 2017

Did you play with this on or off? (Note that it defaults to on)

I played with IK turned on.
Do you feel that the IK improved your overall experience while playing?

Yes, it added to the immersion for me.
Did you experience any issues with IK when it was turned on?

Moving or standing on stairs looked somewhat odd, I suspect this may be due to the walkmesh/navmesh being a ramp rather than an actual stairway.
Do you have any other general feedback?

I'm certainly looking forward to a full implementation. Definitely a nice feature to have.

Unladenswallow · April 2017

Did you play with this on or off? (Note that it defaults to on) On

Do you feel that the IK improved your overall experience while playing? So far I enjoy it. No more floating abocve the ground or slightly submerged into it.

Did you experience any issues with IK when it was turned on? yes, going up and down hills was a bit Monty Python esque. the character did not lean naturally when ascending or descending.

Do you have any other general feedback? Add to pets, mounts, and combat pets. I like this very much and hope to see it live VERY soon.

Unladenswallow · April 2017

After thought on this, if this could be applied to character interactions such as emotes like hug, shake hands, pet (pet your non combat pet) that would be a good addition as well. If this could work that way I dont know. Just a thought.

eso_nya · April 2017

Did you play with this on or off?
On.

Do you feel that the IK improved your overall experience while playing?
No. It might become a nice-to-have feature once its fully implemented.
Right now its funny-ish when turning the char round and round in inventory while standing on stairs and have it do squats.
While running over rough terrain it looks off, it seems like the char leans towards the normal of the surface

Did you experience any issues with IK when it was turned on?
Kinda, if getting a bit dizzy counts as issue

Do you have any other general feedback?
Cool idea

rookit · April 2017

Did you play with this on or off? (Note that it defaults to on)
On. (default)

Do you feel that the IK improved your overall experience while playing?
Didn't notice it at all in 1 hour.

Did you experience any issues with IK when it was turned on?
None.

Do you have any other general feedback?
No.

Ashamray · April 2017

Can IK system reduce game perfomance?

Nsain · April 2017

Did you play with this on or off? (Note that it defaults to on): On

Do you feel that the IK improved your overall experience while playing?
Honestly, the IK system seemed to reduce my overall immersion. Having my character slanting to such a drastic degree when running up or down a slightly inclined surface seems a bit silly. After toggling on/off, I much prefer the run style of it being off.

Did you experience any issues with IK when it was turned on?
I only left it on a briefly, as the severity of the IK movements on different surfaces was distracting.

Do you have any other general feedback?
I think it is a good idea to include a system that would reduce the amount of floaty running/walking, but I do not know if this IK system is executed to the appropriate degree.

Contraptions · April 2017

Did you play with this on or off? (Note that it defaults to on)
On.

Do you feel that the IK improved your overall experience while playing?
Not really, it mostly seems to affect lower body movements, skills and fighting still feels the same.

Did you experience any issues with IK when it was turned on?
Some very strange tilting of my character occurs. It's a bit off, when I run downhill I tilt forward and vice versa. That seems a bit... off? In real life I would tilt backwards when moving down a slope and vice versa. The way my char runs makes it look like he's going to topple over at any moment.

Activating the Telvanni tower portals to go down with IK leads to very strange noodle legs.

Do you have any other general feedback?
Needs more tweaking before live.

OMA · April 2017

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the foot IK system. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:
Did you play with this on or off? (Note that it defaults to on)

Do you feel that the IK improved your overall experience while playing?

Did you experience any issues with IK when it was turned on?

Do you have any other general feedback?

1. I think it was on with the new character I created, I noticed my feet angled against the ground, knees bent on slopes, it looked great.
2. Well I didn't notice it when in action but standing still it looked better.
3. So far no issues?
4. I didn't know I could turn it off, but that's nice that you can.

Avran_Sylt · April 2017

@Zakor

Just tested it with IK both on and off, it seems that it's a bug with the ability overriding the torso on the tumble. I got it to happen with and without IK on. So I don't think it's just for IK.

Elderskrye · April 2017

Is it possible this is why I keep going into auto walk on while in combat. w or x turnes it off, but I havent been able figure out what turnes it on. Was not a problem before.

Elderskrye · April 2017

Have played only with it turned on and have not really noticed, but I did notice that the running up the palace steps seems a bit cartoony and I didn't consider it could be related ti IK until now. Jumping around the rocks looking for cliff striders felt fine.

Elderskrye · April 2017

Unladenswallow wrote: »

Did you play with this on or off? (Note that it defaults to on) On

Do you feel that the IK improved your overall experience while playing? So far I enjoy it. No more floating abocve the ground or slightly submerged into it.

Did you experience any issues with IK when it was turned on? yes, going up and down hills was a bit Monty Python esque. the character did not lean naturally when ascending or descending.

Do you have any other general feedback? Add to pets, mounts, and combat pets. I like this very much and hope to see it live VERY soon.

I played with it on and had half my legs sunk into flooor while approaching door. Unfortunately, it was late and I forgot to SS the scene., so I didn't report it.

particlese · April 2017

On or off?
On. (Default, and I was really keen on checking it out anyway.)

Improved overall experience?

Yes while standing still, because it often (not always) looks more natural than my character hovering on an invisible platform. One exception is when the collision surface or IK target or what have you doesn't line up with the visible surface, e.g. when perching on Balmora's hump-topped walls. I'm not sure how difficult this is to correct for, but if the system could target the visual model without a massive performance hit (via feedback from a GPU ray trace, or as an option for those with excess RAM and CPU muscle), that would obviously help. Another exception is when you're standing with one foot off a vertical drop, but I can't easily come up with a possible solution in that case.
The experience is mostly worse while running up and down hills, because it looks completely ridiculous and unrealistic. Like fellow player "Contraptions" above, I too tend to obey the laws of Physics and keep my center of mass over my feet when running on a level, uphill, or downhill at a constant speed. The "mostly worse" is because it looks so ridiculous I got a good laugh out of it, and I count that as a good experience.
Another mixed response I have is to the head bob. I can't check again right at this moment, but I remember the character's entire body bobbed up and down in time with the walk cycle, which is cool and realistic to a large extent. (I'd drop the pelvis a little while walking just to smooth it out a little, but we're not exactly in marching band here, so a gliding torso/head is not the goal.) However, I think the camera was locked to that same movement, which looked awkward and might induce some level of nausea in some folks. Maybe center the camera on the player position with a character-appropriate vertical offset instead of on an actual body part? I don't know exactly how your systems work... Anyway, I seem to remember that first-person mode was fine with no head bob. First-person head bob is an option in some games, but it's probably best to leave it off here, given the current amplitude of the bob.

Any issues with IK on?
Nothing technical. Just the aesthetic things mentioned above.

Any other general [IK-related] feedback?

Thank you so much for taking the time to implement this! I was really excited to see it in the notes, and despite all my words here, I'm pretty pleased with what you've done in this first (for us) pass.
Regarding the center of mass issue above, it seems to me that characters are almost always either going at a full jog, sprinting, or (less commonly) walking at the standard walking pace. This is at least the case on PC, and I would expect it to be the case on consoles, even with analog controls being the norm there. Therefore, it's probably best to keep the center of mass over the feet, perhaps with a slight hunch when going uphill and a slight straightening up when going downhill.
Transitions between speeds or at least the walk/run/sprint animation states are where you want to offset the center of mass. And then there's the matter of cornering and analog controls. It would be awesome to see such things accounted for, but I'm not expecting Mass Effect 1/2/3 quality over the next couple o' months!
Allowing the feet to tilt slightly on the other two axes, and at least involving leg rotation at the hip (around the vertical axis) would help immensely when the character is standing on a slope but facing directions other than straight up or down. Not sure if there's allowance in the rigging for this, but if so, it should be a reasonable challenge to meet with a little collaboration between the programmers and character artists. Please keep them talking so this stuff looks natural!

avelopolcakb14a_ESO · April 2017

Did you play with this on or off? (Note that it defaults to on)

On and Off

Do you feel that the IK improved your overall experience while playing?

Immersion breaking silliness

Did you experience any issues with IK when it was turned on?

No technical issues, just a poorly designed work around to bad mesh handling. I've never played any other game with so much clipping and poorly designed object collision. It's one of the worst parts of all of the TES games - floaty character movement

Do you have any other general feedback?

I think it looks absolutely ridiculous having your character stand at a slant with respect to vertical when you're on slanted surfaces. No one walks up stairs while leaning backward at a 45 degree angle, you'd fall over. It makes it look like your character is in some Mission Impossible movie with gravity boots on.

Edit: If you want a system like this to work you need to rig the character models to have articulating ankle knee and hip joints that react to keep the character oriented vertical and aligned to the surface their standing on, otherwise it's just going to look ridiculous

Attica-Centurius · April 2017

Just noticed that while standing on a tilted surface and then teleporting to someone keeps the character standing tilted while casting the teleport shield. Just looks a bit weird and would probably look better that during teleport the character stands upright as if on flat surface.

LiquidPony · April 2017

* Did you play with this on or off? (Note that it defaults to on)

- On

* Do you feel that the IK improved your overall experience while playing?

- No (but it didn't make it worse, either).

* Did you experience any issues with IK when it was turned on?

- It looks silly when moving at a fast walk or sprinting.

*Do you have any other general feedback?

- The IK system seems to work really well when walking slowly or standing still. In fact, it's pretty impressive while standing still (either perpendicular to the slope where one knee bends and the higher foot is raised, or parallel to the slope where the knees/ankles bend yet the body remains upright). The slow walk animations are pretty cool, too, with expected knee flex happening both ways and the uphill walk seems to convey the effort it takes to walk uphill. However, when walking at full speed or sprinting, it looks totally ridiculous (reminiscent of the Jester personality, actually). All of the coolness of standing/slow walking gets thrown out the window and you suddenly defy gravity to sprint uphill while leaning back at a 30 degree tilt.